Eisenman's House VI Marked Down

I'm not sure which is funnier: the $550,000 price tag of Peter Eisenman's 40-year-old "iconic" House VI in Cornwall, Connecticut (it was $1.4 million two years ago); this photo that accompanies the listing...


[Photo: Screenshot from New York Times listing]

...or the listing description itself (my emphasis):
A once in a generation opportunity to own one of the most important modernist houses in the Northeast has come to the market for sale. House #VI created through a collaboration of renown international architect Peter Eisenman and the original owners for over 40 years is being put up for sale in beautiful Cornwall Connecticut. This iconic masterpiece of design is one of a limited number of residential properties created by Mr. Eisenman in this serial design. Mr. Eisenman is best known for his industrial and city designs which are featured in cities through out the world. As art relates to culture, Peter Eisenmens [sic] work on House #VI is a broad stroke of Genius that not only true collectors of fine art can appreciate. The property includes a Civil War era school house currently used as a guest house-studio. The 6 acres of land is located in a bucolic setting and adjoins a year round rushing brook many feet below the property. The property is level above the brook and features a heated gunite pool that is fenced and gated.
Even with all of these superlatives on the house and the architect (what exactly are Eisenman's "industrial and city designs" by the way?), House VI must be the only modern house whose owner wrote a praise-worthy yet highly critical book on it, and the only house – modern or otherwise – with a gap in the middle of the bedroom:


[Then and now photos of bedroom in House VI | Image sources: left and right]

Comments

  1. i don't understand. are you suggesting that it's not an important work?

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    Replies
    1. Nope, but for a building so important, it's price tag is quite low and its documentation (visual and text) is very poor.

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  2. As an architecture student I think this is a great satire of how we view some of the great 20th century modernist architects. We learn about them in hermetically sealed environments, but ultimately the built pieces of the textbook visionaries are as sensitive to the same ruling economy as a Walmart employee looking to buy their first house in some suburb.

    With that said, I'd love to have enough money to scoop that house up

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