The Lacherts House (Willa Lachertów) was designed by Bohdan Lachert and Józef Szanajca in 1928 for Lachert’s family. It’s one of the first avant-garde houses in Poland and iconic achievement of Polish modernist architecture. It`s considered the second Polish house built according to Five Points of Modern Architecture of Le Corbusier.
This building is an icon of Polish architecture. However it takes a moment to appreciate because it’s not well maintained and from the street level you can’t really acknowledge the whole point of this modern design.
Machine for Living
The house`s plan was influenced by Le Corbusier`s Maison Dom-Ino (1914-15) which supposed to be a modern “Machine for Living”. Polish architects created an experimental design which soon became an icon of Polish architecture.
It’s a long house with three units, flat roofs, horizontal windows and external ship-like spiral stairs leading to a rooftop terrace surrounded with barriers. The whole building should be white as it was originally (picture below), but nowadays each section is painted in a different color which interferes with the design.
The internal division into 3 apartments, with differently treated levels is reflected in the garden elevation (picture above) and that’s my favorite part of this house. However I`ve never seen in reality cause it`s surrounded with other houses and their gardens. Windows here are large, some of them cover two floors, because there are two-storey living rooms.
This house is a “must see” for modern architecture fans. It`s located in Saska Kępa neighborhood which is a 1930s settlement full of iconic villas designed by the most outstanding Polish architects.
