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Le Corbusier protégé and longtime Knowlton School professor José Oubrerie dies aged 91

2024-03-12T19:42:00-04:00

José Oubrerie, a French architect with ties to many leading modernists, has died at the age of 91.

The longtime Knowlton School professor was noted for his academic accomplishments and for being one of the last surviving members of Le Corbusier’s studio. He inspired many generations of students to long careers in architecture, departing with his own being both highly decorated and admired within the broader community of professional design.

"He showed a direction for architecture during a time of great confusion," friend Steven Holl wrote in a tribute published to his firm’s website yesterday. "Now at a time where architecture seems to have drifted into commercial activity with firms of hundreds of people, he reminded us that in the office of Le Corbusier, at the end, there were only six employees including José. His dedication to architecture came with a jolly sense of humor and enormous bank of stories, which shall be passed down by many as dedicated as he was."

Oubrerie and Holl...

José Oubrerie's Miller House finally finds a buyer

2019-06-05T18:13:00-04:00

After spending months idled on the real estate market, José Oubrerie's Miller House in Kentucky exchanged hands twice in late 2018.

As noted on real estate website Zillow, the home sold in September 2018 for $415,000, significantly lower than the $490,000 sale that had taken place just one month before, and well-below the $550,000 price it had been listed at previously.

Both sales are a far cry from a $1,950,000 listing made for the home in 2010. The home was sold for $1,000,000 in 2008, following the 2006 death of its namesake patron. The identity of the most recent buyer is unclear, as is the future of the iconic house.

Obrerie's Miller House has exchanged hands a few times recently and its future is unclear.

The legendary home was designed by Oubrerie in 1987 while he was dean at the University of Kentucky's School of Design, and represents a key conceptual work in the realm of residential design of the era. Created to house a real estate developer's four-person family, the cube...

Jose Oubrerie's legendary and innovative Miller House on the market for $550K

2017-04-13T14:34:00-04:00

According to a listing on Zillow, Jose Oubrerie's visually complex, materially innovative Miller House is now on the market for $550,000. Each room is a study in unusual and exactingly executed detail; cabinets transition seamlessly into L-shaped shelving, while doors become hosts for asymmetrically placed conduits latched with what appears to be matte-finished silver nickel. Vivid bursts of color abruptly appear among otherwise natural-toned wood, from an electric blue wall to a wild red kitchen cabinet.

The effect is something akin to traveling through an architect's unbridled imagination; although the house does possess its own internal logic, the constant visual stimulus delivers perpetual surprise.

The Zillow listing possess a link to a 3D photographic tour of the house, which allows one to get a fuller sense of how the elements interlock, and just how dizzying it is to stride from one floor to another.

miller museum community ready to go

2009-05-21T06:50:00-04:00

The Miller House by Le Corbusier's assistant Jose Oubrerie has been saved. It is now designated as a Historic House Museum. A non-profit development of 18 'green' LEED certified house are to be built around the Miller House building. For more, go here.