A ‘house like me’: Curzio Malaparte’s villa on Capri
By Anna Niederlander
Towering thirty-one meters above sea level on Punta Massullo, located on the Southeastern edge of Capri, there is an architectural gem that personifies one of the most fascinating Italian individuals, Curzio Malaparte. Conceived in 1937 and completed in 1941, the building tells the story of a man with a complex history and mysterious aura. Casa Malaparte is “one of the strangest habitations of the western world,” as it does not follow one style, but rather is an amalgamation of numerous influences and forces, making the building a lasting source of fascination for many. “As polemicist, journalist, novelist, and filmmaker, Malaparte’s résumé might be headed with provocateur.” He was a man of many professions, including that of architect, as demonstrated by his contribution to the construction and planning of la Casa Malaparte.
Malaparte’s eventful and tempestuous life, and the way he further dramatized it, offers key insights into the meaning of Casa Malaparte. He was born on June 9, 1898, as Kurt Erich Suckert. In 1911, he began attending the prestigious Liceo Cicognini in the Tuscan city of Prato, where he was introduced to renounced academics, including the writer and poet Bino Binazzi, who would go on to become Malaparte’s mentor. On Sundays, Binazzi took Malaparte to literary gatherings at Florentine cafés where endless debates with distinguished writers would occur. At the age of 16, enraged with the failings of the Risorgimento (the process of national unification) and the Italian government, Malaparte joined the Italian branch of the French Foreign Legion, a skilled military unit where he learned to fight. Three months later, Italy joined World War One, and Malaparte would go on to fight in the war for three years, even becoming the commander of a regiment. Against popular opinion that he would pursue a career in politics, Malaparte instead moved to Rome to become a writer. There, he started writing fervent pamphlets, which caught the attention Mussolini’s entourage, who convinced Malaparte to join the Fascist party in September 1922 as a trade union manager in Florence. It was around this time that Malaparte adopted his pen name, Curzio Malaparte, in order to sound more Italian. Due to his influence and vitality, he became the editor of numerous magazines, the last being Turin's La Stampa - Fiat's newspaper. However, Malaparte’s impulsive personality made it hard for officials to control or predict his acts and thus he was harshly fired. From 1931 until 1933, Malaparte lived in Paris. Upon his return to Italy in 1933, he was arrested and sentence to a five-year exile in Sicily for his publication of a guide informing readers how to stage a coups d’état. However, exile had a paradoxical effect on Malaparte. Following his release, he cherished isolation and introspection: “Man is not meant to live freely in freedom, but to be free inside a prison.” Malaparte fought again in World War II, and subsequently published two well received novels Kaputt (1944) and The Skin (1949). He went on to become a Communist, and on his deathbed converted to Catholicism.
Eventually, Malaparte ended up on the island of Capri, a place which was growing in both prominence and elitism, spurred on by fantasy and a Fascist agenda. In the 1930s, a Roman village was discovered on the island – a discovery which Mussolini and his men used to demonstrate an Italian connection to Imperial Rome and thereby legitimise their hegemony. Subsequently, Mussolini’s daughter, Edda, and her husband Galeazzo Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister of Culture, bought a house there in the late 1930s. Over time, more Fascist regime officials would join them and buy property in Capri. Moreover, the island’s pre-modern architecture and idyllic panoramas attracted artists, writers, and architects. From megalomaniacs to the avant-garde, Capri was to become a refuge for powerful individuals. In this light, it is not surprising that Malaparte chose Capri, however quite paradoxically he chooses to situate his house on one of the most inaccessible locations on the island. This is the first of many paradoxical characteristics surrounding the Casa Malaparte. The house can only be accessed by boat or foot, and only with an invitation from its owners. It is an architectural pilgrimage that one does not simply stumble across while visiting the island, but one that brings you to one of the most secluded parts of Capri. As Curzio wrote: “In the wildest, most solitary and dramatic part of Capri, in the part which faces the south and east, where the island loses its human quality and become ferocious, where nature expresses itself with an incomparable, cruel strength, there was a promontory of an extraordinary purity of line, a rocky claw flung into the sea.”
Two different views of Casa Malaparte
https://babysharkmr.com/casa-malaparte/
Curzio Malaparte hired architect Adalberto Libera, an infamous Rationalist architect associated with the Gruppo 7. At first, the two creatives engaged in a constructive dialogue, however, their contrasting personalities and diverging visions resulted in Malaparte’s rejection of Libera proposal for the house. Libera sought to create a rational structure, composed of a prolonged two-story rectangular building, with identical rooms running along a corridor. Yet, opposing this visual reductivism and clean aesthetic, Malaparte desire was to create a house that reflected his needs and personality, and which was more complex than Libera’s proposal. Instead of logically using identical windows in the living room, for instance, Malaparte designed the living room to include four different sized windows – each one offering a unique view of Capri, acting almost as a gallery room with different sized canvases with which to have an engrossing experience. In the end, Libera renounced his work with Malaparte, from which point on Malaparte was left to complete this venture on his own.
