Objects
Andrea Palladio and Zaha Hadid Architects / Aura
Malcontenta, 2008
Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher – when invited by curator Giulia Foscari to initiate a dialogue between contemporary architects and Palladio in occasion of the 500th anniversary of Palladio’s birth – focused their study on three rooms, conscious that exploring the logic and relational system of such room they would have addressed and captured the essence of Palladio’s architectural theory.
The room chosen is in the Piano Nobile of Villa La Malcontenta, a building designed by Palladio in 1555 for a site along the Brenta River. The linear proportions of this room thus constitute the starting point for Zaha Hadid’s study. The frequency curves generated by the harmonic proportional system of the villa are progressively transformed, through mathematical algorithms, to define a “genotypic elementary space that contains in its DNA the whole Palladian set of rules”. As a result, multiple complex spatial environments are generated through lawful variations of Palladio’s classical proportions. In such way, within the void of one room of this architecture “Aura” is generated as a spatial morphology that reflects the structure of this void, the skeleton of this ethereal space.
The architecture of Andrea Palladio represents the built manifestation of Palladio’s utopia of synthesizing all humanistic values by establishing the exact role and relation of each part of his architectural compositions - from the organism as a perfect whole to each single room. The proportion of each room is in fact determined by a specific set of “harmonic“ relations that derive from the Euclidian mathematics practiced in the 16th Century.
Image credits © Orch, © Luke Hayes, © UNA
The room chosen is in the Piano Nobile of Villa La Malcontenta, a building designed by Palladio in 1555 for a site along the Brenta River. The linear proportions of this room thus constitute the starting point for Zaha Hadid’s study. The frequency curves generated by the harmonic proportional system of the villa are progressively transformed, through mathematical algorithms, to define a “genotypic elementary space that contains in its DNA the whole Palladian set of rules”. As a result, multiple complex spatial environments are generated through lawful variations of Palladio’s classical proportions. In such way, within the void of one room of this architecture “Aura” is generated as a spatial morphology that reflects the structure of this void, the skeleton of this ethereal space.
The architecture of Andrea Palladio represents the built manifestation of Palladio’s utopia of synthesizing all humanistic values by establishing the exact role and relation of each part of his architectural compositions - from the organism as a perfect whole to each single room. The proportion of each room is in fact determined by a specific set of “harmonic“ relations that derive from the Euclidian mathematics practiced in the 16th Century.
| Project Title: | Andrea Palladio and Zaha Hadid Architects / Aura |
| Location: | Villa Foscari, Via Turisti dei Turisti 9, Malcontenta di Mira, Italy |
| Year: | 2008 |
| Status: | Completed |
| Event: | Collateral Event of La Biennale di Venezia |
| Program: | Product |
| Scale: | XS |
| Curator: | Giulia Foscari |
| Exhibitor: | Zaha Hadid and Patrick Schumacher |
| Consultants: | Idee and Design GmbH (Manufacturing) | Zumtobel (Lighting) |
Image credits © Orch, © Luke Hayes, © UNA
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