Medi­ter­ranean Acro­polis — Che­rubino Gam­bar­della’s hommage to the Medi­ter­ranean myth

Those same ruins are also respon­sible for giving muni­cipal aut­ho­rities a hea­dache every time somebody comes upon an ancient pillar during the excava­tions for a new metro line, bringing an entire civil engi­neering project to a halt for months or even years on end. That is why Ita­lians have an ambi­valent attitude towards their ruins, depending on which interest group they belong to, the pre­ser­va­tio­nists or the moder­nisers.

The Mez­zo­giorno, Italy’s sunny south, has also long put up with a dif­ferent, more modern form of ruin: unfi­nished con­crete con­s­truc­tions rising in the land­scape next to beaches, amidst pas­tures or on idyllic hillsides, like the fos­si­lised ske­letons of dried up mam­moths. It is dif­ficult to find anyone who would take a stand in favour of these grey relics of abruptly aban­doned building pro­jects and a chronic, devas­tating building spe­cu­lation.

For Nea­po­litan archi­tec­tural theo­re­tician and architect Che­rubino Gam­bar­della however, the unfi­nished nature of these con­crete ske­letons hides enormous potential. It represents the blue­print for a com­pletely new exis­tence ready to be con­jec­tured, ima­gined, and trans­lated into phy­sical form. The unfi­nished is a spazio in attesa, a space in waiting, in which any­thing might be pos­sible: meta­mor­phosis, rebirth, the con­ti­nuation of a nar­rative.

As we talked, Che­rubino Gam­bar­della sketched out his approach to archi­tec­tural planning: “I have a weird way of working. I approach a new project on many dif­ferent levels: research, cul­tural strategy, design sketches, col­lages. My wife Simona develops the project itself, which makes us a very special team and lends our work both aut­horship and pro­fes­sio­nalism, adding to it what is to me a very important element: the emo­tional aspect of work“.

Itri. A little place in the south of Lazio. Sand­wiched between the Gulf of Sper­longa and the Gulf of Gaeta, always within sight of the sea, always per­vaded by the scent of the Medi­ter­ranean maquis. On a broad hillside stand two simple white struc­tures like statues in the land­scape. Their form is secretive, barely deci­pherable but unmista­keably Medi­ter­ranean. Villa Due Pini and Villa Capri.

Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, these two houses have risen above their pre­vious exis­tence as con­crete ske­letons, have been re-ima­gined and clothed anew under the visionary thinking and sen­sitive hands of Che­rubino Gam­bar­della and his wife and partner in crea­tivity Simona Ottieri. This archi­tec­tural duo has already assembled an impressive port­folio of just such resus­ci­tated con­crete corpses. In a creative process resembling that of an artist, craftsman or tailor, these buil­dings have been brought into a new exis­tence and now commune with their envi­ronment, sove­reign and striking. A collage that Gam­bar­della has created as part of the design process for the project in Itri bears the title Medi­ter­ranean Acro­polis, and conveys the concept per­fectly. This project is the mirror of the identity of a ter­ritory, a homage to the medi­ter­raneo imper­fetto, to Giò Ponti, Sottsass and Le Cor­busier.

Villa Due Pini is tim­eless, with­drawn, purist. Its sil­houette has earned the house nick­names such as White bunker pumpkin house and White Ele­phant. The façade, with its glossy, white craquelure-effect ceramic cladding sur­rounds the building like a pro­tective shell but never taking on a defensive stance. The house radiates with a sleek, unpre­ten­tious ele­gance and an almost medi­tative peacefulness. It is remi­niscent of the Puglian dry-stone huts, the trullo, or the Sar­dinian stone towers, the nuraghe, with a con­tem­porary look.

Villa Capri is imposing, with an accen­tuated expres­si­veness and acro­polian in every sense. Gam­bar­della was com­mis­sioned with this second project in 2014 in the context of the Venice Biennale. The clients envi­saged, for this next project, a building with clas­sical, almost Pal­ladian echoes, clearly remi­niscent of Capri’s archi­tecture. The name of the house too was inspired by Alberto Savinio’s Capri (1926).

