Tom Kundig: Complete Houses
Designing the 21st Century Podcast
My guest in the recent episode of the podcast Designing the 21st Century has created some of the most beautiful houses in America. Perhaps I am biased, because if I ever build my own house, I know that Tom Kundig will design it. If he agrees Over the course of his four-decade career, he has built museums, wineries, universities, foundations, retail and commercial buildings. But the touchstone of his work, and for what he became known, is the single-family house. His houses reflect his passion for the mountains, for the natural world, and for fine art. The private house to him, reflect the sense of humanity in architecture.
If to Le Corbusier the house was a machine to live in, to Tom Kundig the house is a sculpture to live in and a place to experiment. His houses are also strongly connected to the landscape and to the surrounding nature in the most organic way, whether it is in an urban fabric or a house in the countryside. Urban or rural, his houses are a reflection of their place.
Now that his new and comprehensive monograph—the definitive collection of his 462 residential works —has been published by Phaidon, it is time to explore what makes Tom Kundig’s houses so magical, memorable, and beautiful.
All images courtesy Olson Kundig.
