Family Houses Today, Again. Editorial ERA21 #04/2023

Alžběta Nováková

When putting together this year’s fourth issue of ERA21, we chose the same approach as last year—we went on visits to several older family homes over the summer, homes which at one point or another used to be very well-known, published in magazines, and exemplary of quality architecture of the day. Our coverage of these visits asks the question: what's it like to live here after some years have passed. We were looking for things that had to be changed or, on the contrary, things that had been working well. You can see for yourselves when you compare the pictures. For a second time, we enjoyed being privy to the inner workings of each household, but new troubles and experience came with that, too.

Our success rate was lower—we were turned down in many places because of renovations on the property, owner changes, or simply due to the weariness of constantly being subject to prying eyes. The result is that the owners we did visit were mostly satisfied.

I would like to stress one more thing: for a second time, the number of homes that could easily be called “family homes” (we could picture an “average family” living here) formed a minority in our visits. So our coverage is actually more of a display of individualised residences—they were custom made and carefully designed. Looking back at our unrepresentative research, one question comes to the fore: what will happen to some of these peculiar homes in twenty more years, or at any point in the future where they will (have to) be used by someone new? Despite all this, I hope we bring a valuable insight into the daily lives of famous buildings and their owners, and that our coverage shows positive examples that stood the test of time..