Built on Rocks by Yuhan Zhang

Built on

Rocks

When it comes to nature, Hunt’s theory of three natures can be referenced here: the First Nature refers to the unmediated, primal nature, which we often call “wilderness”; the Second Nature refers to man-made “cultural landscape” within the natural world, such as agriculture, urban development; the Third Nature refers to human interventions that go beyond essential needs, relating to an aesthetic or psychological aspect.1 Rock, formed by solid aggregation of minerals in our natural environment, is a basic element of the First Nature. It is the most durable, and perhaps the most untamable element in our natural landscape when it comes to human intervention. However, it is also the original building material used by human to serve as protection from severe climate and other danger, either in the form of a cave or a shelter made of assembled field stones. Rock became stone when it was shaped to human’s needs, and it was later elaborated to satisfy man’s artistic expression*. Unlike earth, plants and water, the existence of rock reminds people of an unshakable wilderness for the effort it requires for both its formation and demolition. A direct conversation between the First Nature and Third Nature is created when the man-made, aesthetical architecture sits on the rocks, without being in a medium of Second Nature. For this reason, the architectures included here are not buildings built by stones, but with a more intense relationship with rocks. It is trying to explore how architects negotiate with the landscape of rocks since ancient times to the modern age, and fundamentally show their attitudes towards nature that are embodied in these design moves.

1. Hunt, John Dixon, “The Idea of a Garden and the Three Natures,” in Greater Perfections, Philadelphia, 2000, 32-75.

INTRODUCTON

This book is a collection of architecture that deals with rocks as natural landscape.

villa jovis 6

grotta di sperlonga 8

casa malaparte 10

taliesin 12

fallingwater 14

Leรงa Swimming Pool 16

the high desert house 18

petter dass museum 20

lĂš chatarme transformation 22

villa chams 24

cana guesthouse 26

sharaan resort 28

Villa Jovis is one of the twelve Roman palaces on the island of Capri, southern Italy, built by emperor Tiberius after he retreated from Rome. It was completed in AD 27 and Tiberius mainly ruled from there until his death ten years later1. Villa Jovis is the largest of the twelve Tiberian villas on Capri mentioned by Tacitus and only three of them remained recognizable today. Situated in the very northeast of the island atop Monte Tiberio, the palace sits on the peak of the rocky landscape of Capri. To ensure the safety of the emperor, the site was chosen at a very secluded spot on the island and the emperor’s room in the northeast of the palatial villa were particularly difficult to reach thanks to the steep landscape of Capri2. The north and east wing of the building contained the living quarters with private residences and audience rooms, while the south wing was mainly served for administrative use. The west wing featured an extensive open-air promenade (ambulatio) which offered a scenic view towards the ocean. As water was difficult to come by where the villa was built and Capri lacked natural springs, an intricate system was constructed for the collection of rainwater and a large cistern was built to supply the palace with fresh water. As we can see from the imaginary drawing (image 3) of the villa at that time, the base of it steadily grows out from the rocks where the boundary is blurred. Alongside the cliff it also formed a meandering path circulating around the villa. Since there is no discernable axis to the villa, the landscape of rocks might have become the rule of organization for the villa, allowing it to fit well with the natural landscape.

1. Atlas Obscura. “The Lost Villa and Grotto of Emperor Tiberius.” Accessed December 24, 2020. http://www.atlasobscura. com/places/villa-and-grotto-of-tiberius. 2. “VILLA JOVIS,” n.d. https://www.zaw.uni-heidelberg.de/hps/klarch/institut/villa_jovis.htm.

01 Villa Jovis

3. 7

Grotto Di Sperlonga is a summer villa/dining space built for Roman Emperor Tiberius alongside with his other villas in the Naples region. It is transformed from a natural cave on the seashore into imperial dining hall with a triclinium just to escape from the heat during summer time. Grottoes are generally made up of limestones where the acidity of water has partially dissolved the inner rocks, creating a carved interior and small fissures for spring water. There is a large rectangular pool in front of the cave, which contains meticulously constructed baths as shown in the ruins and lots of channels and outlets to allow the water to exit1. Besides the natural material of the cave, the Grotta was decorated with mosaics and amphorae, trying to balance the wilderness of the cave with the delicacy of arts and decorations. Moreover, Tiberius filled this grotto with numerous sculptures perhaps to channel Polyphemus’ cave in the Odyssey. Some argue he was trying to create a sense of mythology by placing the artistic work directly into the natural landscape. Nonetheless, the cave itself create a sense of security and mystery at the same time, sheltering people with its darkness. He further used the natural spring and water as a stage set for the dining and performances.

