Like Borges once wrote that good readers are as difficult to find as black swans, architects must feel the same about the people occupying there buildings. There is a classic example of the Belgian Art Noveau architect Henry van de Velde whose design aspired for a “total” piece of art. The Germans have a word for it: Gesamtkunstwerk.
van de Velde, an artist by training, would design absolutely everything in his houses. He went to great pains to make sure nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a spoon or a fork would displease the eye. Art after all was serious, sacred as he had written in “voie sacree” in1894. For his own house, built in 1895 he went as far as to design the dresses of his wife Maria Sethe. This was architecture and life inside celebrated as a magnificant, all encompasing, total piece of art.

After one of van de Velde’s houses was finished, his client invited him to the new house for dinner. Upon arrival van de Velde gave his client a frowning look. “What was wrong? ” asked the client, who during the course of the design process of the house had become very aware of van de Velde’s allergic reactions against anything not-artistic. “Look”, the client would proclaim, “I am even wearing the slippers you designed.”

“I can see that!” van de Velde yelled, “but these are the slippers for the bedroom. Can’t you see they are competely out of place here?!”