West of Cologne, Germany Haus Ungers was designed by O.M.Ungers as a home and studio for his architectural practice

The Ungers House in Cologne stands as an austere manifesto of rationalist architecture, a space where geometry dictates not only form but also the very experience of inhabitation. Designed by Oswald Mathias Ungers as both a residence and an intellectual construct, the house distils architectural principles to their essence: grid, proportion, and repetition. Its cubic rigour and disciplined materiality—predominantly red brick and white surfaces—eschew ornament in favour of a structural purity that borders on the metaphysical.

Yet, within this severity, the house reveals a deep sensibility toward spatial rhythm. Its sequence of rooms, defined by precise mathematical ratios, creates an almost monastic introspection, a place where architecture becomes a form of thought. The interplay of light and shadow—filtered through carefully framed openings—adds a temporal dimension to its rigid formalism, softening its starkness just enough to make it livable.

More than a house, the Ungers residence is a built manifesto, a three-dimensional treatise on order and abstraction. It is not a home in the traditional sense but rather an architectural essay—one that challenges its occupants to engage with space as an intellectual pursuit rather than a mere backdrop to daily life.