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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this showcase of designs that reach beyond the soaring ceilings and infinity pools of modern home architecture, Barreneche offers a lively study of 21 projects in various tropical surroundings: seaside bluffs, arid yellow deserts and lush, verdant forests. Far away from the cities of its birth, modern architecture, with its attention to climate and dialogue between indoor and outdoor spaces, now thrives in the sun-scored tropics, and Barreneche contextualizes the tradition and samples current trends. Although most of the homes exhibited are in the Western Hemisphere, from Baja to Caracas to Miami, he includes notable examples of “modern tropical” style from Australia, Singapore and Sri Lanka as well. The brightly pigmented cement walls of the Studio MORSA architects’ three houses in Nevis, West Indies, contrasts with the steely cool Bitter Residence by Isay Weinfield in Tijucopava, Brazil, whose whitewashed minimalist façade and immense glass doors on the house’s posterior afford its residents a private, breathtaking audience with an azure sea. The book’s sole disappointment is its cursory review of mid-century modern architectural luminaries, like Gio Ponti, who receives a passing reference and one photograph (of his Villa Planchart in Caracas). Also lamentable (but understandable given the long-standing U.S. embargo on Cuba) is the painfully brief discussion of the residence Richard Neutra designed for Alfred de Schulthess in Havana. Still, the book’s luxuriant, full-bleed color photographs beautifully capture the serene settings of these tropical oases, providing both architectural inspiration and escapism.
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Book Description
Out with the cool, in with the hot. These houses by such luminaries as Oscar Niemeyer, Gio Ponti, Geoffrey Bawa, and Isay Weinfeld are a perfectly seamless continuum of indoor-outdoor space. The author has traveled the globe to bring together a collection of luxurious modern homes that combine modern technology with local, often exotic materials to produce rich designs of wood, metal, stucco, and glass. Water and breezeways figure prominently, and “green” eco-conscious features emerge naturally from the tropical design environment.

This is a sophisticated survey of modern houses with open floor plans, exterior courtyards, sunny patios, and cool stucco surfaces all touched by the exotic flavors of their tropical locales. The combination of modern architectural form and tropical settings is extending and revitalizing modernism as never before.