Villa San Michele at Capri – a House with a distinct home for "Genius Loci"

Anna Marie Fisker, Mads Harder Danielsen

Publikation: Bidrag til bog/antologi/rapport/konference proceedingKonferenceartikel i proceedingForskningpeer review

Abstract

To address the relationship between House & Home from a theoretical perspective we set out on an journey towards Southern Europe; seeking answers to how a fellow Scandinavian here constructed a house, that was built of "Roba di Tiberio" - columns, capitals, fragments of statues - that was dug up on the spot.

When we approached Capri by crossing the Neapolitan bay the first thing our eyes saw was the chapel of San Michele resting high above the blue waters at the top of the steep cliffs - on the edge of the abyss. This place is also the location of the Egyptian Sphinx, half lion, half woman; in a transient moment of clarity we had seen her face in our dreams.

Capri was the place where eccentrics and wealthy fantasists could exorcize their demons: Goethe, Rilke and Nietzsche loved Capri. The island described by the Scandinavian poet Hans Christian Andersen visiting the Blue Grotta, the personal swimming hole of the Roman emperor Tiberius, as a “Fairy World”, was also the stupendous home of Axel Munthe.

At Villa San Michele, entering through the beautiful loggias and the long row of arcades to the chapel that Munthe also restored, our eyes first felt the enigma of the spirit of the place - we wanted to know what happened.

When Tiberius lived in his home on the island, the sphinx was already 1000 years old. Now the fantasy creature is on the last outpost of Munthe’s Villa San Michele where it lays majestic, at home, as the guardian spirit of the place – genius loci.

It is our thesis that the spirit of the place adjoins a metaphysical core of architecture; and as the very core of architecture could be connected to an absolute truth so it seems that genius loci is related to truth; even though it is a truth that is not directly visible. We ask in this paper if it is a truth that is perennially present? And furthermore with which eyes are we to see this truth? Nietzsche was concerned with truth and the eyes that recognize truth: “There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.”

Let us enhance with the gaze of the Sphinx. For Nietzsche, the Sphinx becomes not the symbol of truth but of “truth”. The will to truth tempts us to many a hazardous enterprise. It is, says Nietzsche, the Sphinx who asks us questionable questions.

That day at Villa San Michele we felt the enigma of the spirit of the place, but if we are going to hear the Sphinx ask us questions, all these riddling puzzles, we first have to ask the Sphinx to know how to ask questions. That genius loci are present in architectural theory owes much to the Scandinavian theoretician and architect Christian Norberg-Schulz, who emphasized considerations to the specific characteristics and atmosphere of a place. Is the atmosphere of Villa San Michele thus the key word in the understanding of the physical and metaphysical levels and layers of architectural language in this home of archaeological origin?

We focus in our paper with these theoretical views on Villa San Michele through an architectural lens and perspective within the frames of House&Home on the language of architecture, and ask; can we explain the language of genius loci in Villa San Michele? Can we hereby clearly see how Axel Munthe - who was not an architect – could build a house at the very core of architecture and create a home caught between reality and dream?
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TitelHouse & Home from a Theoretical Perspective
Antal sider10
ForlagDAKAM Digital Library
Publikationsdato2012
Sider222-231
StatusUdgivet - 2012
BegivenhedArchtheo '12 : Theory of architecture conference - Istanbul, Tyrkiet
Varighed: 31 okt. 20123 nov. 2012

Konference

KonferenceArchtheo '12
Land/OmrådeTyrkiet
ByIstanbul
Periode31/10/201203/11/2012

Bibliografisk note

Proceedings endnu ikke udgivet

Emneord

  • Villa San Michele
  • Genius Loci
  • Christian Norberg-Schulz
  • Axel Munthe
  • Capri

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