Maison de Verre

The Maison de Verre is a marvel of architectural defiance that began with a stubborn neighbor. When the owners, Annie and Jean Dalsace, purchased an eighteenth-century townhouse in nineteen twenty-seven, they intended to demolish it to build their new home. However, an elderly tenant on the top floor refused to move, forcing the architect Pierre Chareau to devise an audacious solution. He propped up the existing top floor with steel pylons, gutted the three levels beneath it, and inserted his revolutionary glass house into the hollowed-out space.