Offbeat Homes

Flamenco y arquitectura

by Jennifer Chait on June 17th, 2008

We’ve been looking at all things treehouses; but today a little treehouse break. I’ve got one new design from the always fab Antonino Cardillo, and later some contests to tell you about.

But first Cardillo. He sent me some shots of his House of Convexities near Barcelona - and like all his work, this house is amazing.

It’s so unusual for the landscape. Very offbeat. I love how, from this view, it’s in line with the range. That’s pretty cool. Along with the photos Cardillo sent his own description; which is really neat, so let’s look at that…

“If architecture is music in stone can its “limbs” dance? Architecture only remains still in pictures. In real life its natural state is one of transition. Both man and light move within it.

Inside a house among coarse Mediterranean glades and corrugated stone walls, a slanting light, pierced by innumerable narrow repeated blades, inscribes and describes the walls with its impermanent, mutable hand. How many possible stories will this light tell over the course of a year?

A curved wall jokes with the light. The light bathes the wall, but reaches the moment and the place in which, going beyond the curve, it takes a tangent, deciding what will be lit and what will be dark. And this movement suggests the indefinite, mutability, shading, ineffability.

Thus architecture becomes light interpreted through the “limbs” of the architecture. Like shadows of flesh on flesh, whose forms are both definite and defining.”

“A curved wall jokes with the light!” I’m thinking this is one architect who is a poet as well. Maybe a second job is in order. From the view above the idea of layout might be a little baffling, but this layout shot below allows the design to make more sense.

To see the interior, and more of the description, jump to the next page…

My favorite, well, one of my favorite things about Cardillo’s designs are all the curves. Each of his structures that I’ve seen have these swooping, gentle curves, and it’s so soothing. Your eyes want to follow the lines. For example, check out the swoop below; all I’m thinking is whoosh…

More description:

“Here, as in a Flamenco dance, the body breaks up, invading the space moving through its potential articulations without, however, defining the void, or, interpreting the many possibilities of moving within it: fleshy and sensual, but equally incisive and precise. Secret but luminous. Closed but open to a multitude of possibilities. A body inside another body. Compressed, suspended and continuous in its curvilinear trajectory.

And yet, as in a Flamenco dance, the development of movement, its indefinable ardour, is made real by the successive instant. That solemn, still instant that seems to challenge eternity.

Thus, smooth, tall and still, a wall opposes silence. And such stillness paradoxically supports the preceding movement, giving sense to its being.”

Wait until you see this image:

What the flip!? I love it. I haven’t ever seen an interior quite like this one before.

Like Cardillo’s other designs, this one is innovative, makes use of great colors (I always like the subtle hues going on), and full of creative light. If you’re interested in seeing more, check out the following posts:

Other Cardillo designs:

• Birnbeck Island
• Vaulted House
• Home in Erice
• Ellipse house - maybe my favorite

[All photos courtesy of Antonino Cardillo]

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