Luigi Snozzi

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ISBN: 960-85742-3-4
Pages: 64
Dimensions: 14×21 cm
Editor: Nafsika Tzanou

These brief excerpts clearly show that, at the level of architectural criticism, the loss of place in the dwellings of modern man has now been acknowledged. The private and the non-permanent, as Ahrendt says, have gained supremacy over the public and the permanent. Homo faber has today been pushed aside in favor of homo laborans. Within such a condition, where technical and social achievements seem to be in full progress, something irreparable is occurring.

The so-called democratic achievements are being promoted at the expense of culture: man is alienated, moving in complete uncertainty, has lost every point of reference, and places have lost their fundamental connotations—their orientation and identity. We resort to ideologies that promise paradise, but which risk bringing hell to earth.

It is within this context that the human maker, the excluded one, finds himself working.

A client came in—naturally, a private individual. He wants a house, a functional house. A dwelling, I think to myself. He recently acquired a small piece of land on the hillside above the city: 400 square meters, with a 100% slope. A small stream struggles to carve its path through the uncultivated meadow. Two roads—one above, one below—mark its boundaries. All around, scattered across the hill, are holiday homes for tourists, naturally two-story (as prescribed by zoning regulations, with coverage and building coefficients). The hill—geographically defined by a sequence of ridges and small ravines where streams flow—has become unrecognizable. Some of the streams have been turned into underground channels. Retaining walls of every type, size, and direction have formed horizontal landings, on which houses and swimming pools have been placed. The result: visual chaos, a cacophony of languages.

It is hard for me to begin the work, I’d very much like to decline, but still… I start to feel the gurgling of the little stream among the grasses and nettles. I begin to observe the flow of the plot, which forms the edge of one of the many ravines of this hill. There are still a few trees: an old fig tree, a wild cherry, three locust trees, and various bushes and wildflowers scattered here and there according to the land’s nature. Halfway up, a slight plateau reminds me of the labor of a peasant seeking a path through the steep mountain slope.

Little by little, every element of this small remaining piece of land becomes familiar to me… Now I feel like working. Here, I will build the new dwelling nature is helping me. Gradually, everything is recorded: the terrain, with contour lines every 20 cm, so that its shape and structure can be read accurately; and the trees, with their type and position. The engineer helps me: from the trees, the shrubs, and the formation of the slope, without needing to dig, he reads the structure of the geological layers—here, rock; there, alluvial soil; further up, a spring. And so, the design has begun. Now, along the course of the design process, I must be able to highlight the geographical and cosmic values of the place and make them significant. I need to restore meaning to the stream, to water as a fundamental element for human survival. I need to emphasize the shape of the land and make it legible and usable for the person who will inhabit it. I need to harmoniously connect the various places of the house with the landscape. I need to find the optimal relationship with light, with the sun. I need to incorporate horizontal planes for human use into this sloped surface. The type I have chosen is a three-story house, like the old rural house (one floor is intended as a cellar, to satisfy the architect who only permits two levels for habitation!). The building is rectangular and elongated, extremely compact. Placed along the ravine, it seeks to underscore its presence in the surrounding area.

I dedicate particular attention to the path, which, articulated in various stages, allows the inhabitant to gradually conquer the place and to absorb all of its particularities. About thirty meters from the house, a gate marks the entrance: we take a path that follows a contour line linearly and allows for a first contact with the surrounding landscape. We come upon a small bridge, which, passing over the stream, brings it into focus. Here we arrive at the house. We enter. A narrow staircase, with a single flight, in the half-light, follows the curved wall that mirrors the curve of the hill and leads us to the daily living level. A large south-facing window allows us to see, through the trees of the first level, the expanse of the lake below. From here, in a new direction, we glimpse a plateau created along the old line of the rural path. From the daily space, we cannot see its end, but the curve of the hill guiding the path invites us to go out. In contrast to this curved element, which is echoed above by a curved retaining wall (the organic element), I traced another retaining wall downhill, this time straight, the rational element. This contrast allows the hill’s shape to stand out, both along the horizontal path and in frontal view. The straight retaining wall now makes the circular shape of the hill above it unmistakably visible. The plateau ends in a small clearing, covered with a pergola. This is precisely at the point where the depression of the little ravine opens up to the great lake landscape. And it is no coincidence that from this terminal point of the entire route, we magically discover the entire lower area—the lake and the mountains, the city and its outskirts. From this point, we once again discover the entrance gate, which recalls the journey we’ve just made. To one side of the pergola, the old fig tree offers its shade; on the other side, further uphill, the wild cherry tree watches over the space behind; further ahead, above the house, stand the three locust trees. Let’s go back inside the house: the variously articulated windows frame the different landscapes and relate them to the interior spaces. A wide double-height window ensures a connection between the living space and the bedrooms with the lake; a long horizontal window frames the mountain ridge; another, on the opposite side, frames the steep meadow. Close to the glass, right in front of our eyes, the grass and flowers grow magically, like in a living painting. A second flight of stairs leads to the upper floor, where the two bedrooms are located. Through a carefully designed articulation of space, these communicate with the floor below.

Nature and house have become one. Architecture has elevated the great richness of this humble piece of land. It has now been transformed into a place full of meaning, where a person can orient themselves and find their identity. Amid the noise of the modern city, noise of sounds and forms, here, the magical feeling of silence is rediscovered:
a place, a dwelling.

Luigi Snozzi