House in Bordeaux

As if owners who build a house with one of the famous architects should not have the opportunity to enjoy their work adequately. The famous villas of the 20th century and their residents mostly did not have a happy fate. One only needs to mention the two most famous villas in our country. A similar story also unfolded with the villa for wealthy French publisher Jean Francois Lemoine, who lived with his wife in an old house in the center of Bordeaux. Both considered building a new, very simple house. Meanwhile, the husband suffered a traffic accident in which he nearly died. He recovered, but remained confined to a wheelchair. Two years later, the couple began to contemplate the new house again. This time it was because the house in the medieval city had become a prison for her husband, in which he could not move freely. He no longer longed for a simple building but sought a complex house that would redefine his entire world. Five kilometers west of the city, he bought an extensive plot on a hill with a magnificent view. Koolhaas then designed a house, or rather three houses stacked one on top of the other, at this location. The lowest part resembles a cave with many rooms embedded in the terrain. In the highest part of the house are the children's rooms, the couple's bedroom, and sanitary facilities. The most essential, and at the same time the least noticeable, is the space located between these two parts of the house. The fully glazed living room is compressed by concrete mass from below and above. However, nothing prevents it from having a view in the horizontal plane, blurring the line between inside and outside.
The most significant part of the house is a hydraulically controlled platform measuring 3 x 3.5 meters, which can move freely between these three levels. The glass library, which stretches through all three floors, was designed by Belgian designer Maarten van Severen and forms the back wall of the elevator platform. With the platform, the homeowner can quickly move from the basement wine cellar to his art collection on the top floor. Depending on where the platform is currently parked, this dynamic element transforms the floor plans of the individual levels. Koolhaas compared the platform to the beating heart of the house. When Jean Francios Lemoine uses the house, the platform moves, and the heart of the house beats. Unfortunately, Lemoine's heart stopped just a few years after the house was completed.