ICON

Team X, he advocated new structuralist concepts based on the application of variable modular elements that can adapt to any current functional and spatial requirements. This is what makes his own holiday home, one of just a small number of his projects, truly remarkable. Largely unchanged since its construction, the residence is defined by brickwork, concrete elements, and a light wooden structure terminating in a traditional saddle roof. Under the roof one finds an adjustable living space lacking any distinct segmentation and freely melding with the surrounding garden. Homemade yet sophisticated and functional innovative furniture elements enhance this intuitive example of Polish experimental architecture,

Open System

Located one and a half hours northeast of Warsaw in the tiny resort village of Szumin, the house built by Polish modernist architects Oskar and Zofia Hansen is based on an innovative, flexible system for structuring and using space.

Oskar Hansen was born in Helsinki and later lived in Vilnius before settling in Poland after the war. At that time he forged contacts with several major names in Western art, including Pablo Picasso, Henry Moore, and Le Corbusier. By the 1960s he was also becoming a major figure in Polish postwar architecture and design. As a member of reflecting Hansen’s concept of Open Form. In this theory, he rejected conventional qualities of architecture like permanence and static forms. He absolutely rebuffed the theory that an artwork is a finished artifact, and he called on the creation of continuous creative processes arising out of people’s immediate needs. His home, built between 1968 and 1970, is the most important example of this. Today it is part of the Iconic Houses network, serving as both a museum and an artists’ residence.