Donatella Mazzoleni » 5.Bodies

Nests.

Houses are sometimes a nest.

• The Meteora monasteries of the Greek hermit monks are like eagles’ nests clinging to the rocky pinnacles

They are sometimes built from interwoven threads, like baskets resting on the ground.

• The communal housing for the large extended families of agricultural workers in the Fu Kken area of China are huge circular crowns made from wood. On the ground floor are the kitchens and communal areas and on the top floor the bedrooms. The ancestors’ temple is in the middle. The furniture (chairs, tables and cradles) are all smaller baskets, woven out of plant materials.

Dens.

Houses are sometimes a den.

• The underground Buddhist temples in Ellora and Ajanta in India, carved out of the basalt rock, are like huge wombs inside the body of mother earth filled with peace and silence.
• An entire city of dens is Petra in Jordan where all the “buildings” are artificial caves and their “facades” are actually high relief sculptures carved out of the mountainsides.

Enclosures.

The house is surrounded by a barrier.

• The monastery complex of St. Catherine at the foot of Mount Oreb, in the Sinai desert, is contained within a surrounding fortified wall.
• Medieval towns or “bourgs” in central Italy are surrounded by walls which mark the boundary between town and countryside, the break between culture and nature.

Enclosures.

Sometimes the enclosures are huge and cruel.

• The Great Wall of China does not mark the boundaries of a place but of a whole land that extends well beyond our perception of space.
• The wall built by Israel around the Palestinian area of the West Bank is 12m high and 700km long and is an insurmountable barrier of racial division.

Bodies.

Houses have a body, which needs to be stable, solid and strong.

• The body of a house is sometimes made from earth. The Ibadite settlements in the M’Zab valley, in Algeria, the castles along the trans-Saharan routes in Mali and large fortified cities in Yemen are all built directly out of the underlying earth.
• The body of a house is sometimes made of stone. In fortifications the stone is bare, displaying all its beauty and power.

Skin.

A house, like the human body, has a skin,

which can be permeable to light to varying degrees, moisture-wicking to varying degrees and decorated  to a varying extent.

• The skin of the Pope’s room in the castle at Avignon is an internal “mucous membrane” full of light, colour and touch receptors.
• The skin on Norman Foster’s buildings is sensitive to light and so produces energy in a similar process to that of photosynthesis through chlorophyll in plant leaves.

Orifices

Like the human body, the house has a mouth (the door) which comes in different shapes and forms.

• The East door of the Baptistery in Florence by Lorenzo Ghiberti, known as the “Gates of Paradise”, is rich and sophisticated.
• Doors leading to private gardens in traditional Chinese architecture are sweet and smiling.
• Art Nouveau doors are showily decorated and elegant.

Like the human body the house has an anus (sewage pipes, waste pipes) which in contemporary industrialised societies are kept out of sight and away from the building.

Eyes

Like the human body a house has eyes (windows)
which are capable of seeing in different ways.

• The windows in the Monastery at Skelling Michael in Ireland look out at the distant horizon with a cold, disinterested stare.
• The windows in Palazzo Farnese, in Rome, by Michelangelo, look us straight in the eye with a firm, direct gaze.
• Windows in Arabian and far-eastern architecture seem to peep out from behind, with a modest, reserved look.