1. “Tiberius’ Villa | VisitLazio,” October 22, 2018. https://www.visitlazio.com/web/en/luoghi/tiberius-villa/.

02 Grotta Di Sperlonga

Architect: Adalberto Libera/ Curzio Malaparte Year: 1937

Casa Malaparte is an isolated house built on the island of Capri for the Italian writer and journalist Curzio Malaparte. It is situated above a 32-meter cliff overlooking the Gulf of Salerno. The final design was actually made by Malaparte himself, with the help of a local stone man Adolfo Amitrano1. It is definitely a modern architecture, but it has a strong Italian taste to it. Malaparte refused to use any raw/ white concrete as in international style, but chose Pompeii red exterior paint. The color sets it apart from its surrounding, giving it a plastic quality of an object. The mostly orthogonal geometry of the house regulates the order the project rather than its context. As many other modern houses, especially the international style, it generates a sense of monumentality by imposing its unassociated architectural language to its surrounding landscape. However, the house was also built with local stones extracted from the cliff itself. The pyramid-shaped grand staircase leading to the rooftop helps break down the volume and continues the hill slope to a higher level, as if the house emerged from the landscape. The result of the juxtaposition creates a strong, yet harmonious relationship between the house and its natural environment. The singular, extruded mass with apparent red color also makes more sense at the site as it creates a sense of loneliness that is pursued by Malaparte, as he wrote: “Now I live on an island, in an austere and melancholy house, which I built myself on a lonely cliff above the sea. [It is] the image of my desire.” 2

1. ArchDaily. “AD Classics: Villa Malaparte / Adalberto Libera,” January 4, 2016. https://www.archdaily.com/777627/architecture-classics-villa-malaparte-adalberto-libera. 2. “Casa Malaparte.” Accessed December 24, 2020. http://architectuul.com/architecture/casa-malaparte.

03 Casa Malaparte

Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright Year: 1911-1959

Taliesin was designed by Wright as his own studio and estate in Spring Green, Wisconsin, after he decided to move out from the urban environment of Chicago. Taliesin marked a new era for Wright as he could design without the boundary of grids in the city, and when he began to incorporate naturalism into his design. In terms of the site selection, he not only chose to build in the river valley countryside, but specifically chose a rocky low hill overlooking the Wisconsin River. In his perspective, the hill came first and the house and the studio were just accommodating to the existing landscape. The plan of the house followed the contours of the hill, embracing it with a three-sided enclosure. Wright also wanted the house to look like the hillside in terms of its elevation and material selection. According to Wright, he “scanned the hills of the region where the rock came cropping out in strata to suggest buildings”.1 Moreover, he studied and reinterpreted the “outcropping ledges in the facades of the hills” for all the stonework in the house. In the case of Taliesin, stones are widely used as an inspiration and continuation from the natural rocks. The stones used in the project also acted as a camouflage and a buffer between the natural landscape and the house. Therefore, Taliesin becomes an incident in the landscape, with a system of order that is developed from nature. Nonetheless, Taliesin did not take any natural pattern literally or illustratively, which emphasized its groundbreaking importance in terms of dealing with nature in modernity.

1. Levine, Neil. “6. Representation without History in the Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.” In Modern Architecture: Representation & Reality. Yale University Press, 2017. https://www-aaeportal-com.yale.idm.oclc.org/.