Comparison of Libera’s plan (on the top) and Malaparte’s plan (on the bottom) http://red2malaparte.blogspot.com/p/morphology.html
Until the late 1980s, Casa Malaparte was commonly attributed to Libera, until Marida Talamona’s research demonstrated otherwise. It was hard to fathom that Curzio Malaparte, a man with no architectural career, could produce such an architectural masterpiece. Though there is still much controversy about the degree of Libera’s involvement in the final result, Malaparte’s decision making and role as creative director in Casa Malaparte cannot be disputed. Malaparte did employ the aid and advice of other artists and architects after Libera left the project, however, as the project progressed, he himself gained invaluable architectural skills and increasing passion. He scoured the peninsula for materials; Marble slabs from Carrera, stone slabs from Castellammare di Stabia, windows from Pisa, alabaster from Volterra and woodwork from Rome. The labour behind the building’s construction cannot be ignored, as due to its secluded location, materials had to be transported by boat or on mules, and in the context of the Second World War, the acquisition of materials was more difficult.
The house is the result of a modern design process, as Malaparte envisioned it from the inside out. First, he envisioned the interior, followed by planning the exterior structure correspondingly. The building has three levels of varying length. The house is created with stark contrasts, exemplified by the dissimilarity between the living room and the dining room. The large living room is inconvenient for conversation, notably draughty in the colder months, and its lack of lights make it uninhabitable at night. It is an isolated space, meant for meditation and introspection, devoid of the human interaction commonly associated with a living room. By contrast, the dining room is an almost claustrophobic cube, dominated by a large Tyrolean stove that is accentuated by dark wood. There is no space for privacy here, almost encouraging human interaction and connection.
Plan of Casa Malaparte
The staircase leading to the roof terrace is arguably the most recognizable feature of the house. It bears a similar shape to the steps in front of the church of Annunziata on Lipari, the island where Curzio Malaparte was imprisoned in 1934. The staircase takes the shape of an inverted pyramid, becoming wider as you ascend until you reach a large, flat roof area. The original plans for the villa included an entrance that went through the staircase. However, due to the dangers of flooding and impracticality, the door was moved. This alteration disrupted the symmetry of the front of the house, which is seen in the T-shaped corridor splitting the identical bathrooms and leading to the master bedroom. The result is that the staircase remains a unified structure, creating a ‘stairway to heaven’ effect where when you stand at the bottom of the stairs and ascend upwards, you feels as though you are walking towards the heavens with no end in sight. There are no rails or walls, adding to the stairs’ geometric purity. At the top of the stairs, a white curvilinear screen contrasts the geometric staircase and the red colour of the house. The stairs become an artwork in their own right.
Curzio Malaparte posing in front of Chiesa dell’Annunziata, in Lipari, (left) and Casa Malaparte (right)
https://babysharkmr.com/casa-malaparte/
There has been much discussion concerning whether the building works with or against its immediate environment. Malaparte declared that he only used rock from the cliff on which the house was located to construct its structure, one argument supporting the view that Malaparte worked harmoniously with the environment. However, this has been confirmed as a falsehood, as the building is made of non-local materials. The red color of the building changes according to the sun’s positioning, conveying the idea that the building is constantly in flux and is never the same twice. At noon, when the sun is at its strongest, the building is illuminated, while as the sun weakens, the building starts to give off a more sinister glowing effect. The red colour is also associated with rock and clay, adding to Malaparte’s attempt to infuse it into its environment. Further, as Malaparte once noted, “I want the pine trees planted in picturesque disorder as if it were a wood born spontaneously...” The greenery in front and to the sides of the house is carefully crafted, showing that the house did not necessarily react to its immediate natural environment, even though it may appear to be so. Malaparte thoughtfully constructed the house as well as its surrounding scenery in order to create a perfectly crafted composition. Nonetheless, the house is built into the cliff, becoming an extension of the landscape it seeks to inhabit. If Libera’s plans would have been obeyed, then Casa Malaparte would have arguably become just another Modernist building on a rock. Casa Malaparte can be considered to work in unison with its environment, no matter how forced and artifice this merger may have been.
The house includes Greek elements: the theatre-like staircase leading to the rooftop; the rough-hewn stone floor; his lyre-themed floor that draws a connection to the work of Greek painter Alberto Savinio. His love for Greece, visible in Casa Malaparte, illustrates Malaparte’s criticism of modernity as perceived by the Fascists as being affiliated with Rome, and Malaparte later held the belief that Counter-reformation and the creation of a fascist anti-modernity were the way forward. Possibly the most significant Greek element visible in Casa Malaparte is the furniture, as seen by the columns used as the legs in Console (1941/2020). Not only did Malaparte curate the house and its surroundings, but he custom made the furniture within it. The original furniture still remains in the house, however, the Gagosian exhibited skilful reproductions that enabled viewers a unique closeup experience of these items of furniture. The furniture is an extension of the eclectic, yet miraculously harmonic combination of different stylistic elements, reflecting the architecture of Casa Malaparte itself. One of the reproduced items of furniture is Console (2020) originally designed by Curzio Malaparte in 1941. It offers a juxtaposition of minimalist tones and classical fashion; Simplistic but also sensual; Traditional but also contemporary.
