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According to Franco Purini, architecture can be read as a language whose grammar and syntax produce meaning beyond simple function. In his famous book Comporre l’architettura (2000), Purini defines the grammar of architecture as a set of fundamental
rules-based elements: primary geometric forms, proportions, building types, materials, relationships between solids and voids, light, and measurement. Syntax, on the other hand, is the way in which these elements are organized and made to relate to each other, bringing about a particular spatial order, sequence of volumes, and arrangement of parts in an urban or landscape context. While Purini developed this theoretical insight as a means of reading complex forms, if also applied to some of Mies van der Rohe’s works, his extremely clear, essential architectural grammar becomes even more apparent. Mies employs just a few recurring elements: structural frame, steel pillar, and floor slab – considered as an abstract plane. Each is a component of a rigorous, intelligible construction logic. Today, this same Modernist bent and its penchant for sleek, uncluttered components to create a compositional whole has resurfaced in the design of many contemporary works. Especially noticeable in the sphere of Western culture, these re-interpretations of Mies’s work, are, however, also writing a new chapter in the history of architecture. An example is Casa Calypso, designed by architect Corrado Greco, founder of G’n’B studio. Located a few kilometers outside the city of Noto, in the Sicilian province of Syracuse, the construction stretches across a hillside in full view of the nearby sea.
Before going into a detailed description of the project itself, readers may be helped to get a clear picture of the logic behind the architecture and its placement if it is likened to a “control room” or “observatory” suspended between sea and city. The pre-existing...
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