Exhibition: Università degli Studi Federico II Napoli

MODELS OF FACADES

Pouillon’s consummate skill is to combine vertical and horizontal rhythms, superimposing them, carrying them to extremes, or embedding them: this procedure appears for example in an articulation of Le Point du Jour, where the continuity of the balconies in the low and high buildings creates a contrast with the joint between the stone wall and the trilithic order of the portico which in the previous section supported the loggias and now, before leading to the bridge on the water basin, makes a pause in the wall. A similar solution can be seen in Meudon, where the pilaster-buttress rhythm is applied pervasively in the tall slab buildings and then partly repeated, but in a more essential way, in the longitudinal buildings which face onto the basin and reflect in the water; this rhythm alternates, in the parts which coincide with the courtyards, with a solid facade which reveals their presence through counterpoint. This principle is visible also in La Tourette, where the superimposed order is taken from the longitudinal building and repeated vertically in the tower, with no gaps or digressions, thanks to the masterly proportions of the shaft. And finally, in Le Point du Jour again, where one of the towers displays, on two opposite sides, gigantic wall squares, which look like diaphanous portals, to mark on one hand the main direction of the volume, and on the other to mitigate the extreme horizontality determined by the isotropic repetition of the balconied loggias, masterly interrupted on the shorter side by the moving forward of a module of the glass panels, which creates a tall and unexpected glass pillar.

The models are at a scale of 1:50 and are made of solid tulipwood, solid linden wood and poplar plywood on a multilayer poplar panel clad with black laminate.

Project and realisation: Gianluca Palmiero with Giandonato Reino

Photos: Federico Passaro

Photographic sources_Association “Les Pierres Sauvages de Belcastel” – PSB Archives