26 photos of the world's most beautifully designed homes

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Shelter is one of the basic human needs.

The best homes turn that need into art, whether it's an opulent French palace or a minimalist Midwestern country home. 

Here are a selection of the most beautiful homes ever built by some of the most masterful architects who have ever worked.

Mies van der Rohe is the master of modernist minimalism — and the Farnsworth House outside of Chicago is his opus.

The 1951 structure is as much a Zen temple as a modernist masterpiece.

Notice how the wide, minimal layout forms perfect perpendicular angles with the surrounding trees.