04 Taliesin

3. 13

Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright Year: 1935

Fallingwater was designed by Wright as a weekend villa for Kaufmann’s family at Mill Run, Pennsylvania. Not only the best-known work of Wright, it is also a huge step forward for Wright’s experiment with nature. From the very beginning, Wright chose the site purposefully to be right upon the stream, rather than facing the waterfall as the client expected. Rock and water are the two main elements of the project. Cantilevering the villa from the opposite side of the cliff, Wright sees the villa as “an extension of the cliff beside a mountain stream” that would grow out of the boulders in the streambed.1 In fact, he used the local stones quarried within 200 meters of the villa to form the only vertical element of the house – the core and the load-bearing piers. Other rocks in the streambed were kept untouched, directly covered by the building envelope in the first floor. They were treated as an inert material that holds static in the quick flow of water. As water is mostly moving horizontally, Wright used the stack of horizontal trays formed by reinforced concrete, which is mostly living space, to represent the water theme. As you can see in image 2, the material of the floor is a reflective flagstone that is especially waxed to keep shiny. The naturally wrinkled texture also made the floor resemble the rippling effect of water, which directly contrasts with the unreflective, rather absorptive rocks that anchored in the living room. It forms a perfect metaphor, or abstraction of the whole villa on the Bear Run stream. In the design of Fallingwater, Wright explores the dynamic effects brought by the combination of moving water and static rocks, and the villa will be an embodiment of the natural growth and erosion in built form over time. The representation of nature as an active, changing phenomenon implies Wright’s owe and affinity towards the First Nature. Fallingwater definitely evokes a harmony in the transition from First Nature to Third Nature, while creates a sense of timelessness that transcends the material present.

05 Fallingwater

Architect: Álvaro Siza Year: 1966

Leça Swimming Pool complex has established itself as one of the greatest early works of Siza, and an example of architect’s careful reconciliation between existing natural landscape and built structure. The site of the Leça Swimming Pool is at the Leça de Palmeira beaches on the northern coastline of Matosinhos, Portugal, which is very close to where Siza was born. He showed a profound understanding and tremendous respect towards the natural rocky coastline landscape. It is in the very beginning that Siza decided to make a minimal intrusion into the existing rock terrain in order to preserve the landscape and limit the cost of construction. He spent days marking the location of the existing rock formations, which led his design to form a intricate balance between the nature and man-made. Siza tried to create a disconnection between the pool complex and the urban context by hiding the building behind the road. After a narrow and gradually sunken entrance, people enter with a clear transformation from Second Nature to a combination of First Nature and Third Nature. Then led by the raw concrete walls which has a slightly lighter shade than the natural rocks, people are guided towards the pool, and to the the ocean which is visually connected. A seamless transition between man-made and nature is also made possible by the continuity of the concrete walls. Both the adult swimming pool and the children’s pool are made of low concrete walls, bound on the natural rock formations that spread along the edges of the pools. A strict orthogonal system is deliberately intervened by the diagonal circulation and the organic boundary of the rocks. The volumes of architecture are silently integrated into the landsacape, taking advantage of the naturally sunken rocky terrain that embeds basins of ocean water. The Leça Swimming Pool demonstrated Siza’s extraordinary ability to discover, reveal and blend with the natural context.

1. Divisare. “Álvaro Siza Vieira, Atelier XYZ · Leça Swimming Pool.” Accessed December 23, 2020. https://divisare.com/projects/336380-alvaro-siza-vieira-atelier-xyz-leca-swimming-pool.

06 Leça Swimming Pool

3. 17

Architect: Kendrick Bangs Kellogg Year: 1988 – 2015

The High Desert House started with a letter Kellogg received from his artist friends, asking him to design a residence near the edge of Joshua Tree National Park in California desert. He was immediately intrigued by the site, especially after seeing how it is nestled within a cluster of massive boulders in the middle of the desert. Given carte blanche, Kellogg spent almost 10 years designing and constructing the house overlooking the Californian desert, and it became one of the most important organic architecture in the U.S.. Another 14 years were spent in designing the interior of the house. The interior furniture and decorations are all hand-made natural materials that grow out of the site and the building, rather than separate objects brought from other places. According to Kellogg, his original idea was that “the house would be settled in the landscape, like it was crouching on the rocks, maybe like an animal asleep”.1 He successfully achieved that by creating a fluid horizontal roofscape that sits in the middle of the more vertically piled desert rocks. The cluster of roofs are formed by a continuation of 26 enormously cantilevered concrete columns that dug 7 feet into the bedrock, and there is no addition of partition walls other than the glass panels connecting all the columns. The porous design allow infiltration of natural light and a beautiful night sky view for almost every room. Although Kellogg did not work with Wright, he was a believer in Wright’s perspective on organic architecture that inspired him to pursue it into another level. One major difference in his work is the use of endless curves, that allow spaces flow into each other seamlessly. While one might argue the curvilinear form made the house a bit alienated and futuristic, it did a wonderful job echoing with the rounded rocks behind weathered in the desert climate.

