Le case che siamo by Luca Molinari

Artwork by Beatrice Piccardi

The democratic house

"The twentieth century taught us to live in increasingly dense and vertical environments. At one time the heights were exclusive to gods and kings, but the last century has also made access to heaven democratic: the balcony overlooking the gulf for thousands of people has become a right ratified by building speculation. And the modernist maxim of climbing in height so as not to consume territory is perhaps one of the lessons not to be forgotten in the new century. Our metropolises are growing by vertical summations in which hanging gardens and public spaces are placed tens of meters high in the heart of architectures imagined accommodating more and more people and functions. Madrid, Singapore, Amsterdam, Hong Kong were among the pioneer cities in welcoming these social experiments which, despite the alluring and updated design of the architecture, still stink terribly of the twentieth century. A dream for designers and trade magazines, a nightmare for those who live there who do not resign themselves to corridors tens of meters long, to doors and windows all the same, to cuts of accommodation that are children of the most extreme prefabrication."

 The solid house

"The single-family house becomes progressively a perfect representation of the way in which individual taste is multiplied without limit in the world. Each house is in the image and likeness of its owner and his wishes. Each garden, veranda, gate, decoration, choice of color and language, is commanded solely from the inside, by the eyes, hands and wishes of the owners. In this house the sense of urban presence is hidden it is no longer the body that contributes to the overall design of the city, but becomes an autonomous, isolated object, fenced."

 

                         The transparent house

"Transparency is one of the obsessives and most unnatural dreams of all modernity. Since iron, steel and concrete began to take the place of stone in the new architecture, the windows have become more and more arrogant until they have conquered the space that was once only the walls."

"But is it possible to live in a glass house? Isn't it a gesture contrary to everything that the house has always represented in man's memory? Doesn't living mean protecting oneself, hiding the hearth, distancing oneself and one's loved ones from looks to disturb the aspirations for absolute transparency of modern architecture, making them clash with the modesty inherent in each of us?"