1980 Villa Di Plinio Ostia
Plinius describes one of his houses to a friend.
(text here)
The theme of the description is not functionality.
The theme of the description is the well-being that arises from the spatiality of the place.
And this well-being is not a well-being of possession.
One can think that this well-being is a well Being.
Plinius, in his description, does not mention any figure...
There does not seem to be any composition of scopic figures.
He never indicates a need to look at something.
But it seems to be more
a matter of dis-position of places in their spatiality.
Spatiality without figure ...
made of the disposition of material elements
without meaning ...
of pure poetic stances...
therefore at dis-stances
If we think that, in fact,
Plinius is dealing with the architecture of this house,
we can think
that this architecture is
of dis-position of matter
for the well Being of the one who is there.
and that this dis-position provides a well Being
without signifying anything to the one who is there.
It is not a symbol of anything.
We also note that Plinius speaks of architecture
to say what we would not say about anything else.
Only architecture has this effect of inaugural well Being.
Architecture is there to be outside the Real, which doesn’t offer any well Being.
Architecture is there to inaugurate a well Being.
And even if there is a clear relationship to the sea and the land...
Nature as well as the Real are outside the project...
Architecture is outside the Real
and means nothing to the one who is there
but allows him to live really
a non-animal anthropic life.
All the pleasures of which Plinius speaks
are strictly anthropic and not animal.
Architecture is therefore outside the Real and not yet Symbolic
Architecture is therefore between the Real and the Symbolic that it allows...
by the inaugural Being that allows the event to be welcomed and named...
by the inaugural Being that allows the Symbolic to occur.
We understand then that this text has been used over time
as an exercise to simply express a position on Architecture.
It even seems that Palladio drew one....
This was a common exercise
for architects of the 19th century
architects and in architectural schools.
*
The project here is just a start of thinking about architecture.
Drawn with Plinius's text in mind.
Everything is made of geometry...
That is, the primary institution,
before any meaning,
of strictly anthropic measurements.
We note that geometry is always
a pure idea of measurement
carrying a meaning but not having one a priori
and a pure idea of going towards the other.
The idea of geometry is
the idea of a pure anthropic law of measurement
outside the Real, outside nature.
The Real is outside the law.
Nature is its own norm.
The law is anthropic,... always.
Geometry is the saying of the inaugural measure
before all physics,
before any Reality.
This project is only of geometry.
We note moreover that in this project, geometrically, nothing is self-evident.
Everything points to the other
The Villa, facing the sea, made up of rooms that set up a rhythm
that is, an unnatural anthropic repetition.
A pure open spatiality
A curved floor contrasted with a hollow receptacle of an idea of the matrix earth.
The institution of the villa's space is made
by a curve at a distance from an opposite curve
at the bottom of the ground behind which
nature tries to approach
by oblique rows of trees
Between the two, a wild land
and on the side a courtyard bordered
with a measure of lightning
which leads to the pavilion.
Pavilion open and distancing nature
The pavilion, all of anthropic measure
in a cube denied
by curves, edges of vaults
like geometrical earthen ridges
giving a vaulted dome
Around the project that emptied itself of nature,
the pine forest of Ostia...