Gizmodo
Pritzker Architecture Prize-winner—and former Russ Meyer script writer—Rem Koolhaas created 10 years ago one of the most amazing houses on the planet: the Maison à Bordeaux. This house is a wonder of engineering with moving walls, lifting bedrooms, platforms and automated windows designed to allow complete free movements to its owner, a man who has to move on a wheelchair after an almost-fatal car accident. Now, Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine are showing their film Koolhass Houselife across America, a fascinating movie about this living home that seems taken out of a science fiction movie. We talked with Ila about the house and their work around it.
Pritzker Architecture Prize-winner—and former Located in Bordeaux, France, this house is like a space station waiting to be launched into orbit. Looking at it, you would expect the X-Men to walk by at any time. However, it also has a warm, sunny quality that makes it absolutely amazing. Koolhass Houselife is a film that captures these qualities perfectly, but adds another, more practical dimension to it by showing this high-tech home from the perspective of Guadalupe Acedo, the housekeeper and the person who actually has to take care of keeping all this amazing design alive.
Jesús Díaz: I find very interesting that you decided to focus on the live of the house itself, through the life of the housekeeper. What made you take that view?"
Ila Bêka: Koolhaas HouseLife is the first film of a series we are making on contemporary architecture entitled "Living Architectures." The concept of these movies is to develop a look on contemporary architecture that tries to escape from a strong current tendency of idealized representation of our architectural heritage that show us architecture as perfect icons and break the link between architecture and the life which is inside.
The character of the housekeeper, Guadalupe Acedo, embodies in itself this image reversal we are looking for, because during all the film she points out the complex world of daily life, the care and maintenance such a house requires.
JD: What was the main challenge in filming this house, compared to your other architecture pieces?
IB: The three films we have already done are each one exploring a different scale. Koolhaas HouseLife enters in the daily life intimacy of a private house. Pomerol, Herzog & de Meuron talks about a Herzog & de Meuron refectory for grape pickers, and Xmas Meier is a urban investigation of the impact of the Richard Meier's new church in the Tor Tre Teste neighbourhood, in the suburbs of Rome.
But the main intention of the Koolhaas HouseLife project was to "give life" to one of these architectural masterpieces that we can see everywhere without never being able to see them how they "really" are in everyday life.
JD: The concept is great indeed, but also the photography, which is beautiful. What equipment did you use for filming and editing?
IB: For this type of projects we have to be very "light" in order to be almost "forgotten" by the persons we follow in their daily activities. We try to work only in two, one for the camera and one for the sound. The video editing has been made on Final Cut Pro and the sound editing with Logic Studio, with a last generation Mac Pro. [Bêkafilms, Stories of Houses, and Wikipedia via Archidose]
Comments
Where is the platform that ejects unwanted guests into the sky?
Such an amazingly modern marvel of a home, and yet a book case? Apparently he is not buying into the Amazon Kindle concept.
The video reminded me of 2001 .. if it had been filmed in a house on Earth.
Does everyone get a cool remote to move the floors or is it just for the cleaning lady?
LOVE the automated window/porthole....now if only they could detect flatulence to activate their motion....
I don't know why but I think Gattaca when I see this.
Metroplex may have finally found his soulmate
I could see myself having way too much fun with this...
Phenomena house, although I think I'd have to speed those lifts up a bit myself.
Jesus, I love the way you bring the interview back to the theme of gadgets by asking, "What equipment did you use for filming and editing?" too.
This would be such a fun house... until one of my idiot friends gets drunk and has his leg caught in a hydraulic lift.
The elevator's ground floor is in a Jiffy Lube franchise.
At about 1:50 left in the video, there's a film-cameo by "Mon Oncle", a comedy about technologically charged lifestyles and the hilarity that ensues (with Jacques Tati, of course). The house in that movie is very much like this one, except this one.. works.
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,..."
/Shakespear form As You Like It
I know it's for a guy in a wheelchair, but all that stuff moves way too slow for me. I need to live in the Danger Room or something. Hey, that guy should design me a Danger Room house. Complete with Tiger Traps and Banana Peels On The Floor.
Is there a speed control for the lift Guadalupe is riding on? Sure seems mighty slow. Although it certainly appears strong enough to hold a lazy-boy where one could sit and do a little surfing on their laptop while going from the ground floor to the top floor.
Just don't try getting anywhere in the house in a rush.
@ANoel:
it's "from" not "form" you MORAN!
that is awesome
@ANoel: also missing an "e" in Shakespeare. lol
@ANoel:
Must be a "Shake" kind of day....
So in the last part of the vid whats to keep someone on the same level as the camera from falling into the hole created when the level the maid was on raises to the floor above?
