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Casa Malaparte

Capri, Italy
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Casa Malaparte is a house on the Isle of Capri which is located on a cliff 32 metres above the sea overlooking the Gulf of Salerno. The house was conceived around 1937 by Adalberto Libera for the italian writer and journalist Curzio Malaparte.

History

Born from the controversial partnership between the emblematic owner Curzio Malaparte, and one of the greatest figures of architectural rationalism of the 20th century, the architect Adalberto Libera.

Casa Malaparte is a modern architectural work of 1937 for long regarded as a work of Italian architect Adalberto Libera and is currently assigned to its owner, the writer Curzio Malaparte.

Malaparte initial scheme rejected it as linear and rationalist, compared with a bunker or a prison, in addition to the distant Mediterranean spirit. Finally the architect begin to discuss the writer's work, and is the same Malaparte who with the help of local masons and culminates directs the project.

Thus, it is a mistake to assign the project because the Libera Curzio Malaparte, the architect has signed only a few planes. Malaparte actually rejected Libera's design and built the home himself with the help of Adolfo Amitrano, a local stonemason.

Concept

Have chosen to build his house there was no happy coincidence, the fixed idea of owning a house was Malaparte for itself in the Gulf of Naples, Capri and in particular represented a perfect synthesis of the essential elements of their search of solitude and love, but also a challenge to itself for the realization of a company considered impossible.

Malaparte wrote an essay explaining their intentions for the Casa Malaparte, which explained that the house was built himself, would be his own portrait in stone.

Spaces

The building is divided into 3 levels, the summit lies a large terrace to the sea and you get cut down a staircase that keystone is perfectly adapted to this stretch of rock.

Casa Malaparte is a red brick parallelepiped carved by an inverted pyramid monumental staircase leading to a flat roof used as a solarium. A blank wall on the curve is free on the roof.

On the ground floor, plus a guest wing, a room with a Tyrolean wood stove.

On the first floor rooms and marble bathrooms in Pompeian style combined with a huge atrium and reception room is modern and archaic, romantic and classical elements while linking. It also houses a library.The large hall in the center of the oblong building is the courtyard of a small castle.

On one wall is a large fireplace, and another of the walls of a high-Pericle Tazzini, a contemporary of Malaparte, interwoven with human figures that evoke the erotic reliefs on the facades of the old temples Kajuraho, India.

The focus is on the views from the windows, showing fragments of the landscape of Punta Massullo, particularly near the cliffs of rocks. Curzio Malaparte had persuaded a friend to frame painter length windows with the same wooden frames for paintings, which gives a pictorial view and colorful.

One of the highlights is the back wall of the chimney, made of glass that gives the opportunity to also enjoy the views through the flames. This special glass that resists high temperatures at the plant was commissioned in Zeiss Jena.

Materials

Masonry typical Mediterranean at the time, bricks, cement, stone. Wooden frames for doors and windows.Marble bath master bedroom as well as the lining of some walls.

The floor, made of rough slabs of stone in the great room with ceramic and decorated in many of the other areas, such as bedrooms, bathrooms and atrium. Special refractory glass on the end wall of the chimney.Pompeii red exterior paint, interior white paint.

Afterlife

Casa Malaparte was abandoned and neglected after the death of Curzio Malaparte in 1957. It suffered both from vandalism and natural elements for many years and was seriously damaged, including the desecration of a beautiful tiled stove, before the first serious renovation started in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The building was donated to the Foundation Giorgio Ronchi in 1972.

Malaparte's great-nephew, Niccolo Rositani, is primarily responsible for restoring the house to a livable state. Much of the original furniture is still there, because it is too large to remove. The marble sunken tub in the bedroom of his mistress still exists and functions. His bedroom and book lined study are still intact. Many Italian industrialists have donated materials for the preservation.

Today the house is used for serious study and certain cultural events in Italy and is admired (and hated) by many architecture enthusiasts worldwide.

In 1963 the house appeared in Le Mepris, a film by Jean-Luc Godard starring Brigitte Bardot.

Another famous solitary camouflaged residence set into a rocky promontory is the Observatory House designed by Tatiana Bilbao in collaboration with the artist Gabriel Orozco in 2008.

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  1. Wikiarquitectura
  2. Wikipedia
lacuna, February 23rd, 2015
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