Modern Sensibility for KIDS

Seems like more artists have been making waves in house-related art!  A group of architects was recently commissioned to design dollhouses in the styles of their choosing.  If you think you know what a dollhouse should look like, guess again.

These houses were on display at the London Design Festival last month and were auctioned off to raise money for the children’s disability charity KIDS.

And you know what is even better than art raising money for charity?  Art directly influencing charitable causes.  Each house was required to contain “a unique feature to make life easier for a child who is disabled.”

How cool is that?

What I love about each of the designs is the abstractness that still maintains its functionality.

Children with their uninhibited imaginations, can make playhouses out of anything.  Blankets, couches, and some string have made for some of the best (not to mention coziest) residences of my life.  What I love most about this endeavor, is that it brings modern architecture (and modern aesthetics) into the consciousness of youngsters and also raises the public’s consciousness of children with disabilities.

When I was young there seemed to be a stigma around modern and abstract art (not to mention a major one around kids with disabilities that still persists today).  Both modern art and disabled people can be labeled as inaccessible, or foreign, and as something that only a small niche of society can appreciate.  These dollhouses demonstrate that the niche of modernism can extend beyond the adult age group and that modern art can be something useful and pedagogical.  It can be integrated into the everyday activities of four and five year-olds and be something that sticks with them all their life.

Who knows?  One of these dollhouse designs may inspire the next charitable Frank Lloyd Wright.