Are these the holiday homes of the future?

He wrote a book called The Art Of Travel, took up the role of writer-in-residence at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 and now Alain de Botton is turning his hand to holiday homes in an attempt to cure the British public of their ‘fear’ of modern architecture.

The Swiss-born philosopher has commissioned five houses by some of Europe's leading modern architects, which he plans to rent out on a not-for-profit basis. He says his aim is "to help people get over the dichotomy that modernism equals awful and antiquated equals great".