Paolo Portoghesi, Casa Baldi, Roma, Italy, 1961
Paolo Portoghesi, Casa Baldi, Roma, Italy, 1961
Paolo Portoghesi is an internationally renowned Italian architect that has designed and realized important works in Europe, Africa, Asia and America. He is an university professor and author of a number of books that have been translated in English, French, German, Spanish and Chinese.
At kilometer 12 of the ancient Via Flaminia , now out of the city center, the protagonist returns nature of the landscape , mingling with ancient archaeological traces , including an ancient Roman tomb . On the side of a hill of tufa used as a quarry, Paul Portuguese has designed the most interesting of his early works , a springboard for a successful international career . In this picturesque setting and gave the body, for the first time , in the search for the soul of the places that simply does not imply adherence to an architecture of the organic matrix , but a willingness to enter into architectural signs and appearances of not only the natural fact but also of the historical and cultural traditions in the noblest sense of the term. The walls of the house move as it moves up the hill , alternating concave surfaces ( for the exterior ) to convex surfaces ( for the interior ) . The wall is composed of tufa blocks of the same size as the ruins of the tomb, assembled using the same technique of ‘ “work bag ” , while the actual house the stone was used as it fell from the quarry , in blocks of regular size used at full thickness . Where the wall is concave blocks are bolted to each other, where is convex cavities have been filled with wedges of yellow tuff of Riano . The windows do not break the rhythm of the walls but they fit the points of convergence of parabolic baffles by swishing light inside with gradual continuity and at the same time gently leading out who is inside the different rooms . In this mansion in open contrast with the fashionable trends in architecture at the end of the fifties, you can find countless references to the history of Italian and European art, from the beloved genius at Borromini Gaudi, Portuguese reworks the teachings of the masters at work which can be regarded as the conceptual foundation of its aesthetic appeal, as he himself said that “… this building was born with the idea to combine the richness of imagination with the rigor of rationality, and ultimately this contradictory attitude and confrontational I brought it back in all my itinerary architect … “.
Bibliography:
link:
Biography: http://www.archidiap.com/works/casa-baldi/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Portoghesi
Reviewed by :
Rémi Farwati, Elena Giannitsopoulos, Nadir Bouchene, Adela Plasilova,March 2017