Modern Doll Houses

Victorian doll houses seem to have gone out of fashion. I still love the old ones but modern doll houses that relate to contemporary living seems to fit with our homes better.

Many of these doll houses are ‘modern’ as in Le Courbusier or Mies Van Der Rohe mid-century modern, not so much Frank Gehry or Zaha Hadid (well they would be difficult to manufacture compared with straight lined walls).
Some are based on the work of famous modern architects and some are abstractions of living ‘boxes’ in the simplest forms that allow open-ended imagination for children to play with. Whereas you can have as much fun with blank boxes pretending they are houses, these refined modern doll houses are quite gorgeous objects to have around!

An A-Frame Doll House from Sunset Magazine, December 1961 (via Kevin Kidney blog)

Little girl looking into a modern doll house being sold at F.A.O Schwarz from Life Magazine 1940 (image via All Posters)

Shame F.A.O Schwarz doesn’t make doll houses like this any more.

Kaleidoscope House with sliding color walls by Bozart Toys, designed by Laurie Simmons and Peter Wheelwright (PMWArchitects) 2001

Gorgeous doll house by Miniio. Curiously described as a doll house for Barbie, Blythe and Momoko.

The Sirch Sibis Villa Doll’s House made by Sirch – a german company who also makes solid sleds that I also want.

Liliane doll houses come in a large scale, perfect for a group of kids to play together without fighting for space.

A miniature replica of the Danish architect Arne Jacobsen’s actual house. With his own famous Egg chairs! Manufactured by Minimii

QUBIS HAUS is a coffee table that transforms into a doll house with a flexible interior layout using the sliding panels.

Toy company Brinca Dada make doll houses inspired by famous modern buildings. This Bennet House is inspired by Gerrit Rietveld’s Schröder House.

Now these are apparently made out of paper by Skea, a Taiwanese company (found via Modern Mini Houses), not actually as doll houses but for what sounds like a rather strange purpose to me. To be burnt as a gift to the deceased. Um… Imagine the children who see these and are told that they can’t play with them. I hope not all are burnt and they are also used as doll houses!

Anyway… let’s move on to cuter modern doll houses. They are not so precious or impressive but friendly, loveable and gorgeous in their simplicity.

Doll House by Play Sam

A-frame doll house by Our Children’s Gorilla

Suitcase Doll House by Hase Weiss 

Classic Chelsea by Lillie Huset

And finally… this is not strictly a ‘house’ but check out the cute cute Tin Caravan found in Little Gatherer’s post today on doll houses. And I must add I happened to be working on this post at the same time! They’ve written interesting things about some of the doll houses I mention here, plus there are a few more fab ones I didn’t know about – check them out!