Archinect - News

Frank Lloyd Wright-designed doghouse is back on display at the Marin County Civic Center

2022-06-15T17:10:00-04:00

In 1958, Frank Lloyd Wright broke a personal record with a cottage he designed for Seth Peterson, a longtime admirer of his work. At just 880 square feet, the home along Mirror Lake, in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, is the smallest residential building Wright ever touched. But it isn’t his smallest structure. Instead, that honour goes to a doghouse, which Wright conceived in the mid 1950s and is now on display at the Marin Civic Center, in San Rafael, California.

In the early 1950s, Robert and Gloria Berger commissioned Wright to design a Usonian-style home for their family in San Anselmo, California. In 1956, their 12-year-old son, Jim Berger, wrote to Wright asking for plans for a matching doghouse for his Labrador retriever, Eddie. The architect provided the plans for a four-square-foot structure, written on the back of an envelope, the following year. The miniature home, dubbed Eddie’s House, was triangular in shape and featured signature Wright details, such as a low-pitched roof with an exaggerated overhang. Wright suggested Berger use scrap pieces of Philippine mahogany and cedar left over from the home’s original construction.

The doghouse wasn’t built until 1963, following Berger’s return from an army tour. When Jim’s father died in 1970, the original structure was scrapped. However, in 2010, Jim and his brother Eric rebuilt the shelter using the original plans and donated it to the County of Marin, in Northern California, in 2016....

'Architecture for Dogs' on display at Japan House London

2020-09-21T17:35:00-04:00

Architecture for Dogs, a playful collection of, well, architecture for dogs, is currently on display for an exhibition at Japan House London. The initiative was "invented by architects" and features designs by architects including MVRDV, Kengo Kuma, Toyo Ito, Ma Yansong, Sou Fujimoto, and many more. Check out some of the structures below:

Renowned Japanese architects commissioned by Muji to design doghouses

2012-11-07T12:46:00-05:00

On November 20, Kazuyo Sejima, Shigeru Ban, Sou Fujimoto, Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma, and six other renowned architects will launch the results of a project kept under wraps for months: a line of breed-specific dog houses commissioned by Muji design director Kenya Hara, who has also designed an abode (for the Toy Poodle).