the immense and the intimate

October 2013

This is not a small house. It is only so because here, the immense presence of the landscape makes the house an intimate place. As Bachelard stated, "intimate space and exterior space keep encouraging each other, as it were, in their growth".

--

still, that this vastness is inhabited
silent steps from the lake
towards the fire

once pencil sketches, ephemeral
as the light caressing the hill,
their floors and doors
their corners and stairs and rooms
nestling between trees
between seasons and years

bathing in sunlight
floating on the lake- the children’s voices
the roses, the rain, the wood
it all still smells the same

Hvitträsk, designed by Finnish architects Saarinen, Lindgren and Geselius around 1900 to accommodate their families and office.
note: Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space,Boston: Beacon Press 1994 (p.201)
photo's KH 2013

 

Klaske Havik