Houses as Self-Portraits Notes on Architects Who Design Their Own Houses

The psychoanalytic approach to art is based on the premise that artists express themselves through their creations. The artistic product reflects and works with the artist's concerns, needs, preoccupations, conflicts, and preferences. It flows from that which is inner and fundamental to the creator.

While this approach can be extended to architecture, one limiting factor is that architects usually work closely with their clients; in designing buildings they have to conform to many requirements. But when architects design their own homes, they need pay little attention to external personal preferences. These architects are largely free to design houses that are in accord with their personal wishes. To an extent, these houses can reflect who the architects are and how the architects see themselves. An architect's self-designed home is analogous to a painter's self-portrait. Psychoanalytic scholars (e.g., Meissner, 1993; Bock, 1998) have argued that self-portraits are the purest expression of a painter's inner self. This paper is an initial attempt to consider whether the same might be true for architects' homes. I interviewed four architects in the Atlanta area who had designed their own houses, and explored with them the meaning of their homes and how the designs arose from their life histories and their personal concerns and preferences. While making no claim that I will show definitively how these houses connect with the architects' inner psychological world, I hope that this essay will provide some suggestions of the ways an architect's self-designed home expresses abiding themes and concerns in the architect's life and personality.