I can’t predict the future. But for 25 years, the people featured in Dwell have. Whether they were resurrecting 20th-century modernism at the close of the McMansion 1990s, championing contemporary prefabrication, or proposing new floor plans, new materials, and new design for new household configurations, they all presented possibilities for what a home can and should be. There’s no “Dwell Style”—and I can’t stand any kind of design orthodoxy—though since we launched our first issue in October 2000, many people have found commonalities in the work that we cover and come up with ideas about what a definitive “Dwell Home” might be. (Does it have to have a flat roof? No.) To celebrate our birthday, we asked former editors and homeowners inspired by the magazine for their interpretation of a Dwell Home. It turns out it’s in the eye of the beholder.
We also looked back at how residential architecture has overlapped with contemporary culture in a feature that we cheekily named “The 25 Most Important Homes of the Past 25 Years.” Our editors put their heads together and nominated homes that we think changed the course of home design. Is the list definitive? Definitely not. But that’s the point. We hope it encourages the debate that the topic deserves.
Wall House by Anupama Kundoo
Finally, Dwell is a magazine fundamentally about the future, so it’s appropriate that our anniversary issue includes The Dwell 24, our annual survey of the best emerging designers out there. They represent design from all over the world, from Wknd Lab in Seoul—its copper-and-enamel Beomjong sconce is the most humbly striking fixture I’ve seen in a long time—to Shed in Surat, India, whose baroque tabletop “carousels” have an engrossing sense of narrative, craft, and play. Also, don’t miss New Yorker Kevin Quale’s beautifully lewd ceramics.
One of this year’s Dwell 24, James Cherry takes a sculptural approach to his lighting by using upcycled and found elements and transforming them into high design.
In an homage to our first issue, we decided to put an aggressively simple home on the cover; that issue, like this one, featured a straightforward black box and starred its resident and their dog. Both houses embody what I’ve always called “remarkable homes for real people.” There may not be a single “Dwell Home,” but there are a few principles that in some way inform every house we cover. I’ve written about my interpretation of them before, but I’ll say: A Dwell Home is human. It puts the residents at the center of the design, and they are the protagonists of our stories. A Dwell Home is progressive. It explores new building methods and aims to improve the ecological and social context of its place. Finally, it’s optimistic. A Dwell Home shows that design can improve our lives. Full stop. I’m excited to see how the people we cover do just that in the next 25 years.
The very first issue of Dwell.
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Top illustration by Scott Wilson
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