Project for the apartment near to Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, with brown rough plaster and series of pink arched doors
Work
Antonino Cardillo
Colour itself is a degree of darkness (σκιερόν). — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In this house classical orders and golden proportions celebrate dust. A grey base supports a ceiling of rustic plaster of the colour of the bare earth: craving for primordial caverns, for Renaissance grotesques, for baroque nymphaeums in Doria Pamphilj, for faintly Liberty façades in the streets off Via Veneto. A sequence of compressions and dilatations makes up the space of the house. On the walls, passages and windows appear, now dug out of the base, now like carvings in a baguette. A series of arches, memories of Trecento Italian painting, disguises doors and cupboards. Among these, one studded with a pink glass doorknob introduces the intimate rooms, which too are distinguished by the palest pink on the walls: yearning for dawns and flowers, the colour of beauty, the colour of beauty that dies.
This text was first published on dezeen.com,[↗] London, 5 Aug. 2013.
Data
Time: March–Oct. 2012 (design), Nov. 2012–March 2013 (construction), March–April 2013 (photography), May 2013 (poem), June 2013 (text)
Place: Ludovisi, Rome, Italy
Area: 115 m² (one storey)
Typology: apartment
Credits
Architecture, construction management: Antonino Cardillo
Client: Massimiliano Beffa
Building contractor: Galliani & Giorgetti
Masonry: Ripan Michele
Plaster: Julian Paraschiv
Logistics: Giorgio Giorgetti
Painting: Petrica Rotaru
Electrical system: Luca Camai
Plumbing, clima system: Emiliano Proietto
Cement: Elio Martorana, Michele Martorana
Parquet: Style Maison
Marbles, stones: Daniele Ghirardi (Ghirardi Stone Contractor)
Curtains: Pasquale Lo Guercio
Tables design: Antonino Cardillo
Chair design: Kazuhide Takahama
Sofa design: Piero Lissoni
Bookcase design: Giuseppe Bavuso
Handle: GIL (via Handles Rome)
Lamps: Armand Darot
Photography, poem, text: Antonino Cardillo
Translation: Charles Searson
Thanks to Ana Araujo
Reference
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Zur Farbenlehre, J.G. Cotta, Tübingen, 1810; En. ed. Charles Lock Eastlake [1840], Theory of Colours, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, MA, 1970, p. 31.
In 2012, at the request of Massimiliano Beffa, his former partner, Antonino Cardillo revisited his Rome apartment and designed the House of Dust, a jewel of contemporary architecture that captured the attention of his entire profession, as evidenced by the many articles published on his work by Dezeen, Architects’ Journal Specification and even The Journal of Architecture.
It instantly brought back memories of the best postmodern, neoclassical architecture that I was revisiting at the time—Bofill, Moneo, Tusquets—but with a more personal and very contemporary view.
Cardillo breaks boundaries, shatters familiar patterns and infuses his works with a unique individual character with a new language based on classical principles. However, it is quite clear that this new aesthetic language is not easy to digest and understand, and is not intended for everyone, it is very far from the mainstream, deep, different and different, in the way of groundbreaking works.
Trend, no. 141, Tel Aviv, March 2014, p. 180. (he)
The architect has managed to create a flat with solid materials […] that processes the history of architecture and the very particular history of the city of Rome in its own unique way.
AIT Magazin, No. 3/14, Leinfelden‑Echterdingen, March 2014, pp. 120‑125. (de)
In connecting architecture to the realm of the haptic, both on a more tactile, micro scale (ceiling) and on a more visual, macro scale (arches), Cardillo’s architecture promotes the sensorial mobilisation envisioned by Benjamin as a potential force for social/political transformation. It also responds to Rilke’s call for an intensification of the senses as the only possible antidote to human suffering and violence. It is a hopeful piece that suggests that architecture still holds the power to awaken our senses and emotions for a deeper, more intimate and fulfilling engagement with the world.
The Journal of Architecture, vol. 19, no. 1, RIBA, London, Jan. 2014, p. 15. (en)
Doing a house up entirely in earth tones would be pretty ill-advised 99 percent of the time, but in the right hands the effect can be nothing short of arresting.
In place of abundant natural light and designer furnishings are gloomy cavernous spaces characterized by a grainy ceiling of pozzolanic plaster, tinted the colour of dust.
An apartment interior in Rome’s Via Veneto, glamorised by Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, the House of Dust serves as an ideal springboard for fanciful lighting effects and architectural narrative.
