The House
of Modern Creature.
The house of modern creature is a house that could have been
a virtue of modern architecture, and yet have never been chosen to be an epitome
of modernity in Architecture. This house was born nearly the same era with
Villa Savoy and shares the same DNA; Piloti, Horizontal window, Open plans,
Roof gardens, Free design of Façade. But Not like Villa Savoy who later evolved
as an architectural embodiment of modernity, House of modern creature was die
out and banished away from everybody’s mind. Some say it was a result of
natural selection and some say that the house was just a silly hokum who was
pilfering the idea from Le Corbusier. Nevertheless, the house was founded
recently in the neighborhood of old town in north Italy. And according to the
report, the house was evolved in a strange way and hiding itself in wood like a
hermit.
When I first see the house, most of it was hidden behind the dense wood and a white upper corner shining by the sun was only visible part of building from outside. So the first impression was that the Building was like an animal crouching in a bush, with its eyes glittered. Its mysterious appearance led me inside. But, through the ivy tangled door, what I encounter soon after as I entered inside, was a dim and hollow garden took over by vegetation. The garden was underneath the long linear rectangular mass which was supported by eight of scraggy supports. These supports were weirdly so thin and long like legs of horse in the one of the Dali’s painting. In contrast, in the middle of the garden there was a thick and crooked stair case which leads to upper levels. The staircase is so bizarrely distinctive in a whole picture, the house was as if standing with scrawny legs just like an old animal who is frustrated in reproduction, crestfallen and laying down an abnormal shaped circulation on to the earth pathetically.
Through the staircase which is getting steeper as it arises,
you can go to upper level. When you arrive at the end of the stair, you encounter
two same sized rooms which are divided with cylindrical shaped stair case that
goes to another level. At first glance, one room on your left side is very bright
and the other room is very dark. And they are totally blocked to each other by a
wall and stair case in the middle so that you cannot see the other rooms from
each side. When you enter the bright room what you find first is the room that is
not actually a room but an outdoor space that is wrapped by the walls. And
there, you can recognize that there is another level of out-door space where
you can reach only through the dark room. So if you want to proceed to upper
level of roof garden you should re-enter to the dark room. So the architectural
promenade in this building is so rupturing. When you reach the top, you can
find the two level of roof garden is united under the light roof. But it does not mean that the space underneath the roof is sedentary, it’s rather a middle of
circulation. Eventually the open stair case on the roof top ends up with being
stuck to the wall. Even if you climb on the highest step, it is not framing the
view or making a visional trajectory to outside. It’s only assured that the
roof garden is secured in a think wall and you are inside of it. And what you
sense from the punctured horizontal window is interrupted view by near vegetation,
meaning that you are in the dense urban fabric.
위 글은 Figini-Pollini의 저널리스트의 집 (Milan, 1935)에서 영감을 받아서 쓴 허구의 집에 대한 글임을 밝혀둔다
