After being abandoned for almost twenty years, one of Peter Eisenman’s most radical designs, “House II” in Vermont, part of a series of ten studies of which only four were built, has finally taken on a new life. The troubled story of the building, leading up to a small miracle, is told in the New York Times.

Constructed in the seventies, the building was immediately hated by its original owners. The Falks expected a house to live in and found themselves with one which they judged to be a real disaster – a flat roof in an area with frequent snow, a number of skylights corresponding with a series of dangerous openings in the floor and no dividing walls inside. For his part, the architect defended to the hilt what he considered to be an experiment in pure architectural theory on a domestic scale - “I don’t design houses with the nuclear family idea because I don’t believe in it as a concept. I was interested in doing architecture, not in solving the Falks’ privacy problems”, stated Eisenman.

The building, which has been on the market for almost twenty years, has finally found John Makau, a retired furniture manufacturer, a fan and the perfect owner. Makau and his wife have restored the building to bring it back to its original splendour and today are living in it.

A story with a happy ending, where Eisenman, exclaiming recently “It was like a vision, like a resurrection. I was a fantastic house, and it still is”, finally found his ideal client.