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Few
houses are as instantly recognizable as Casa Malaparte, the
stunning modernist villa which sits atop the Mediterranean
cliffside at Punto Massullo on Capri and immortalized in Jean-Luc
Godard's 1963 Le Mépris (Contempt).
Part of Casa Malaparte's
power lies in its remote location and its relationship to the
rocky Mediterranean landscape, sitting as it does some one hundred
feet above the sea overlooking the Gulf of Salerno. Depending on
one's perspective it either looks as if the house were part of the
rock formation itself or like an ark that has been stranded after
high waters have receded. A nest, an aerie - a place for
solitude and contemplation. Capo Massullo is a peninsula of rock
that juts out into the Mediterranean, the cliffsides are steep and
drop on three sides - a dramatic and strangely beautiful
location.
Casa
Malaparte was finished in 1943 by the Italian architect Adalberto
Libera for the writer and diplomat Curzio Malaparte -
a house where he could retreat and write. Malaparte had
fallen in love with the coastline of the Bay of Naples when he had
been exiled there by Mussolini. The house is a simple red
rectangular box with reverse pyramidal stairs leading up to the
roof patio, where a freestanding curved white wall sits like an
angel's wing. It is accessible by foot from the town of Capri or
by boat on days when the weather permits, followed by an arduous
99 step ascent. The square windows offer spectacular views of ocean
and sky.
Neglected after Malaparte's death in 1957 the villa has
recently been restored to its previous grandeur. Using the
dramatic Italian coast to fullest advantage, Casa Malaparte does
what the best architecture offers - it has the ability to make the
human soul soar with the melding of landscape and house into
something transcendent.
Read:
For
collectors - the out of print Malaparte: A House like Me, Michael
McDonough
See:
On
YouTube: Casa Malaparte in Godard's Le Mepris
Tags:
architecture
italy
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