Family House in Costa Brava by Ricardo Bofill

Architects: Ricardo Bofill
Location: Mont-ras, Girona, Spain
Year: 1973
Photo courtesy: Ricardo Bofill
Description:

This summerhouse is situated close to the town of Mont-ras, a couple of miles from the Spanish Costa Brava, in a sloping locale developed with plantations. The format is like a residential area and the remnants of a previous laborer cabin are fused into the volumes of the house.

The building is an enunciated house that regards beyond what many would consider possible the previous vegetation. The structures, sheathed in chestnut block are anticipated towards the focal space and face the swimming pool – the focal point of the sunny existence of this estate. The space is made much more agreeable by numerous unwinding corners, protected by dividers that capacity as windbreaks, and is grandly attached to adjacent volumes by terraced steps that go about as a solarium.

The fundamental body, which is the proprietor’s home, is made out of two indistinguishable three-story volumes that contain: a lounge room with smokestack at a corner to corner secured by a Catalan vault, music room, and main room with restroom and stroll in storeroom on the ground floor; a library on the second floor; on the third floor a den and a living room, which is associated with the swimming pool by means of outside steps.

The free modules are rooms for alternate individuals from the family and visitors. The essential building volume module is 3 x 6 x 6 meters, which incorporates lavatory and stroll in storage room. The principle lounge area, meeting spot second to none, totally sheathed in red artistic tile, is arranged towards the pool and is associated with the kitchen and hireling’s quarters by means of a rotating glass entryway. The whole house, including the swimming pool, is based on a stage, obviously reminiscent of the stylobate of a Greek sanctuary or of Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion.

The scenographic impact of the entire is upgraded by the insertion of cypresses. A pillar constructed of pink blocks (an implication to a petrified nature) and the state of the windows, which play on the point of view offered both by the inside and the outside, go about as counterpoints to the trees.