Experiments by Antonino Cardillo

Many young architects, supported by solid theoretical approaches and a willingness to experiment, define interesting formal solutions, sometimes with complex and innovative processes that, however, are only virtually verified thanks to current 3D modelling tools. Often these are self-commissions that respond to a predefined functional program but are hardly able to pass the concrete test of the construction site.

Essentially, on this plane lie the first design experiences of Antonino Cardillo, such as the two houses presented here, Ellipse and Twelve, although they are two proposals imagined for a specific context and a determined clientele. In these two projects, a strong poetic sensitivity emerges, consciously combining morphological research and dialogue with history, notably the Avant-garde of the Modern Movement and the more experimental lines of the contemporary. His training at the school of Antonietta Iolanda Lima provided a solid starting foundation.

However, few young architects, even from the first concrete tests, succeed in translating the spatial articulation and compositional richness of forms into the operational-executive plan, without losing the purity of the theoretical-experimental approach. When all this is achieved, it appears almost miraculous, especially if one respects the ruthless logic of the building market, which demands maximum adherence to procedures, budgets, and execution timelines (in one case, a work by Cardillo was realised in just 10 days).

The two experimental houses are useful for understanding his poetic and conceptual horizon: the operational field can be summarised in the identification of energetic lines that animate composition and space (centrifugal forces that project curved planes into the landscape, transforming the continuity of the ellipse into an open nautilus), in the use of hierarchical space (lowered and contracted or with double-height voids), in the use of scenic devices with opposing backdrops (massive and transparent) and perceptual transfers, in the combination of free and Euclidean geometries, and in the valorisation of contrapuntal elements.

Without any loss of tension, all the theoretical-conceptual apparatus tested in the two concept houses is found in the two realised works; indeed, in the realisation phase, a process of sign distillation and method systematisation occurs, making the language clearer and stronger. Some typological anomalies also disappear; a condition that is perhaps inevitable when dealing with ambivalent morphological themes between the private dimension of residence and the public space.

In the first realised work, the Nomura 24 House in Osaka Bay, Japan, Antonino Cardillo reinterprets with Western sensitivity the theme of the traditional Japanese house, proposing a process of hybridisation between the two dwelling cultures. He implements a process of manipulating specialised components, a fusion that generates an identity value; for example, between the genkan, their typical entrance, and our porch; between the washitsu, the tatami room bordered by sliding walls, and our living room; between their propensity to create intimate spaces with contained heights and an open vision with full-height rooms and inclined roofs.

The common factor can be found in the essentiality of forms and treatments, natural materials, and essential details. The white faceted morphology that fits into the green hill, clearly reminiscent of the rarefied languages of the MM, explicitly references Japanese tradition and Mediterranean culture, to which Antonino is strongly linked, being Sicilian.

To capture the various landscape and contextual relationships, the author relies on the ‘skilful play’ of multidirectional planes and volumes subjected to the effects of light. The chiaroscuro values are accentuated thanks to the monochromatic white and are exalted in the combinations and variations of the palimpsest of openings.

Even more continuity with the theoretical experimentation phase is found in the interior design project for the flagship store in Milan. Resulting from a consultation promoted by the magazine Wallpaper*, it is interesting for both the outcomes and the procedure: a temporary setup had to be created in 60 sqm with a limited budget and a very short execution time (ten days).

Antonino Cardillo, through a sort of inverted scenography, managed to completely transform the store’s image without distorting its functional structure.

He worked first by subtraction, tracing the original spatial values: thus, the mezzanine returns to being an element of measure of the double-height void, and the twin column reappears as a tectonic emergency, abstract and valued as an archaeological preexistence.

Playing on stratifications, Cardillo inserts a parallelepiped defined by a simple balloon frame and discontinuous panelling, a full-empty that creates multiple perceptions from inside to outside and vice versa. The theme of the house within a house and the internal space that is external to itself has traversed the entire history of architecture, from the Roman continuum to Ungers, passing through Alberti and Bramante.

Antonino Cardillo refers to this as an “act of layering meanings within the same identity nucleus, and a play of references between ideal and real orders.”

The internal volume is simultaneously an enucleated and human-scaled place, thanks to the use of domestic furnishings, equipment, and non-technological materials (old simply upholstered armchairs, recycled Joe Colombo lamps, coffee tables, exposed fluorescent tubes and incandescent lamps); in part, it is engaging and made intriguing by a potential urban voyeuristic value. In the play of deliberate ambiguities, reversals, and crossings between interiors and exteriors, the architect explores the expressive potential of the theatrical scene, a citation made evident by the large curtain behind the frames, which alludes to a stage curtain. Views overlap, dialoguing with the urban backdrop and the different identities of the place: from the medieval Church of Carmine to the decorative Art Nouveau fragments.