What is the difference between an architect and a designer? The answer might seem obvious: the former focuses on buildings and the latter on objects. But this distinction is a recent invention. Czech architect Adam Stech, co-founder of the Okolo creative collective, tells me that many 20th-century practitioners would have found the question irrelevant. “The two disciplines are interrelated,” he says. “Architecture is the design of the environment that we live in.”
Stech is a full-time architecture hunter. Armed with a camera and a tripod, he crisscrosses the globe documenting mid-century houses. He then shares his discoveries with his 170,000 social-media followers, puts on exhibitions and writes articles about them. Through a combination of charm, scrupulous organisation and ringing doorbells, Stech has been able to access many previously unphotographed private homes. His camera zooms in on modernism’s small-scale delights: tiles, lights, fireplaces, floors, hatches and handrails.
Aside from feeding his insatiable appetite for archi-tourism, Stech’s mission is to showcase 20th-century architecture’s close attention to detail. He wishes that the remit of today’s architects would encompass everything from “the spoon to the skyscraper”, a reference to the dictum of Milan’s modernists. The global movement’s captivating architectural quirks, such as Gunnar Asplund’s built-in benches or Gio Ponti’s sculptural door handles, were made possible by the fact that it placed equal importance on all objects that make up our lived environment.
Many of Okolo’s followers are professionals who reference Stech’s photos for projects that they are working on. Some have also told me that they would pay good money for a book. “I want to create the world’s largest archive of modernist architecture photographed by a single person,” says Stech. He is already well on his way – and the industry is all the better for it.
Stella Roos is Monocle’s design correspondent. For more news and analysis, subscribe today.
