Memory of a future

March 2015

Sometimes, when encountering a piece of architecture, we recognize it, not because we have seen it before but because it suits us, personally. As if we have dreamt it before, as if we have drawn it, as if the architect, almost a century ago, has drawn it precisely for us. Not because it is perfect, quite the contrary. The house is stubborn, sticking out of a decent street with decent houses, the facade rather strange in its uneven symmetry. The plot is more narrow than that of any normal house, the garden slim and steep, a hidden dune. The plan seems standard, but tricks are played: despite the narrowness of the plot, the staircase sticks through it in a perpendicular direction, providing, in the middle of the house, a pivotal core; we move around, in the lengthy narrow house, suddenly turning points appear, we look another way and almost see the sea.

KH