1. IGNANT. “Kendrick Bangs Kellogg’s Aesthetically Fearless High Desert House,” September 3, 2018. https://www.ignant. com/2018/09/03/kendrick-bangs-kelloggs-aesthetically-fearless-high-desert-house/.

07 The High Desert House

Architect: Snøhetta Year: 2007

Petter Dass is one of the most important national poets in Norway. The museum, sited in Alstahaug, Norway is dedicated to his influence in the past and present. Unlike most other architects in this book, Snøhetta chose to make a straight cut in the coastal hill, leaving a void that was filled by the freestanding building mass. The straight cut left with two 70-meter long rock walls that sits 15.5 meters apart, setting up a new boundary for the building. The architects chose to make the building 11.5 meters wide, so a space in between the rock walls and the architecture is left for circulation and visual corridor. Between the walls, a new ground level is established, creating a space for unobtrusive relationship to the historical site while allowing an expressive form gesture. As Snøhetta describes “At the east end of the exhibition room, one can look down on the historical church green, while to the west, one is confronted by the timelessness of the great coastal landscape. In this way, the building combines – as Petter Dass did in his writing – “earth and sky, past and present.”1 An interesting dialogue also happen in the confrontation of materials between the existing landscape the built structure. On one side of the gap, the smoothly cut dark rock walls echo with the metal shingles. On the other side, the transparent glass façade lights up the lighter colored rock surface. Under the cantilevered roof, one can also see the light grey tiles matching with the bare rock on the ground, offering a natural canopy that blend into the surroundings. In this way, the new museum become a man-made newborn object on the historical natural landscape, connecting the history to the present.

1. “Petter Dass Museum.” Accessed December 24, 2020. /projects/38-petter-dass-museum. 2. Arch2O.com. “Petter Dass Museum | Snøhetta,” June 14, 2016. https://www.arch2o.com/petter-dass-museum-snohetta/.

08 Petter Dass Museum

3. 21

Architect: Deschenaux Follonier Year: 2020

The renovation project is located at the bottom of the Val d’Hérens valley in Southern Switzerland, with 1850 m in altitude. The original construction of the house started in 1860, since when it has provided shelter for its owner to graze his cows for several months of a year. The renovation is aimed to open its potential for guest reception and vacation living with enhanced comfort level. According to the team of Deschenaux Follonier, the rocky topography that formed an imposing boundary line for the houses became one of the main themes of the transformation. As adjacent as the building is to the shear wall of rocks, the architects choose not to impose the building on the rock, destroy it, nor taking it in. Instead, the wall of rocks only got stabilized, and a raw concrete wall of the building stands parallel to the rocks, leaving a delicate gap in between. The volume of the building, topped by the stone-tiled roof, silently rises alongside the rock without touching it. While a confrontation between man-made and the wilderness is made, the tension is harmonized by the gap left in between the two, as the team explains “the concrete is distinct from the rock, yet they share a same mineral nature. Their unity is expressed even by the color of the iron oxide of the rock, which is recalled by the wooden window frames.”1 An interior view of the window above the sink, directly looking into the wall of rocks. The complexity of the texture is as beautiful as a painting, as it contrasts with the simple materiality of the concrete interior wall. Nature around the house, if not treated at a higher level, is at least equal to the architecture. The architects have successfully renovated this farm house to become a vacation home in solidarity with nature.

1. Divisare. “DESCHENAUX FOLLONIER, Joël Tettamanti · Lù Chatarme Transformation.” Accessed December 24, 2020. https://divisare.com/projects/433610-deschenaux-follonier-joel-tettamanti-lu-chatarme-transformation.

09 Lù Chatarme Transformation

3. 23

Architect: Carl Gerges Year: 2020

Carl Gerges is an architect and musician of Lebanon who just officially launched his studio this year, with two finished residences that both deal with a rocky landscape. Villa Chams is located in Baalbek, Lebanon, the area of the country with the most arid climate and the most historical landscape. The site featured a natural landscape of bare rocks and desert plants, and a cultural landscape of ancient Roman temples. The structure is rather humble from the outside, the horizontal long span of roof blends into a background of rocks, cactus, olive trees and distant mountains. The columns connected with the exposed beams, form a wall of a rhythm when look more closely. The rhythm is defined in a grid system and it is vertically shown by the gaps between the columns, sometimes enclosed , sometimes open, creating an array of spatial qualities filtering natural light, wind and water. The terrazzo beneath the swimming pool, along with natural aggregation of minerals, is a continuation of nature from outside to inside. The water flows through the concrete columns as river flows through rock beds, and guide people’s look towards the plants, the mountains and the sky in afar. The project incorporates almost all the elements in the natural environment, creating a sensory connection with nature in a harmonious and tranquil way.

