An Atlas of Curious Houses

A house towers in front of you: a gigantic, white wooden castle, built by a New York art collector and financial, speculator, who embezzled 700 million dollars. Or a concrete semi-circle built on a cliff in Sardinia by a film director for he and his lover. A house in Kenya, where a talented painter was shot and killed. A hut in Mexico where an American banker went into recluse after 9/11.

Eccentric property owners around the world have indulged in building very individual houses for themselves: Niklas Maak has set off in search of them. He has surveyed them at length, done research, talked to architects and inhabitants and in doing so, has learnt plenty about the dreams, fears and obsessions of our modern age. Houses tell the most wonderful stories. Niklas Maak has written them down – not just for fans of architecture.