SPARTAN LUXURY

摘要

In Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film Contempt, Brigitte Bardot sunbathes atop the stepped red masonry box of the then abandoned Casa Malaparte, a besuited Michel Piccoli at her side. A parapet, one brick high, is all that stands between them and a grisly fate against the craggy perimeter of the Isle of Capri -most definitely Casa Malaparte's 'wrong side'. In this spirit Estudio Campo Baeza's House of the Infinite, a spartan block looking out across the Atlantic, eschews the isolated rocky settings of Casa Malaparte or the work of Alberto Ponis for the idyllic beaches of Cadiz. An understated two storeys above soft sand, this is a place for reflection rather than the Bond-villain style dispensing of nemeses. The site is a stone's throw from Bolonia, a coastal beach resort once home to the Eoman fishing village of Baelo Claudia, the extensive ruins of which still stand. Part pontoon, part classical stereobate, the house draws upon these ancient ruins - among them a theatre, baths and a garum factory - in both its solemn formal appearance and lavish deployment of travertine, cut into to create deep apertures as though it were a grandiose bunker.