Summary

In 'Anybody home?', Pierre Zoelly takes a hard look at work he has done over the last three decades to ponder the question: How well have his houses fulfilled the promise to be what they set out to be? Has the architect, in attempting to accomodate individual client wishes, created spaces in which the residents can develop and thrive? Or have these private spheres become constricting and prison-like? Did plans go sour once they were turned into built reality? Drawing on 7 examples of single-family dwellings built in Switzerland and the United States, Zoelly confronts, head-on, an architect's good intentions with the actual experiences of the people who were to live in his finished products. The homeowners' perception of life 'at home' is juxtaposed with photographs that capture their lifestyles from the visitor's-eye view. The result is a finely-tuned, self-critical account of the kind all too rarely carried out by architects today.