Finally, you can have a James Bond-Villain hideout.
Well, I guess he got a ton of money from that car accident.
Anyone else notice the strangeness of the old school CRT TV, VCR and stacks of VHS cassettes in a house that looks like it is from 20 years in the future?
@Out2gtcha:
My God! You're Right, Number Two!
They layed "Shakespeare" out on the library floor
so that when Madame Guadalupe Acedo came back down, the hoist
de-e'd Shakespeare! Los cabrones!
Another fine example of the blimp bursting
[www.archphoto.it]
It's a dangerous house! You can lose limbs...definately not kids safe.
@ANoel:
+ Watch video
Anyone can build something like that if you throw enough money at it. I'd love to see how much it cost to install heavy-duty motors to lift platforms. I'd also like to see how long those things function before the motor burns out (which is why this isn't very practical, unless your in a wheelchair and have no choice).
"your grounded, go to your room!"
"I can't, the wall is stuck in the closed position, remember?"
...I wonder if Leeloo is stuck in the autowash???
it's a mechanical house imho..
Has a CRT TV. Where is the LCD?
That house is awesome; too bad it couldn't be built (as is) in the US. No building inspector would allow anything as cool as that elevator without 4' guard rails. The fact that you could just fall through the floor at any moment only adds to its appeal.
all of that crazy mad effort to hide the bulk of the mechanics behind the modules and they have wires hanging out of the TV enclosure_
and still not sure if it's Optimus Prime worthy_
What they don't tell you is that the owner never had to use a wheelchair until he lost both of his legs below the knee when they were severed by his breakfast nook.
Looks hydraulic to me...
Very cool, although I don't like the hydraulic elements of the house, just the minimalist architecture. But yes, Batman would have a blast in there.
Art Gonzalez
Check my Squidoo Lens at: Quantum Knights
To those looking for the LCDs and Kindles and wondering why there are VCRs and such oddities in the house, you unfortunately will have to spend some time researching this as it is not in the video, but in that old stuff called writing just below the video, notably in the first sentence:
"Pritzker Architecture Prize-winner-and former Russ Meyer script writer-Rem Koolhaas created ten years ago one of the most amazing houses in the planet: the Maison à Bordeaux."
Yeah I agree, fetch me a book Guadaluape!
AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
@Tenno:
I admittedly laughed out loud a bit at that one.
Sorry Guadalupe, wherever U are.... :(
Placing this degree of excellence in a position for cave dwellers to evaluate is something like giving a mirror to those without use of their pineal gland. For those that have vision, this is a private residence, probably in an unicorporated part of the Country where building inspections are optional as ther probably is/was no financing involved. From the viewers perspective the lifts and automation are slow, however one should save that judgement for when one has experienced riding these lifts. What the rider is actually seeing may be fantastic. Two things, do you think the lifts would move faster than the wheel chair rolls? And do you think a servant would be in a hurry relative to the speed of some one who is confined to a wheel chair, of which gives visual scale to the speed of automation in the home. Clearly, would one not say that the speed of automation in the home is about the speed of an automated wheelchair?!
Christopher B. Cotton
in Houston, Texas
Where can the movie be viewed?
@ANoel: Also, it's 'MORON". Just sayin'.....
@Monty: That is EXACTLY what I thought. The music was eerily similar, and I think Kubrick would have liked the house a great deal.
The wall with the TV and VCR slides away to reveal his large map illustrating his nafarious plan fro world domination!
In fact, the entire video feels like it could have been directed by Kubrick himself.
Rem Koolhaas also designed all of The Citadel's elevators in Mass Effect.
@ccttn:
cave dwellers are underrated.
@ccttn:
If you're going to pretend you're an intellectual you might want to spell "unincorporated" correctly.
"Open the door!"
"I can't the wall's stuck!"
"Go through the window!"
"*Cough* it's too small, I'm gonna die!"
@golferal:
FFS, It really does get old having to explain previous jokes to people:
[gizmodo.com]
Anyone know what song that is in the background?
'Tis on the tip of my tounge, but I can't place it...
Reminds me of King Ludwig II's dining table in Schloss Linderhof...and that was built in 1874!
[en.wikipedia.org]
John Roebling here.
It does look kinda kool.
Definitely not safe for the pets, though. Or the kids.
Or when stuff breaks down... that would suck...
@ParJoe: Well, the house itself is a huge gadget to me. I found interesting the way Ila and Louise presented it.
This is a problem that happens to all technology: how they age, how you maintain them, how you keep them clean. The same thing that made me ask how dirty and gross your tech gear gets.
Reminds me of King Ludwig II's dining table at Schloss Linderhof...and that was built in 1874!
I need the house that can transform into an autobot.. then I will be happy!