House of Twelve

It was the ruins of ancient Rome that inspired this project, those unpredictable warps that in the eighteenth century appeared to European travellers on the Grand Tour as fantastic visions. Rather than the historic original, what fascinates still today is this state of progressive destruction that a millennial weather carves in the forms, unveiling obscure recesses. So the ruin tells us of time passing, of slowly dying beauty, and in this its slow decay evokes a transverse narrative, as if trapped between the architecture and its definitive destruction. House of Twelve tries to invent a fantastic response to an interrupted story, following an empirical path made by progressive mutation of contemporary ideas and those of late antiquity, such as the theme of intersecting rings or the horizontal sequence of multiple spaces and forms, concatenated and directed according to a poetic, which unites works of Frank Lloyd Wright with the villa of the emperor Hadrian at Tivoli. Collisions and juxtapositions, furthermore, distant echoes of the American Center by Frank Gehry,⁠^[1] characterise the front and the public space of the house, whose roundnesses appear, from the road, to be deeply sculpted. As well as restoring thickness to the façade, these excavations make it permeable to the winter sun, which reaches to illuminate, with a grazing light, interpreted by the cavities, the courtyards at the rear. In particular, the living space, with its vault in gold mosaic, the ripples of the mirrors of water at the edges and the consequent manifold reflections of light, appears from the main courtyard as a baroque room of light, here reinvented in an urban key.

worldarchitecturenews.com , London, 23 July 2010.

Notes

1. ^ Antonietta Iolanda Lima, ‘Frank O. Gehry. American Center, Parigi’ , dwg. Antonino Cardillo, Testo & immagine, Turin, 1998, pp. 93.

Data

• Time: Dec. 2008‑May 2009
• Place: Kew, Melbourne, Australia
• Area: 500 m² (three storeys)
• Typology: semi-detached house

Credits

• Architecture design: Antonino Cardillo
• Clients: Livio and Nadia De Marchi
• Translation: Charles Searson

Publications

(selected)

• Liliana Adamo, ‘FAKEcollage. Non credo ai miei occhi!’ (pdf), in Dossier Collage, cur. Fabio Cappello, Rossella Ferorelli, Luigi Mandraccio, Gian Luca Porcile, Genova University Press, Genoa, July 2022, pp. 35, 39.
• Kirsten Wenzel, ‘Der Architekt als Maerchenerzaehler’ , competitionline.com, Berlin, 17 Jan. 2019.
• Jeanette Kunsmann, Stephan Burkoff, ‘Architektur und Wahrheit’ (pdf), DEAR Magazin, no. 1, Berlin, Apr. 2017, pp. 68‑85. baunetz-id.de 
• 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 and Bettina Rudhof, Goethe‑Universität, Deutsche Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, 1 Dec. 2015.
• Antonino Cardillo, ‘Faked reality’, paper presented to the Constructed Realities, ed. Chris Dähne, Frederike Lausch and Bettina Rudhof, Goethe‑Universität, Deutsche Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, 1 Dec. 2015.
• Gerard Houllard, ‘Über die mediatisierte Repräsentation von Architektur’ (pdf) , iacsa.eu, vol. 4, no. 1, International Association for Cultural Studies in Architecture, Basel, May 2013, pp. 8‑11.
• Hubertus Adam, ‘Analog/Digital’ (pdf), in S AM, no. 10, Schweizerisches Architekturmuseum, Basel, March 2013, pp. 19, 28.
• Birgit Ochs, ‘Architekturentwürfe: es möchte echt sein’ , Sonntagszeitung, no. 6, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt am Main, 10 Feb. 2013, p. V9.
• Stefano Mirti, Gioia Guerzoni, ‘Siamo specchi l’uno dell’altro’ (pdf), Opere, no. 32, Florence, Oct. 2012, pp. 4, 52‑56.
• Daniel Lordick, ‘Die Entkoppelung von Entwurf und Darstellung’ , Competition, no. 2, Berlin, Oct. 2012, p. 78.
• 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.
• Christian Holl, ‘Alles nur gerendert — und jetzt?’ , german-architects.com, Stuttgart, 29 Aug. 2012.
• Gabriele Detterer, ‘Phantasie und Wirklichkeit’ , Neue Zürcher Zeitung, no. 164, Zurich, 17 July 2012, p. 40.
• Eleonora Carrano, ‘Il caso Cardillo: uno dei 30 architetti più importanti del mondo e l’architettura inesistente’ , amatelarchitettura.com, Rome, 13 July 2012.
• Alessandro Alviani, ‘Cardillo, l’architetto delle case inesistenti’ , La Stampa, vol. 146, no. 182, Turin, 3 July 2012, p. 37.
• Susanne Beyer, ‘Hochstapler: Römische Ruinen’ , Der Spiegel, no. 27/12, Hamburg, 2 July 2012, pp. 3, 121‑123.
• Peter Reischer, ‘Schöner Klonen’ , Falter, no. 19/12, Vienna, 9 May 2012, pp. 30‑31.
• Helen Geng Haizhen, ‘印象派建筑师’ (pdf), Interior Architecture of China, Beijing, Nov. 2011, pp. 40‑43.
• Vertica Dvivedi, ‘Romance with space’ (pdf), Surfaces Reporter, New Delhi, June 2011, pp. 36‑41.
• Massimo Locci, ‘Sperimentazioni di Antonino Cardillo’ (pdf), L’Architetto Italiano, no. 42, Rome, Apr. 2011, pp. 30‑31.
• Antonino Cardillo, ‘Dream architecture: House of Twelve’ (pdf), Dream Homes & Living, Vancouver, Oct. 2010, pp. 20‑21.
• Antonino Cardillo, ‘Values transcending time’ (pdf), build Das Architekten-Magazin, no. 4/10, ed. Ralf Ferdinand Broekman and Olaf Winkler, Wuppertal, Aug. 2010, p. 43.
• Antonino Cardillo, ‘再现远古的经典——12号住宅’ (pdf), Landscape Architect, no. 4/10, Dalian, July 2010, pp. 34‑37.
• Antonino Cardillo, ‘Not exactly a dime a dozen…’ , worldarchitecturenews.com, ed. Siân Disson, London, 23 July 2010.
• Antonino Cardillo, ‘House of Twelve’ (pdf), Schön!, no. 5, ed. Marietta Constantinou, London, March 2010.
• Thomson Carpenter, ‘Physical poetry’ (pdf), DNA, no. 119, Sydney, Dec. 2009, pp. 106‑107.