Funeral home in Ithaca by WOJR

The house by the lakeshore near the town of Ithaca (New York) was designed by American architect William O’Brien Jr. in 2013 as a place where one can retreat and mourn in solitude if needed. The project, titled 'Mask House: A Space of Myriad Sanctuaries' (Mask House: A Space of Myriad Sanctuaries), references Hejduk's book (Mask of Medusa) summarizing the lifelong work of this New York visionary. The Mask House also resembles Wall House 2 (A. E. Bye House) by John Hejduk from the mid-1970s, which was originally intended to be built in Connecticut and was realized in 2001 in Groningen, Netherlands after Hejduk's death. The spiky protrusions of the Mask House resemble Palach's memorial, which John Hejduk dedicated to Prague in the early 1990s and now stands next to Umprumka.
The Mask House is still awaiting completion. Realistic visualizations are by Alexis Nicolas Basso. The name 'Mask House' is derived from the horizontal screen that conceals the actual house from incoming visitors along a direct walkway. There is also a side path to the house that is winding, but unlike the straight path, it does not shield the house behind a prickly fence. Unlike the matte black exterior, the white interior of the house is bathed in daylight, but also warm artificial light from the central hanging fireplace. The internal layout consists of a single living space with a sleeping nook and an associated sanitary core. The window spanning the entire wall of the living room looks out onto the lake, where the builder's brother drowned several years ago. The author describes his project as: “a place of isolation and protection that creates a distance from everyday life and ensures a transition into another world”.