Interview in Leading Catalan newspaper ARA

Natascha Drabbe: "I don't understand why Barcelona doesn't buy Casa Gomis and donate it to a museum"

The founder of Iconic Houses warns that Antoni Bonet Castellana's house Casa Gomis, known as La Ricarda in El Prat is in danger, and welcomes three recent Spanish members to the network: Cases Barates Bon Pastor in Barcelona, Joan Miró's Sert Studio in Palma and Mas Miró in Mont-roig del Camp.

The international house museum network Iconic Houses has more and more members and more recognition. A few weeks ago, Joan Miró's workshop in Palma, the work of Josep Lluís Sert, joined two recent Catalan members: the Cases Barates Bon Pastor - one of the headquarters of the Barcelona History Museum (Muhba )– and another site from Miró, the Mas Miró. On the other hand, it has been ten years since Iconic Houses held the international congress at La Pedrera. "It's great that these three buildings are so different from each other, because what I like about Iconic Houses is that it covers the entire 20th century," says the network's founder, architectural historian Natascha Drabbe. "People might think that iconic houses are just mansions like Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye and Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, but I want to show the whole range of typologies of how ordinary people lived in the throughout the 20th century", she explains, giving another Barcelona member of the network, Casa Bloc Museum Apartment, as an example.

Despite everything, heritage recognition has not managed to stop another iconic Catalan house, La Ricarda, from being in danger. The first expansion of El Prat airport made it unusable, and the future expansion project could worsen the situation, or make it disappear. "It seems very strange to me that the city of Barcelona does not offer to buy it or give it to the Design Museum or the Muhba and make it a satellite museum, because it is intact and the furniture is preserved", laments Drabbe. "And it played an important cultural role during the Franco regime," she emphasizes.

Although the story of Iconic Houses began more than fifteen years ago, there are still clichés about museum houses such as that neighbors think that the owners make a lot of money and that they steal their privacy. But the reality is that the teams in many of these houses are small and have modest budgets. Likewise, if they are too small to host cultural events that bring benefits, those responsible look for spaces nearby to be able to do so. "Factories and offices you can renovate. In a house the first thing you renovate is the kitchen, and the bathroom is the first thing you change, and then you lose an important part of the history of the house, because they are the places where lots of new technology," says Drabbe.

On the other hand, designer houses can become an endangered species. "Throughout the last century, architects made houses for private clients. But now famous architects don't want to make houses because it takes a lot of time and makes them lose money. And if they make a house, they make it for a very rich client . Instead, you often find innovations in houses whose budgets were restricted, which forced the architects to be creative," she explains. Another case is the houses that architects make for themselves, as was the case with Drabbe's own home, Van Schijndel House, designed by her husband, Mart van Schijndel (1943-1999), in Utrecht. "When architects build a house, they want to impress, but they do it with a smaller budget than their clients. And that's when they're innovative and use new atypical materials," says Drabbe.

A network with a lot of potential
Currently the network has almost 200 members worldwide. Among the countries with the most homes are the United States (37), the Netherlands (26), France (18), Germany (15), the Czech Republic (13) and Spain (12). 151 are homes of architects, 18 are of artists and 28 are available for stays. "From the research I've done, we could double membership," says Drabbe. As for future, she is working to bring the sculptor Xavier Corberó's studio in Esplugues de Llobregat online and to organize a meeting again in Barcelona in 2026, coinciding with the World Capital of Architecture.

The home of Mart van Schijndel and Natascha Drabbe, completed in 1992, has become the most recent monument in the Netherlands. This coincides with the fact that there, and throughout Europe, the protection of the architecture of the second half of the 20th century is still a pending subject. "We're almost in 2030, three decades into the 21st century, and heritage is evolving with us," says Drabbe. While the pioneering buildings of the Modern Movement are institutionally recognized, up to the level of UNESCO World Heritage, the situation of later architecture is very different. "We are now at a time when the owners of the homes from the second half of the 20th sometimes they are so old that they are forced to move to a smaller apartment, or they die, and the houses remain empty." That they remain uninhabited can be a problem, rather than an opportunity. "We found that there are a lot of houses that come on the market when their owners die, and then they are in danger because they are not listed, and the new owner can tear them down. We must be very aware of everything that happens.", she assures.

Another factor that puts these houses in danger is the location: their authors had very good judgment when choosing the places. It may happen that the new owner doesn't want the house but wants the lot to build another one. "Most of the time modern houses are in amazing locations, but they were built on a shoestring budget. So now there are buyers knocking down a simple modern house to make a big McMansion out of it," says Drabbe.

For all this, she says, action must be taken. "People still don't understand that Postmodern architecture is in danger, and that the best examples, including Brutalism and Deconstructivism, should be cherished and saved. Now is the time to discover the architecture of the last three decades of the 20th century and decide which buildings are worth restoring and preserving," she underlines.
Another future challenge affecting heritage buildings is how to implement measures to improve their energy efficiency and what to do when they no longer meet regulations. "It's impossible for these houses to meet current regulations, it's ridiculous," warns Drabbe. "Doors in houses built today in the Netherlands have to be 1.20 meters wide to allow a wheelchair to pass through. But you can't widen the corridors of a modernist house, because you ruin the uniqueness of the design. On the other hand, the window frames of these homes, made of stainless steel or aluminium, tend to be very thin, and it is very difficult to fit double or triple glazing. Therefore, I think it is impossible for most of them to meet all the regulations.", she emphasizes.

More sustainable tourist attractions
For Drabbe, museum houses represent a less massive model of tourism. "It is very good that the mayor of Barcelona wants to ban tourist apartments. Barcelona residents can no longer rent a flat because so many of them are for tourists. It is important that tourism is distributed throughout the country. Amsterdam is almost like Venice, capitals that have become theme parks," laments Drabbe.

Likewise, she believes that museum houses offer historical content without the large dimensions, which can become overwhelming, of large museums such as the Louvre or the Metropolitan. If one is not clear about what one wants to see, the magnitude of the museum can be daunting. Instead, Drabbe sees modern house museums as "time capsules in many different ways." "Tours are very much appreciated, because they can be experienced in very different ways, which makes them interesting for audiences of all ages. Tours can be educational and at the same time fun," says Drabbe. "The non-specialist public can consider how the inhabitants of the house lived - she concludes -, as if they had been their neighbours. Those interested in lifestyle can be inspired by it for their own houses, and architects, interior designers and designers can pay more attention to technical innovations and look at construction from the point of view of engineers. And the houses also provide a lesson in political and social history, so they are a very accessible and entertaining way to learn something about the past."

Posted September 18, 2024

*This article by Antoni Ribas was first published in ARA newspaper on 8 September 2024. This English translation of the article is done by Google Translate and Iconic Houses.