1. ArchDaily. “Villa Chams / Carl Gerges Architects,” June 29, 2020. https://www.archdaily.com/942494/villa-chams-carl-gerges-architects.

10 Villa Chams

Architect: Carl Gerges Year: 2020

Cana Guesthouse is located in Banadoun, Lebanon, where is famous for a mosaic of grey and yellow limestone that formed in thousands of years standing erosion. The house is a one bedroom guesthouse that mainly used to serve vocational living and some small events. The house sits silently at the bottom of the natural rock boulders. The solid retaining wall, extends to the faĂ§ade of the building which also made of stones, almost hide the whole volume of the house underneath the boulder. Upon entering through a monolithic corridor hiding in the shadow, people would be immediately surprised by the ample sunlight casting from the inner courtyard, connecting to the living room and kitchen with fully open sliding doors. The gravel in the courtyard lead people seamlessly to the wall of natural rocks that are left untouched just in a few meters away. Natural lighting creates a smooth gradient that immediately merged the indoor with the outdoor. Besides the living room is a tunnel entrance to the wine cellar which is the only part of the house that carved from beneath the rocks. There is also a James Turrell moment that the vaulted tunnel has a circular skylight, giving the space an mediative ambiance. An unexpectedly warmly inhabitable stone monolith, this sanctuary fosters a physical and mental retreat in close relation to a giant mass of rock aggregation, evoking a contrast of coldness and warmth, stability and dynamics, and inviting stories from a distant time and place.

1. ArchDaily. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cana Guesthouse / Carl Gerges Architects,â&#x20AC;? November 9, 2020. https://www.archdaily.com/951061/cana-guesthouse-carl-gerges-architects.

11 Cana Guesthouse

Architect: Jean Nouvel Year: 2020, unbuilt

The last project is an envisionary resort in Sharaan Nature Reserve, Arabia, designed by Jean Nouvel. The resort is designed to be hidden within the rock dwellings of AlUla, a cultural oasis in north-west Arabia. The client has envisioned the area to become a future center for world leaders and attracting 2 million visitors annually. Jean Nouvel intends to create a contextual architecture that “will take visitors on a vivid sensory and emotional journey through time, ushering in a new era in design where every future detail will tell a story of the landscape’s past”1. The architect regards AIUIa as a museum itself, given consideration to every stretch of sand and rocky outline, every geological and archeological site in the very beginning. While the gesture is a quite big one, as it is carving out a huge mass within the landscape itself (similar to Peter Dass Museum), architect refers to a typology inspired by the traditional Nabatean’s way of building habitats.2 Each of the suites in the resort will have sandstone walls that are aimed at creating a direct connection with the former Nabataean city. The connection with the rocky landscape is shown in the details as well. Nouvel led his team to imagine the resort’s possibilities with the existing rock formations by looking at the details of the striations and edge conditions of the rocks. They designed numerous solids, hollows, and lattice-like moucharaby patterns to carve out roofs, windows, walls so that as much natural light could filter through the space as possible, increasing the visitor’s connection with nature. Nouvel realized the natural rock “was already architecture, sculpted by the wind,” and all he needed to do was to let the walls follow the natural undulation embedded within the existing rocks.2 He tried to draw attention of the guests to the sensory nature of living in the rocks of desert, and contrasting it with a modern living of soft interior furniture. 1. designboom | architecture & design magazine. “Jean Nouvel to Sculpt ‘sharaan’ Resort and Hotel in Saudi Arabia,” October 27, 2020. https://www.designboom.com/architecture/jean-nouvel-sharaan-saudi-arabia-subterranean-resort-hotel-10-27-2020/. 2. Suri, Charu. “Jean Nouvel Explains His Latest Design—A Resort Hidden Within the Rocks of Saudi Arabia.” Architectural Digest. Accessed December 24, 2020. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/jean-nouvel-explains-latest-design-resorthidden-within-rocks-saudi-arabia.

12 Sharaan Resort