The first instalment in the ‘For No One’ collection, this elliptical tower embarks on a voyage into the realm of geometry and light. It engages with light to manipulate perception, proposing an exploration of the mutable architecture and its relationship with the changing sky
Work
Antonino Cardillo
Living in deception is easy and is our natural condition, and in truth, this should not trouble us too much. — Javier Marías
Near a rocky slope, behind a thick blanket of pines, lives a house in the shape of a tower. It is not round, but its geometric set-up dilates toward east and west to welcome in the low, warm, extended light of the sun at dawn and dusk. A double wall, made from progressive castings of lightweight concrete, develops the perimeter of an ellipse, supporting, above, a slanting cover. The interstitial void between the two walls comprises the accessory area—stair, boiler, storerooms, cupboard—serving the occupants of the house and contributing to stabilising the temperature of the main hall. Inside, the void is interpreted by means of a cross-sectional system, rotated in plan relative to the main axe of the ellipse; it ordinates volumes which include the bedrooms. All around, deep excavations in the outside wall suggest fleeting routes towards the rocks and the wood on the outside; they break up the sky into quadrants. Over the course of days, nights and seasons, the thick reveals of the windows register the changing colours of the celestial hemisphere. Thus the light of the sky makes a mutable architecture, articulating the passing time. So the light colours the space, and changes with itself. In supporting these changes, the fabric remains in its essence: colourless or tending to grey.
Apart from the involuntary irony that Der Spiegel appears in both impostor stories, once as a prosecutor and once as an accused, they differ fundamentally.
Cardillo has created a labyrinth of truths and illusions. It is a novella with multiple layers. […] There is no one truth—reality: it doesn’t exist. Antonino Cardillo has built it.
DEAR Magazin, no. 1, Berlin, April 2017, p. 84. (de, en, it)
After the representations were revealed as desired pictures, he replied: “Just see it like a literary narrative, […] a fairy tale. It is also not important that things actually happened.”
Konstruierte Realitäten, Goethe‑Universität, Deutsche Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, 1 Dec. 2015. (de, en, it)
In fact, Cardillo is right here at its core, because as this essay also wanted to show, images of unrealised and utopian architectures can become an integral part of architectural history and not insignificantly influence it.
IACSA Newsletter, vol. 4, no. 1, Basel, May 2013, p. 11. (de, en, it)
Cardillo, who meticulously lists all these press reports on his website, only holds up a mirror to architectural media and points out a fundamental problem: How can young architects find clients without having been published?
How do we construct our reality from the material and the imaginary through the media today and what are the consequences? […] If the case of Cardillo now serves to at least seriously discuss one of these questions again, he may have done more for the architectural discourse than those who think they have always known the answer.
german-architects.com, Stuttgart, 29 July 2012. (de, en, it)
Incidentally, architecture has always been ephemeral and virtual, he explains. From Palladio to Schinkel, from Sant’Elia to Mies van der Rohe, architects influenced architectural development and changed reality with ideas in the form of surrogates.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, no. 164, Zurich, 17 July 2012, p. 40. (de, en, it)
When Felix Krull was young, he pondered for a long time whether he should view the world as small or large. According to his “nature”, he later in life “considered the world to be a great and infinitely alluring phenomenon.” He became the happiest impostor in literary history.
Der Spiegel, no. 27/12, Hamburg, 2 July 2012, p. 121. (de, en, it)
An email inquiry pointing out that the architectural photos depicted or submitted are not photos but renderings, receives the terse response: “I am an artist and as an artist I manipulate reality! That’s it!”
Falter, no. 19/12, Vienna, 9 May 2012, p. 31. (de, en, it)
The passing time, however, leaves the interiors the same, creating only a temporary spectacle during which the play of colours and light becomes a space in itself.
Vox Design, no. 8, Warsaw, Feb. 2008, pp. 54‑57. (pl)
Magnetising the eye from the very moment you view the enormous sweeping curves in the living room, the architecture appears to be the harbinger of an epochal change in Italy’s post imperial design history.
Home Review, vol. 6, no. 5, Mumbai, Sept. 2007, p. 60. (en)
Liliana Adamo, ‘FAKEcollage. Non credo ai miei occhi!’ (pdf), in Dossier Collage, cur. Fabio Cappello, Rossella Ferorelli, Luigi Mandraccio, Gian Luca Porcile, Università di Genova, Genoa, July 2022, pp. 35, 39.
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/
Carl Zillich, with Fabrizio Gallanti, Lars Krückeberg, Volkwin Marg, Wolfram Putz, Peter Reischer, Andreas Ruby, Tobias Walliser, Thomas Willemeit, ‘Causa Cardillo: “Geht’s noch ohne Hochstapelei?”’,[↗] bkult.de, Berlin, 10 Sept. 2012.
Peter Reischer, ‘Grandiose Luftschlösser’ (pdf), Am Sonntag, no. 32, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich, 5 Sept. 2012, p. 35.
Antonino Cardillo, ‘Values transcending time’ (pdf), build Das Architekten-Magazin, no. 4/10, ed. Ralf Ferdinand Broekman, Olaf Winkler, Wuppertal, Aug. 2010, p. 46.
