PAINTER'S VILLA

Szentendre I design concept I execution I 2004

The original building was a Little house containing the painter’s workshop with a small tower and a ladder put up to reach the balcony overlooking a small baroque town, home of a renoved painter’s guild. Today the grandchild of the painter  lives in the enlarged house with his family. Nearly all the pieces of original furniture could be kept and restored. For instance also a particular cupboard where some of the artist’s hidden paintings have recently been found. Today the house is a combination of three buildings in a U shaped floor plan. Each of the units function separately in everyday’s life. The old house for dwelling is a private space with the kitchen, the living room, the library and the children’s rooms downstairs. Parent’s private quarters are upstairs. Opposite there is a new one-storey building housing the interior swimming pool. Between the two units is the grand reception hall, linked with gallery corridors both sides. In the planning phase the task for the architects at este’r partners was to go for both a home resembling pure classical feeling in general and casual local style in specific and an exhibition area just ideal for the valuable art collection. The English kitchen cupboards hide modern equipment. The white finish gives a wonderful background to the black stove. The old pine kitchen table with nice details add to the harmony in the kitchen. Restored furniture, carefully designed new furnishing and modern equipment put aside make way for integrated unity of the past and the present in all the rooms. Past generations and old days sneak back in time from the pictures hung on the walls.