Modernist Birdhouses Inspired by Bauhaus, Frank Lloyd Wright and Joseph Eichler

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will nev­er fail you. — Frank Lloyd Wright

Is there a design geek lurk­ing among your fine feath­ered friends?

Some chick­adee or finch who val­ues clean lines over the frip­peries of the gild­ed cage?

Or per­haps you’re a bird lover who’s loathe to junk up your mid-cen­tu­ry mod­ernist view by hang­ing a folksy minia­ture salt­box from a branch out­side the kitchen win­dow.…

Cal­i­for­nia-based cab­i­net­mak­er Dou­glas Barn­hard’s Bauhaus bird­hous­es offer a min­i­mal­ist solu­tion.

No word on the inte­ri­ors, but the exte­ri­ors are gor­geous, with addi­tion­al inspi­ra­tion com­ing from the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright and Joseph Eich­ler.

Barn­hard, who stud­ied archi­tec­ture briefly, repur­pos­es wal­nut, bam­boo, teak, and mahogany in his designs, which extend to dog beds, bread­box­es, and planters.

His bird­hous­es fea­ture liv­ing walls and green roofs plant­ed with suc­cu­lents.

Some have tiny long­boards propped on their decks, a reflec­tion of the time Barn­hard spent in Kauai.

Surfin’ Bird!

Is it wish­ful think­ing to believe it’s only a mat­ter of time ’til tiny wet­suits and emp­ty Fos­ters and Paci­fi­cos start fes­toon­ing the rails?

Browse Barnhard’s bird­hous­es here and fol­low him on Insta­gram to get a peek at cus­tom orders, many for cus­tomers resid­ing in the sorts of homes he recre­ates for the birds.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Har­vard Puts Online a Huge Col­lec­tion of Bauhaus Art Objects

An Oral His­to­ry of the Bauhaus: Hear Rare Inter­views (in Eng­lish) with Wal­ter Gropius, Lud­wig Mies van der Rohe & More

Down­load Orig­i­nal Bauhaus Books & Jour­nals for Free: Gropius, Klee, Kandin­sky, Moholy-Nagy & More

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Her solo show Nurse!, in which one of Shakespeare’s best loved female char­ac­ters hits the lec­ture cir­cuit to set the record straight pre­mieres in June at The Tank in New York City. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.