CASA BAROCCA

The project deals with the atmospheric potential of Baroque architecture as a possible answer to the poor housing discourse.

Italy is the country of origin of Baroque architecture where Bramante focused on the generous enclosure of space. The space is treated as a negative form of a building, as a plastic body that can be modelled and that interacts with the surrounding space. The principle of a continuous wall as a pulsating juxtaposition where the room expands and contracts as if it was made of elastic material is the core of Baroque architecture. The vibrant juxtaposition leads to a complementary relationship between inside and outside and to a grand continuity. In Baroque times religion and the church were at the centre of people‘s lives. Today, anthropocentrism is the substitute form of the sacrality. Although the ego gains importance in self-staging, the self-representation hardly affects the living space. What housing is lacking is atmosphere, the interplay of light and shadow and spaces that are rich instead of reduced, surprising instead of consistent and pleasurable instead of logical. Casa Barocca is a housing development for singles and students in the baroque city of Turin. Together with the Palazzo Nuovo a small university campus is created. Cafés and restaurants on the ground floor revitalize the square and create a connection to the park southwards. Above two floors of sensual double-storey studios arise. Three protruding staircases and access balconies lead to the apartments and the large community roof terrace. The building has a dynamic convex and concave facade, that plays with light and shadow. The fine brick creates a second depth becoming the ornament on a human scale. Entering the apartment the spatial opulence and the interplay of opening and closing is revealed to the resident. The living space appears expansive although the unit is economical and reduced to the most important basic needs and their architectural equivalent. The design is to achieve a resacralization of the artificial structure to finally return to architecture.