The Italian Escape To Casa Malaparte
If there's ever a dream home in a luscious setting, then SATORI & SCOUT think Casa Malaparte is perhaps it. Designed and built between 1938 and 1940, Casa Malaparte is as modern to its contemporary era as it is now, further echoing its design brilliance and being far more compelling and sensual than any Middle Eastern home costing several million dollars. Price simply cannot match good design.
The architect behind such brilliance is Adalberto Libera, arguably one of the most representative architects of the Italian Modern movement. Studying at Istituto statale d'Arte (Parma) and the University of Rome (Rome), both in Italy, Libera has always been instrumental to Italian rationalism throughout its time. Part of the famous Gruppo 7 group of architects in 1927, Libera's most famous design work was perhaps the Malaparte residence, located on the island of Capri, and is our featured design here. Such a building is one of the best examples of Italian modern and contemporary architecture.
The elongated red building is positioned on a dangerous cliff some 32 metres above the sea atop a rock that juts out into the Gulf of Salerno, with the brick's redness working perfectly alongside the hues of the deep ocean blues and organic forest greens. The residence sits so comfortably on the site, and is truly an aspirational home, one which we've admired for a very long time. With a wide reverse-side pyramidal staircase that leads up to a roof terrace, the roof provides its home-owner a fantastic bathing and viewing platform. Without any external balustrades that would otherwise provide noise to the design, and with a white wall atop the patio that provides a nice contrast to the brick's redness, together they exhibit everything the Mediterranean is synonymous for. Perhaps as idyllic as the building and its natural setting is that fact that access to this private property is only either by foot from Capri or by the combination of boat and using a narrow staircase that is embedded into the cliff face. It's all so very wonderful.
As Libera explains "...Residential houses must seek to that human dignity which the modern world has aroused in many social classes. So we have to deny the artistic character to residential houses and aim instead to the aesthetic and human one." Put simply, aspiration and characterful dwellings are a focus in everyone's lives, and is something we all revolve around...
Learn more about Casa Malaparte at EcoNote.It.
Photography Credit : EcoNote.It