Console (2020) designed by Curzio Malaparte
https://gagosian.com/exhibitions/2020/casa-malaparte-furniture/
Overall, Casa Malaparte became a device for Malaparte to extend his creative visions, communicate his mysterious and complex character, perpetuate his legacy, and essentially create a fascinating myth around his persona that is still alive today. As Matthew Wills wrote: “his villa might best be considered a cenotaph, a memorial without a body.” In “The Good, the Bad and the Malaparte,” Davide Spina argues that the villa is a significant architectural work, not solely because of its formal characteristics, but because Malaparte’s life, work and by extension, the Casa Malaparte, offer a commentary on Italy’s complex relationship with modernity and alternative Italian interpretations of fascism. “Whereas Giovanni Gentile, the official theorist of the party, attempted to legitimise fascism by promoting it as a fully-fledged modern doctrine spawned from the German idealist tradition, Malaparte saw it as a non-modern way of being, as having to do with spirit, not intellect…. Therefore, if the house is interesting, it is also because Malaparte managed to transform this spirit into built form.” It becomes a historical marker which encompasses National Italian politics, social and economic culture.
Emma Stone for Les Parfums Louis Vuitton - Coeur Battant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFv5smPPuZo
Over the years, numerous fashion houses and filmmakers have used Casa Malaparte for their creative endeavours, demonstrating its lasting inspiration. Le Mépris (1963) by Jean-Luc Godard starring himself and Brigitte Bardot, an Yves Saint Laurent advertisement featuring Kate Moss in 2018, and a Louis Vuitton advertisement featuring Emma Stone in 2019 all prominently feature Casa Malaparte.
Clip from Le Mépris (1963) by Jean-Luc Godard starring himself and Brigitte Bardot
https://vimeo.com/215974304
Casa Malaparte was abandoned and neglected after Malaparte’s death in 1957. The villa suffered from the natural elements, vandalism, and overall degradation. As a result of its location, the villa needs constant upkeep: “the house must be inhabited, if abandoned it becomes dried fruit.’ In the late 1980s, Niccoló Rositani (Malaparte’s great-nephew) led a restoration of the villa, which remains in private hands and is maintained by Malaparte’s descendants. As long as Casa Malaparte is maintained, the history and myth of Curzio Malaparte persists. In his novel la Pelle, Curzio Malaparte describes how he was showing the Field Marshal Rommel around the house. At the end of the tour, Rommel asked Malaparte if he had designed and built the villa himself. In response, Malaparte says he bought the house as it is. He gestured out onto the horizon and said: “I designed the scenery.”
Throughout his life, Malaparte referred affectionately to Casa Malaparte as “casa come me” (house like me). Casa Malaparte is stylistically ambiguous. We might ask: Is it “surrealist, rationalist, vernacular, modern, postmodern, or something else entirely?” No one knows quite what to make of it, people either adore or despise it, but it is intellectually, aesthetically and emotionally stimulating on every level.
Bibliography
Antrim, Taylor. “The Minimalist Home Design of Capri’s Casa Malaparte.” Architectural Digest. Published April 30, 2012. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/casa-malaparte-capri-italy.
“A case study by Kathleen Fu, Lisa Huang, Justin Jones, Cynthia Tang, and Crystal Yung.” red2malaparte.blogspot. Accessed march 25, 2021. http://red2malaparte.blogspot.com/p/morphology.html.
Donati, Roberto. “Le Mépris: Analysis of mise-en-scéne.” Offscrene. Published in November 2009. https://offscreen.com/view/mepris_analysis.
Gagosian. “Casa Malaparte: Furniture.” June 8, 2020. https://gagosian.com/quarterly/2020/07/08/casa-malaparte-furniture-video/.
Libera, Adalberto. “Casa Malaparte.” architectuul.com. Accessed March 25, 2021. http://architectuul.com/architecture/casa-malaparte.
McIntyre, Anthony. AA Files, no. 28 (1994): 101-04. Accessed March 31, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29543935.
Spina, Davide. "The Good, the Bad and the Malaparte." AA Files, no. 72 (2016): 3-19. Accessed March 31, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43843004.
Talamona, Marida, Wiel Arets, Wim Van Den Bergh, Yehuda Safran, and Curzio Malaparte. "VILLA MALAPARTE." AA Files, no. 18 (1989): 3-14. Accessed March 31, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29543657.
Wills, Matthew. “Casa Malaparte Is a Strangely Awesome House.” JStore. April 26, 2020. https://daily.jstor.org/casa-malaparte-is-a-strangely-awesome-house/.
Yunis, Natalia. “AD Classics: Villa Malaparte / Adalberto Libera,” archdaily.com, Published on January 04, 2016. https://www.archdaily.com/777627/architecture-classics-villa-malaparte-adalberto-libera.