The great room—a combined living, dining, and cooking space—is one of architecture's great equalizers. People often want to be together without being sequestered into separate rooms for socializing and food preparation. This is particularly true of a cook who would rather chat with guests while he entertains than be hidden behind a closed door. Here, from Dwell's archives, are seven comfortable, modern great rooms that live up to the name.
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The first-floor great room is where all the action takes place in Prentis Hale and Tracy Edmonds's hillside house in Seattle’s Mount Baker neighborhood. “It’s like Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian homes: everyone in one main space,” Hale says. Photo by Philip Newton.
