English text at the end
“La casa americana ha estado hinchándose por décadas. Se ha hinchado aunque viviese en ella una familia pequeña. Incluso los armatostes ostentosos, las McMansiones suburbanas, han crecido, como mega-casas brotando por todos los Estados Unidos.” Blaine Harden
Al contrario de las Mega McMansiones de los últimos años, que han sido construidas por toda California y especialmente en el área de la Bahía de San Francisco, esta casa es un muy eficiente, directo y simple hogar. Tiene 333 m2 y está ubicada en una colina en Belmont, cerca de San Francisco.
Lo propietarios son un matrimonio joven con un niño pequeño, trabajan en Silicon Valley y son parte de la “Cultura Digital” y de una nueva generación en el sitio.
Fotos: Cesar Rubio
Lejos de reproducciones historicistas artificiales, este proyecto explora la fusión entre dos arquitecturas vernáculas y populares de la región: la Casa rodante y el “Mexican Pueblo”. Este híbrido de dos culturas diferentes ha inspirado una nueva casa para la nueva generación que habita el lugar.
Promenade architectonique del acceso
Foto: Cesar Rubio
Foto: Cesar Rubio
Foto: Cesar Rubio
Inspirado en el Mexican pueblo, el nivel inferior está compuesto por pesadas paredes con texturas y colores fuertes. En este nivel están la entrada/galería de arte y los cuartos para los niños. La planta superior contiene una suite y un gran loft con el resto de las funciones, todo dando a una gran terraza y a la ladera de la colina, por detrás. La planta superior, inspirada en la casa rodante, es un gran prisma metálico que flota sobre la sólida base. El volumen, ligero y rotundo, parece a punto de despegar. Hacia el frente, una gran abertura enmarca la vista panorámica.
Deseo y paradoja
Azul
Foto: Cesar Rubio
Finalmente, lo que mejor expresa la casa es el paradójico deseo del hombre de ser parte de lo nuevo y de lo viejo, lo ligero y lo pesado, la tierra y el cielo, lo arraigado y lo móvil, y todo simultáneamente.
Foto: Cesar Rubio
Foto: Cesar Rubio
Foto: Cesar Rubio
Foto: Cesar Rubio
Foto: Cesar Rubio
Foto: Cesar Rubio
Gisue Hariri y Mojgan Hariri (Retrato de Luca Vignelli)
Foto: Cesar Rubio
Un muro de contención, curvo, de hormigón armado, establece el limite del acceso vehicular y conduce el camino hacia arriba, donde una escalinata lo une con el nivel de entrada. Allí, un muro de estuco azul acompaña al visitante a lo largo de una veranda hasta una sobredimensionada puerta de acero rústico. Esta dramática puerta de entrada pivota dentro del hall donde una escalera en U conduce hasta el nivel principal.
Forma y función
Hariri & Hariri
www.haririandhariri.com
Fotos: Cesar Rubio
“La obra de Gisue Hariri y Mojgan Hariri representa la arquitectura moderna en su versión más optimista y realista. Sus diseños emergen de la convicción de que la arquitectura moderna mantiene una potente fuerza cultural. Es a la vez poderosa y contenida, segura de sí misma y modesta.” Paul Goldberger, Crítico de arquitectura, The New Yorker.
HARIRI & HARIRI - ARCHITECTURE fue establecida en Nueva York por las hermanas Gisue Hariri y Mojgan Hariri, iraníes de nacimiento, en 1986. La integración de tecnologías digitales, uso inventivo de materiales, sentido del espacio y activa agenda social (en general mutuamente excluyentes) coexisten y catalizan en su dinámica obra.
El Premio de la Academia de de Artes y Letras en 2005 y diversas publicaciones relevantes internacionalmente avalan sus proyectos dentro y fuera de Estados Unidos.
“HARIRI & HARIRI combina sensualidad y elegancia con profundidad intelectual, evitando la trampa académica de permitir que la teoría eclipse la vivencia humana de un edificio…” Martin Moeller, National Building Museum.
Hariri and Hariri Houses - Written by Gisue Hariri and Mojgan Hariri, Foreword by Richard Meier - published by Rizzoli.