As one of the world’s most exciting architects, Antonino Cardillo draws on classical and ancient architectural forms to create spaces that feel entirely new.
For the architect, architecture becomes interesting where it “becomes invisible or hides something” and exists on the border “to the dream”—with his House of Dust he has precisely realised this into reality.
designlines.de, BauNetz, Berlin, 13 Aug. 2013. (de, en, it)
Italian architect Antonino Cardillo used roughly textured plaster to create lumpy brown surfaces across the upper walls and ceilings of this apartment in Rome.
A side entrance reveals a hall that, like a Greek mask suddenly worn by the visitor, projects and draws attention onto two tapered windows: a pair of eyes on the world.
Casamica, no. 3/13, Corriere della Sera, Milan, June 2013, p. 77. (en, it)
At the invitation of curator Gaia Maria Lombardo, Cardillo guided the visitors through the House of Dust, part of the Open House Rome 2023 program. The work also celebrates the opening day of the Festival by also hosting the first of nine ‘Nine by Night’ aperitifs.
At the invitation of curator Diego Grammatico, Cardillo talked about his relationship between video games and architecture in the conference ‘From Zak McKracken to House of Dust’, part of a panel for the Rome Video Game Lab festival of the Istituto Luce at the Cinecittà Studios.
Palazzo dell’Arte, Triennale di Milano, 2 April–12 September 2016
The curator Beppe Finessi exhibited the House of Dust among the fifty representative Italian interior architecture projects from 1925 to 2016, part of the ‘Rooms. Novel Living Concepts’ exhibition at the Palazzo dell’Arte of the Triennale di Milano.
At the invitation of Professors Ana Araujo and Takero Shimazaki, and student Alexandra Savtchenko-Belskaia, Cardillo spoke about the House of Dust, part of the Intermediate Unit 2 course of the Architectural Association School of Architecture.
Antonino Cardillo, ‘House of Dust’ (pdf), Open House Roma, area 3, ed. Gaia Maria Lombardo, Rome, Sept. 2021, p. 16.
Antonino Cardillo, ‘A synchronicity of cultures and civilisations’, paper presented to the Dessauer Gespräche, ed. Johannes Kister, Hochschule Anhalt, Dessau Institute of Architecture, 13 Nov. 2019. https://www.antoninocardillo.com/en/anthology/of-the-architect/articles/a-synchronicity-of-cultures-and-civilisations/
Antonino Cardillo, ‘Da Zak McKracken ad House of Dust’, lecture presented to the Rome Video Game Lab, cur. Diego Grammatico, Giovanna Marinelli, Istituto Luce Cinecittà, Roma, 11 May 2019. https://www.antoninocardillo.com/en/anthology/of-the-architect/articles/from-zak-mckracken-to-house-of-dust/
Kerstin Schultz, Hedwig Wiedemann-Tokarz, Eva Maria Herrmann, ‘Inherent color and material color’[↗] [abstract], in Thinking Color in Space, Birkhäuser, Berlin‑Boston, Dec. 2018, pp. 342‑343.
Beppe Finessi, ‘Storie di altre stanze’ (pdf), in ‘Stanze. Altre Filosofie dell’Abitare’, exhib. cat., ed. Beppe Finessi, Marsilio, Milan, Sept. 2016, pp. 169, 283.
Carolin Höfler, ‘Hyper desire’ (pdf),[↗] paper presented to the Wunsch, Technische Hochschule Köln, Cologne, 1 June 2016.
Carolin Höfler, ‘Modelle in Wirklichkeit. Die digitalen Bildversprechen von Antonino Cardillo’, paper presented to the Constructed Realities, ed. Chris Dähne, Frederike Lausch, Bettina Rudhof, Goethe‑Universität, Deutsche Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, 1 Dec. 2015. https://www.antoninocardillo.com/en/anthology/on-the-architect/mirrors/models-in-reality/
Antonino Cardillo, ‘Faked reality’, paper presented to the Constructed Realities, ed. Chris Dähne, Frederike Lausch, Bettina Rudhof, Goethe‑Universität, Deutsche Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, 1 Dec. 2015. https://www.antoninocardillo.com/en/anthology/of-the-architect/articles/faked-reality/
Sophia Klinkenberg, ‘Body building: Second skin’, in Being in shape / shaping environments, thesis, Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, The Hague, May 2015.
Francesca Gottardo, ‘Architettura di polvere’ (pdf) [contents], Abitare la Terra, no. 37, dir. Paolo Portoghesi, Rome, March 2015, pp. 50‑53.
