Image: National Heart Foundation Dream House
Architect: Hawkins & Sands (Project Architect Antoni Solarski)
Source: The Architect (WA) 4, No. 1 (1961), 43.

‘The maddening radiance of the undelivered masterpiece.’ - Marcel Proust

In 2000 the co-editor of The Architect reprinted the design for the National Heart Foundation ‘Dream House’ that first appeared in 1961. He remarked that the forty-year-old project (designed by Antoni Solarski [1921 ‚Äì 1975] of FGB Hawkins & Desmond Sands) would be of interest to readers, but gave no reasons why this should be the case.

Without the benefit of editorial commentary it is hard to believe this project would be of interest even to those (few) who are enthusiastic about the qualities of architect-designed houses of the 1950s and 1960s.4 However, when interpreted in greater depth the project reveals an interesting history and a paradoxical mystery. A mystery that in its partial resolution reveals more about the complexity of the designer than the design.

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