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Growing up modern: Childhoods in Iconic Homes
What was it like to grow up in a Modernist residence? Did these radical environments shape the way that children looked at architecture later in life? The oral history in this book paint a uniquely intimate portrait of Modernism.
The authors conducted interviews with people, who spent their childhood in radical Modernist domestic spaces, uncovering both serene and poignant memories. The recollections range from the ambivalence of philosopher Ernst Tugendhat, now 90 years old, who lived in the famous Mies van der Rohe house in Brno (1930) to the fond reminiscing of the youngest daughter of the Schminke family, who still dreams of her Scharoun-designed ship-like villa in Löbau (1933). The book offers a unique, private and often refreshing perspective on these icons of the avant-garde.
The authors conducted interviews with people, who spent their childhood in radical Modernist domestic spaces, uncovering both serene and poignant memories. The recollections range from the ambivalence of philosopher Ernst Tugendhat, now 90 years old, who lived in the famous Mies van der Rohe house in Brno (1930) to the fond reminiscing of the youngest daughter of the Schminke family, who still dreams of her Scharoun-designed ship-like villa in Löbau (1933). The book offers a unique, private and often refreshing perspective on these icons of the avant-garde.
328 pages, Hardcover
Published May 31, 2021
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November 9, 2025
I found this such an interesting premise to revisit iconic modernist houses not through architects or critics, but through the people who actually grew up in them. Children who once ran through these glass corridors and played under the sharp lines of design ideals.
It’s a book that sits somewhere between research and memory. Some interviews are vivid, others blur with time which makes sense since a few of the interviewees were already in their eighties. Still, there’s something so human about tracing how people remember space. I found myself reading with both curiosity and tenderness.
As an architect myself, I kept wishing the authors had gone deeper into how the spaces themselves shaped daily life. There were details that really caught my attention like in the Schminke House, where the parents slept in separate beds facing opposite directions, yet positioned so their heads aligned and they could see each other. It’s oddly intimate and practical at the same time. And I couldn’t help but notice how many of the children’s rooms had their own washbasins, such a subtle reflection of how Modernism valued hygiene, independence, and order.
The book made me think about what Modern homes were really trying to do. They weren’t just about form, they were experiments in how people could live. Architects at the time believed design could shape better citizens, healthier families, and even a better society. But reading these memories, I kept wondering if that worked in reality. Did these homes really make life easier or warmer? Or did they sometimes over-design it?
If anything, the book made me even more curious about what was left out, especially the kitchen. For a movement so focused on rethinking domestic life, it struck me to how little the interlocutors mentioned the kitchen. Maybe it was because, at the time, the kitchen wasn’t seen as a shared family space rather a place of work, often used by the mother or a housekeeper, tucked away from the rest of the house. Even as modern design evolved and kitchens opened up, that invisible boundary seemed to remain for a while. Children still didn’t quite belong there. So, in a way, their (the interviewees) silence says a lot: Modernism reshaped the home, but it didn’t always rethink the social rhythms inside it.
I also really loved Ms. Moreau’s story from Unité d’Habitation, she had this clear affection for the place but I wished the authors had spoken to her children or grandchildren too. That building, perhaps more than any of the others, holds decades of evolving life; generations negotiating privacy, community, and identity within a single structure. Their voices would have revealed how the Modernist dream aged, softened, or held firm through time.
All in all, Growing Up Modern is a quiet but fascinating book. It left me thinking less about architecture as design and more about the act of dwelling; how memory, habit, and emotion fill the gaps between intention and experience. How homes are not just containers for life but they’re frameworks for becoming.
It made me wonder, again, what truly makes a home and better yet, what the children of today’s “modern” houses will one day tell.
It’s a book that sits somewhere between research and memory. Some interviews are vivid, others blur with time which makes sense since a few of the interviewees were already in their eighties. Still, there’s something so human about tracing how people remember space. I found myself reading with both curiosity and tenderness.
As an architect myself, I kept wishing the authors had gone deeper into how the spaces themselves shaped daily life. There were details that really caught my attention like in the Schminke House, where the parents slept in separate beds facing opposite directions, yet positioned so their heads aligned and they could see each other. It’s oddly intimate and practical at the same time. And I couldn’t help but notice how many of the children’s rooms had their own washbasins, such a subtle reflection of how Modernism valued hygiene, independence, and order.
The book made me think about what Modern homes were really trying to do. They weren’t just about form, they were experiments in how people could live. Architects at the time believed design could shape better citizens, healthier families, and even a better society. But reading these memories, I kept wondering if that worked in reality. Did these homes really make life easier or warmer? Or did they sometimes over-design it?
If anything, the book made me even more curious about what was left out, especially the kitchen. For a movement so focused on rethinking domestic life, it struck me to how little the interlocutors mentioned the kitchen. Maybe it was because, at the time, the kitchen wasn’t seen as a shared family space rather a place of work, often used by the mother or a housekeeper, tucked away from the rest of the house. Even as modern design evolved and kitchens opened up, that invisible boundary seemed to remain for a while. Children still didn’t quite belong there. So, in a way, their (the interviewees) silence says a lot: Modernism reshaped the home, but it didn’t always rethink the social rhythms inside it.
I also really loved Ms. Moreau’s story from Unité d’Habitation, she had this clear affection for the place but I wished the authors had spoken to her children or grandchildren too. That building, perhaps more than any of the others, holds decades of evolving life; generations negotiating privacy, community, and identity within a single structure. Their voices would have revealed how the Modernist dream aged, softened, or held firm through time.
All in all, Growing Up Modern is a quiet but fascinating book. It left me thinking less about architecture as design and more about the act of dwelling; how memory, habit, and emotion fill the gaps between intention and experience. How homes are not just containers for life but they’re frameworks for becoming.
It made me wonder, again, what truly makes a home and better yet, what the children of today’s “modern” houses will one day tell.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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