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Ugo Rossi
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Direttore
Maria Grazia Eccheli (Università di Firenze)
Comitato scientifico
Fabrizio Arrigoni (Università di Firenze)
Maria Teresa Bartoli (Università di Firenze)
Emanuele Lago (Università di Firenze)
Hilde Léon (Leibniz Universität Hannover)
Eleonora Mantese (Università Iuav di Venezia)
Alessandra Ponte (École d’Architecture de l’Université de Montréal)
HOUSE AND SITE
RUDOFSKY LEWERENTZ ZANUSO SERT RAINER
Edited by
Eleonora Mantese
Contributors by
Andrea Calgarotto Cristiana Eusepi
Gundula Rakowitz Ugo Rossi Carlotta Torricelli
Firenze University Press
2014 With a foreword by Francesco Cellini
House and Site : Rudofsky, Lewerentz, Zanuso, Sert, Rainer / a cura di
Eleonora Mantese. – Firenze : Firenze University Press, 2014.
(Studi e saggi ; 129)
http://digital.casalini.it/9788866555810
Translations by | Traduzioni di
Fiammetta Calzavara
Francesco Cellini
Foreword
Eleonora Mantese
The Place of the House
Ugo Rossi
The Discovery of the Site
Bernard Rudofsky. Mediterranean Architectures
Carlotta Torricelli
Site is Elsewhere
Sigurd Lewerentz. Villa Edstrand in Falsterbo
Andrea Calgarotto
The Sky in the Room
Marco Zanuso. Holiday Houses
Cristiana Eusepi
The Introverted Space
José Luis Sert. Patio Houses
Gundula Rakowitz
Anonymous Composing
Roland Rainer. House at the Stone Quarry
Bernard Rudofsky, since the Technische Hochschule years in Vienna, was conscious of the
importance, within an architect’s training, of the knowledge and the experiences resulting from
study tours. The travel to modernity of 1923, that brought him to visit the Bauhaus exposition
in Weimar came as a surprise to him:
One summer, curiosity led me to Weimar where the first Bauhaus exhibition had just opened. This was my first pre-
monition of the ill wind that was to blow over the field of architecture. Weimar, and later Dessau, I found, had all the
charm of a reformatory for juveniles1.
To that study trip, other trips will follow, not any more based on researching models within
the work of modern architects, but rather aimed at finding the lesson of architecture in the
anonymous constructions of the past.
Rudofsky travels through Bulgaria, along the Danube, towards Istanbul and in 1925 towards
Asia Minor. In 1926 he travels to Switzerland, France, Italy to research the archeological ex-
cavations of Pompeii, and again in Italy in 1927, in 1929 in Bulgaria and Turkey, and finally in
Santorini, Greece.
After having completed his education, and after the formative trips, in 1932 Bernard Rudofsky
decides to move to the island of Capri, which he considered ideal to experiment his own per-
sonal ideas upon architecture. He is driven to the island by memories as well as by tales of a
mythic see of an island that is also a destination able to reveal the charm of its profiles. This
has been described by Goethe in its Travel to Italy. Also the white houses having clear vol-
umes, studied by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Joseph Maria Olbrich and Josef Hoffmann, attracted
him. Obrich writes on Capri «here architecture did not managed to accomplish primary ne-
cessities. Here we can find the very first traces of oriental architecture»2, while Hoffmann talks
about «blinding white walls, with small and short windows, to protect from excessive light»3.
72
80
Starting from the study of the houses in Santorini and Procida in the Ph.D. thesis, the defi-
nition of the architectural language of Rudofsky and Cosenza is enriched by the slow sedi-
mentation of ‘traditional’ architecture. The morphological elements referring to the project are
recognizable. The «deep connection between the two insular houses, in particular those of
the fishermen’s village of the Corricella, with the casa Oro in Naples, is confirmed by several
aspects of the construction»35.
Both structure and morphology of the Corricella’s houses are a reference point for casa Oro
because:
They raise from the ground in a very similar site, for geometric and orographic conformation, materiality, exposition
and relationship with the sea, to that of the house in Naples [...], terrace houses. The house develops vertically. As
the construction develops upwards, rooms tend to backward so as to remain adherent to the natural wall and as a
consequence small terraces take shape [...]. The lower compartment, are, sometimes almost fully dug out from tuff36.
The Casa framed by a tuff bank facing the Magellina sea, is the paradigm of modern Neapol-
itan habitation37. Casa Oro, of typically local inspiration38 derives from the study of the culture
of inhabiting and from the quality of the spaces in a traditional house, as Cosenza tells:
together with Rudofsky we decided to migrate over the island of Procida [...] The choice of the site was linked to the
wish of isolating ourselves from the urban decay as well as further researching the creative process of the local master
builders, also by comparing it to further experiences made by Rudofsky in Santorini and Ibiza. While interpreting ways
of life that are more open and more rational, we had to find a language apt to translate and express these ways of life
into modern terms and respecting the most exigent functionalities39.
The reading of casa Oro in analogy with the houses of Corricella, and with the morphological
system of the traditional house in Procida, in Santorini or in Ibiza, partially explains the planning
choices and the volumetric disposition of the house. Within the house, Jean-Louis Cohen
4 3
5
10 7 6 2
4
2
1 2 5 3 8
1 5
4 3
12
9 6
3
11
4
Level plan + 39,00 m: 1 bar room; 2 thermal power plant; 3 garage; 4 domestics apartment; 5 lower terrace
Level plan + 44,10 m: 1 main entrance; 2 vestibule; 3 living room; 4 library; 5 living terrace; 6 domestic entrance; 7
dining room; 8 kitchen room; 9 outdoor dining; 10 dining terrace; 11 loggia; 12 garden terrace; 13 stairs to the sea
Level plan + 47,40 m: 1 bedroom of Augusto Oro doctor; 2 bedroom of Amelia; 3 bathroom; 4 dressroom; 5 bedroom
of the son; 6 guest bedroom; 7 depandance entrance; 8 terrace
96
98
CREDITS
Picture on pages 66, 67, 73, 113, The Bernard Rudofsky Estate, Vienna © Ingrid Kummer.
Picture on pages 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 81-83, «Domus».
Picture on pages 84, 85, 94, 95, 97, 99-107, Archivio Cosenza, Napoli.
CREDITI
Immagini alle pagine 66, 67, 73, 113,
The Bernard Rudofsky Estate, Vienna © Ingrid Kummer.
Immagini alle pagine 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 81-83, «Domus».
Immagini alle pagine 84, 85, 94, 95, 97, 99-107, Archivio Cosenza, Napoli.
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