Thursday, April 16, 1964 University Daily Kansan
Page 5
Belgian Doctor Wages Campaign In Support of Spinning Domicile
He has tried everything, including a hunger strike, to try to induce the government to finance his dream of making his house that goes round available to everyone.
BRUSSELS — (UPI) — Belgian inventor Dr. Francois Massau, 60, is in a spin over his turn-around house.
ON A SUNNY morning in winter, the seven windows of the spacious living room may be turned toward the road. But two hours later, the same windows may be looking out upon the pine wood at the back of the house while two of the home's four bedrooms are facing the road.
Massau has been convinced since 1952 that he has invented the house of the future. To prove it, he built one for himself in 1958 and has inhabited it ever since—"comfortably," he insists—with his wife and three sons.
Massau says he first thought of building a turning house in 1952. He abandoned a fairly prosperous coal business to do it. When the prototype was finished he and his family moved in.
"BUT I WAS also out 3.5 million francs ($70,000), and now I have reached the end of the road." he said in an interview.
"I need an extra 4 million ($80,000) to do further research, build four more prototypes of varying sizes, and work out a proper cost system. Only then can I offer my invention for commercial exploitation."
The government, however, has turned down his request for a development loan—even though Massau once went on a hunger strike drinking only coffee.
He has received dozens of letters from various parts of the world asking for information. Builders in the south of France wrote that they were particularly interested. Others, from tropical countries, said the turning house would be
the answer to keeping the sun away from inhabited rooms.
"BUT YOU CAN also avoid the sun as much as you like. It makes fixed houses look like products of a primitive age," he said.
"With my house," said Massau, "you can take in every minute of sunshine."
Reaching behind him, the inventor pushed a green button and with a slight sound the living room, four bedrooms, kitchen and entrance lobby began to turn.
"For power I use an electric motor of one-tenth horsepower, stationed in the cellar," he said. "The rooms turn around a stationary central unit which houses the bathroom, lavatory, water mains and the main cable for the electricity supply."
The roof and cellar as well as the center of the house, remain stationary.
"If you want the bathroom now, while we sit here," he explained, "you will find it just opposite one
of the bedrooms. But in about half an hour you will find it facing the living room.
"WITH MY NEW prototype where everything can turn and the power supplies will be installed in the cellar, all rooms in the house will keep their places in relation to each other."
"When we moved into this house in February, 1958," he recalled, "the temperature outside was 14 degrees. By some judicious juggling which kept the sun shining into the living room I managed an inside temperature of 71 degrees without using any heating."
"Three months ago," he said, "we had to sell some jewelry and I am doing odd jobs to pay my bills. My wife has gone back to work as a schoolteacher.
Eut Massau admits that even all the sun he can catch won't make him solvent.
"But I refuse to give up now. In the end, the government must see that I am worth helping."
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