Memoria original en inglés::
BELMONT HOUSE - 1999-2002
“The American house has been swelling for decades. It has swollen even though a smaller family lives in it. Even the hulking and ostentatious suburban McMansion is bulking up, as mega-houses pop up across the United States.” Blaine Harden
Unlike the Mega McMansions of recent years that are built all over the California and specifically the San Francisco/Bay area, this house is a very efficient, direct and simple home. It is 3000 SF and built into a hill in the city of Belmont near San Francisco.
The Owners are a young couple with a small child, working in the Silicon Valley and are part of the “Digital Culture” and new generation of the area.
Unlike the superficial historical reproductions, this project explores the fusion between two popular vernacular architecture of this region, the “Mobile-trailer home” and the “Mexican pueblo” architecture. This vertical hybrid of two different cultures has inspired this new house for the new generation living in the area.
A curved concrete retaining wall provides an edge for the driveway and directs the way uphill into the driveway. A series of concrete steps take one from the driveway to the mid- entry level. A long modern veranda with a blue stucco wall guide the visitors to an oversized rusted steel door. This dramatic entrance door pivots into the entrance hall where a staircase then takes one to the upper main floor.
Inspired by the Mexican pueblo architecture, the lower level of the house is composed of heavy walls with texture and color. This level includes the entrance/art gallery on the East Side and the children’s quarter on the West. A sculptural stair connects the entry to the upper main level where one finds the master suite on one end and an open loft living, that includes the dining, kitchen and library in the center and a home-office at the other end, all opening into a terrace and the hillside in the back.
Inspired by the industrial generation of Mobile homes the upper level is a rectangular volume wrapped in metal, floating over its solid base. It is light and hovers over the first floor as if ready to move on.
This volume has large openings on both the hill and valley sides allowing for cross breeze through the house and a visual panorama of the hillside.
Finally, what is expressed here is this paradoxical human desire to be part of the new and the old, the heavy and the light, the earth and the sky the rooted and the mobile simultaneously.
"The work of Gisue Hariri and Mojgan Hariri represents modernism at its most optimistic, and at its most realistic. Their designs emerge out of a belief that modernism remains a potent cultural force...It is at once powerful and restrained, self-assured and understated." Paul Goldberger, Architecture Critic, The New Yorker.
HARIRI & HARIRI – ARCHITECTURE was established in New York City by Iranian born sisters Gisue Hariri and Mojgan Hariri in 1986. The integration of digital technology, inventive use of materials, a sense of place, and social agenda - qualities often considered mutually exclusive in architecture - catalytically coexist in Hariri & Hariri’s dynamic work.
In 2005, the firm received the Academy Award in Architecture from the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters. The sisters were also inducted into the 2005 ‘Hall of Fame’ by Interior Design Magazine. In another prestigious milestone, 2006 will see the publication of HARIRI & HARIRI HOUSES, an extensive monograph by Rizzoli International Publications dedicated to their residential projects in New York City, Long Island, Miami, Connecticut and The Hague, Netherlands, among other locales.
Their pure understanding of LIGHT & SPACE, and the philosophical search for the ESSENCE of existence is a consistent theme in all of their projects. Through this dedication to the research and construction of innovative ideas, the firm has completed a number of high profile projects, including the now iconic Sagaponac House, the first of numerous homes by internationally acclaimed architects gathered by late Coco Brown for his ‘Houses at Sagaponac’ development.
The firm’s work has been exhibited internationally in numerous museums, galleries and architectural institutions, including the National Building Museum-Washington DC, The Museum of Modern Art-New York City, Deutsches Architektur Museum-Frankfurt, and Museu d’ Art Contemporani de Barcelona.
Recently, their proposal for the OLYMPIC 2012-Village was awarded and exhibited in Grand Central Station and they were announced as a finalist in the 200 Million Dollar master plan competition for the St. Mark’s Coptic Canadian Village in Toronto. Their Juan Valdez Flagship Café won the 2005 - Hospitality Design Award.
Other current projects on the boards include: Rockland Center for the Arts in Nyack, New York; a 4- story townhouse on Manhattan’s West Side; a Park Avenue residence; a pool house in Connecticut; and a painting studio in Long Island, among others.
“The work of Hariri & Hariri – Architecture typically combines sensuousness and elegance with intellectual depth, avoiding the academic trap of allowing theory to eclipse the human experience of a given building. Instead, the firm’s projects actively invite human habitation and participation.” -Martin Moeller, National Building Museum.
Artículos de Blaine Harden en The New York Times.