WORLDLY DESIRES

Design writer Stephen Crafti opens the door to his own home, where French inspiration is interpreted in a perfectly Melbourne manner.

- Stephen Crafti

Melbourne is often described as Australia’s most cosmopolitan city. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that when architect Robert Simeoni presented this house – my own, in an inner suburb – at the prestigious World Architecture Festival awards in 2019, the judges’ consensus was that it could easily be located in any European city.

The inspiration for the design was Pierre Chareau’s La Maison de Verre in Paris. Completed in 1932, La Maison de Verre – a three storey glass and metal warehouse conversion – is worlds apart, both in distance and budget, from this home. From the outset, my partner Naomi and I never really thought there was much chance of emulating such a design icon. What we began with was a simple two-storey duplex, built between the wars, that we intended to convert into a single dwelling. Each apartment had virtually identical floor plans comprising a separate living room, two bedrooms and a rudimentary bathroom and kitchen. A rickety timber staircase at the rear led to a pocket-sized stretch of concrete.

When we purchased the building almost 11 years ago, even speaking of La Maison de Verre and our house in the same sentence would have been ludicrous. It had a few redeeming features, though: decorative ceilings, chunky walls, wide skirting boards and timber floors (even if they were concealed beneath beer-stained carpets).

THIS IS THE LIFE