20/20: Twenty Great Houses of the Twentieth Century

by John Pardey (Lund Humphries)

20/20 was inspired by a disappointing visit to Fallingwater that architect and lecturer John Pardey attributed to the project's almost hagiographic treatment in architectural literature. However, the home is still featured in Pardey's selection of the last century's greatest houses, all chosen for their originality, their advancement of architecture, their influence, their interest factor and whether they provoked a desire to visit, which for him each did. Rather than create an academic treatise, Pardey has written essays based on the personal impressions and impact of these visits, in addition to some historical context.

The homes are ordered chronologically from Gerrit Rietveld's 1924 Schröder House in Utrecht to Glenn Murcutt's 1975 Marie Short House in Kempsey, Australia (‘no other house since has matched its attainment', says Pardey), with luminaries such as Aalto, Eames, Le Corbusier, Loos, van der Rohe and more featuring. The treatment is largely textual, complemented by small but carefully chosen images; plans are provided for all homes, with annotated sketches and sections for some. In all, it is an unabashedly subjective and absorbing look at modernism's marker decades.