Description

Feeling at one with the countryside was an important planning idea in this lavish house on the Spanish island of Mallorca; not in the sense of organic approach, but by providing a definite contrast. A precisely geometrical block with few apertures harmonizes with nature. Claudio Silvestrin is a master of the rules of minimal design and applies them consistently: pure, uncomplicated ‘form’ in the dimensions of 9, 12 and 18 metres; vertical or horizontal apertures without profiles, segments or differentiation; smooth walls without joints; simple spatial figures with targeted light control and reduced materials.

The meditative tranquillity of the architecture illustrates the occupants’ inner harmony and performs a dignified response to the drama of the landscape and the climate. A dominant space that gives the design its significance achieves an almost spiritual dimension. This is the entrance courtyard, 12 x 12 metres, with a narrow access slit, light and climate regulators for the rooms at floor level on two sides. The living and working space on the ground floor faces the courtyard, a loggia leads to the long outreach of the linear swimming pool. The upper floor contains the bathroom and bedroom area with wall-reflecting skylights. Narrow bands of light cut the shadowy areas to pieces. It becomes evident how much respect the architecture is paying to nature especially at the end of the 110 m long access path on the other side, which is followed by a parallel wall and has a sunken tennis court attached: the rendering for the outside walls had red volcanic earth from the local soil added to it, and all the stone material comes from the immediate vicinity. The building absorbs the spirit of the place.

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Originally published in: Klaus-Peter Gast, Living Plans: New Concepts for Advanced Housing, Birkhäuser, 2005.