Thinking outside the box

摘要

Since it was built in 1924, the Landhaus Ilse, or Ilse country house, has been an incongruous presence on the edge of Bur-bach, a provincial town in wooded hills halfway between Frankfurt and Cologne. Not only does the yellow single-storey box, with its illuminated central shaft, stand in contrast to the region's traditional timber-framed and slate-clad homes. The house itself seems paradoxical. Its confident, modernist lines are complemented by a less austere chorus of sloping roof, small lattice windows, curvaceous chimney-tops and a weather vane.