Dr. Petra Liebl-Osborne, München / Miami
Casa Malaparte on Capri -- a Solitaire of Modern ArchitectureThe Villa of the Italian writer and journalist Curzio Malaparte on the Isle of Capri is an outstanding monument of Modern Architecture.
Through its radical stereometric shape, and in its extraordinary, dramatic natural setting the edifice became an icon of modern architecture, that caused Herbert Muschamp (the architecture critic of the New York Time) to claim the Casa Malaparte the "most beautiful house in the world" (N.Y. Times Magazine, Jan. 1996). The setting of the solid long stretched red box with the giant stairs and the curvilinear white wall on the flat roof, that is exactly fitted on top of the rocky peninsula evokes a large variety of emotional impressions and connotations of antique or mythic building archetypes/
With its monolithical structure the Casa Malaparte does not meet common imaginations of a Mediterranean Villa with small scale details (like columns, stairways, balconies and patios) and its lovely charm. Malaparte, the eccentric patron explicitly intended to build the most modern house in Capri and commissioned Adalberto Liberia - the leading member of the "Group Settee" and one of the most important architects of the Italian 'Rationalism-Movement' to design his house.
The first drawings of Libera for a 'villetta', that were submitted for the official building permit in 1938, followed the strict rules of rationalist, functional design - a reduced composition with simple, regular elements and minimized openings. Besides his intention to create an especially modern villa, Curzio Malaparte had the strong will to build a structure of self-representation, "un ritratto di pietra", una casa come me" . ."stricte, dura, severa" as he expressed it himself. Since on of Libera's design principles was the anti-individual, the conflict between the patron and the architect was programmed and only the basic lay-out of the existing house goes back to original plans. Especially the organization and designing of the interior in an agglomeration of eclectic elements, drawn from historic (and classical), from vernacular and personal sources, depicting Malaparte's philosophy and experiences.
Although the house is listed within Adalberto Libera's "Opera completa", the architecture historian Marida Talamona concludes the Casa Malaparte to be "a house of a Man of Letters", that mainly was designed and built in cooperation of the patron and the local master-builder.
It is an example for the modern architecture of the 30's and the 'New Regionalism' (a term by S. Giedion), that began with Le Corbusier's Villa Moudrot". While the Avantgardism of the 20's (the white modern style of Gropius and Le Corbusier) was site-less (without contact to the individual site), the architecture in the 30's was put in relation to the surrounding space and its natural fabric.
As F.L. Wright's famous "Falling Water", the "Casa Malaparte" is exemplary for the adaption of cultural and climatic characteristics, that are especially regarded and that make it exemplary for the "New Regionalism" movement.