German-born architect Zeno Winkens brings exotic influences to his house designs in rural Ireland. He built the first A1-rated certified passive house here a few years ago and has since designed another, in Drumderry, near Bunclody in Co Wexford.
Both bungalows blend in with the new builds around them, but they also show the influence of California’s modernist architects.
It’s necessary to go beyond a superficial glance to appreciate the impact of his travels on Winkens’s work. Born in Bonn, he was taken to live in Los Angeles in 1959, at the age of nine months, by his architect father, Egon Winkens. Egon was passionate about the work of the Austrian Richard Neutra, whose modernist “Neutra houses” have become iconic in California.
Egon landed a