SOME/ARCHITECTURE : 'UTOPIAN MINIMALISM' VILLAE MINIMAE
The situation between architectural project and projection has been one of ceaseless activity concurrent with the first instances of transferal from thought into line. As long as the line has been drawn by man, the abstract realm has been given it’s own separate semblances of corporeality. From the Russian constructivists of the early 19th century to the techno-utopic renders of our contemporary age; whether presently feasible or not, the two-dimensional and virtual realms have been a carte blanche for our conceptual ideals. For it is through our visual projections that a rich language of situation, experience and desire can be traced.
The Villae Minimae as an architectural project is no exception to this notion. From the ‘paper praxis prisons’ of Piranesi and Boulle to the reified paper ventures of contemporary architects such as Miralles, Holl and Hadid we achieve the crossover from pure thought represented to realized material and consequently, immaterial of
volumes and power. It comes as no surprise that at our utopic projections are crossing over into our reality at an increasing rate albeit at times in mere fractals and increments. For some the perceived attainment of utopia is harrowing and exciting as it is unfathomable.
The quintet of villas formally allude to the decided and direct notions of reductivism though they are congruent in upholding Sullivan’s architectural aphorism of ‘form [following] function’ as they are spatially defined to encourage such a lifestyle respectively, with each villa never containing more than two bedrooms. They are superimposed as objects placed within to punctuate and draw awareness to the
landscape; and in turn become vessels of rigid contortion for observing the landscape framed by static dynamism. As with anything existing as a result of thought, they are distortions in time and formally portray this sentiment as the primary geometric shapes of which they are constituted are sinuously warped although not without retaining a sense of familiarity.
Architecture has always had a language, and as Zizeck might call it, a “mute language of buildings”. They have always spoken in measures and time about the state of culture, politics, economics, society and the aspirations of individuals within the infrastructure of the aforementioned.
Whether architecture can charge and action these issues are among the constant challenges of the practice and its praxis. As is primarily concerned with residential architecture, the question of how we are concerned to live ideally is ever-resounding as it is sonorous and the Villae Minimae await our response.
Courtesy of Francesco Napolitano, Architetto LAD Laboratorio di Architettura e Design
Text by Kien Van-Young | S/TUDIO