What the two villas have in common is the use of primary, almost com­mon­place ele­ments – windows, doors, rai­lings –, which interact with com­po­si­tional sophisti­cation to form an elegant and the same time easily acces­sible effect. The façade is an interplay of windows and their strongly empha­sised, multi-coloured frames, pre­venting this simple structure from becoming mono­tonous and avo­iding repe­ti­tions. The same applies to the interior, the simple room division which is defined by the structure of the con­crete ske­leton: Windows and wall niches give the interior walls cha­racter. Ope­nings create con­ti­nuity through the rooms and a clear view between inside and out.

While the craquelure façade of Villa Due Pini is remi­niscent of an animal’s pro­tective shell, Villa Capri‘s airy por­ticos and reed roofs extend the interior, bringing it out­doors. This breaks up the con­crete ske­leton room structure, which domi­nates the interior.

Gam­bar­della loves fea­tures that high­light the imperfect, the imprecise. “Deli­berate dis­so­nance, con­trolled “bad syntax” and a liberal dose of irony as in the case of these two villas that play wryly on clichés of wealth and luxury.” The archi­tect’s houses prove that con­trasts can not only coexist, but can create a powerful syn­thesis with a unique impact: Striking and yet muted. Imposing and modest at the same time. Naked and yet clothed.  Smooth yet strongly tactile. Pure essence yet ever varying.

From both houses, there is a direct view of the Medi­ter­ranean. Its cha­racter flows through the buil­dings in all its forms. Colour, con­trast, light, ever-changing horizons and the scent of the Medi­ter­ranean maquis. The Medi­ter­ranean white of the two buil­dings plays a crucial role, as it becomes a stage, a pro­jector screen for a play of light and shadow on the smooth sur­faces, deve­loping a unique and sur­prising dynamism. The aura of both houses meta­mor­phoses when day changes to night, mir­roring the moods of nature. A sym­phony of fea­tures, an impressive com­po­sition using the interplay of light and shade. The harmony and charm of the Medi­ter­ranean, cap­tured, redis­co­vered and trans­lated into archi­tecture by Gam­bar­della and Ottieri. Genius Loci and Medi­ter­ranean myth.

Che­rubino Gam­bar­della is an inter­na­tio­nally reknowned architect, archi­tec­tural theo­re­tician, pro­fessor and head of faculty at Naples‘ 2nd archi­tec­tural faculty. He is an author of many books on the subject of the Medi­ter­ranean and, with his archi­tec­tural pro­jects and art­works, has taken part in several Venice Bien­nales (art and archi­tecture). Gam­bar­della, whose concept of demo­cratic beauty — la bel­lezza demo­cratica — boldly turned social housing in Naples on its head and enriched it with a big portion of humanity, will cer­tainly be no stranger to the cine­a­sti­cally inte­rested readers. He was the inspi­ration and alter ego for the prot­agonist Jep Gam­bar­della in Paolo Sorrentino‘s film La grande bel­lezza, awarded an Oscar in 2013.

Text: Britta Krämer, July 2016

Copy­right of all sketches, dra­wings, col­lages, floor plans: Che­rubino Gam­bar­della

Picture credits: Che­rubino Gam­bar­della, Hans Jaeger, Peppe Maisto

The houses

Holiday home Villa Due Pini

Holiday home Villa Due Pini

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Sur­rounded by an olive grove and over­looking the Tyr­rhenian Sea as well as the Aurunci moun­tains Villa Due Pini is situated on a hill above the medieval town of Itri. The Italian architect Che­rubino Gam­bar­della designed the house based on an unfi­nished rein­forced con­crete ske­leton.

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Holiday home Villa Capri

Holiday home Villa Capri

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Villa Capri is situated in an olive grove on the out­skirts of Itri, a small town between Rome and Naples. The house was built around an aban­doned steel con­crete ske­leton.

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