The Art House
A movie-like façade where Art Deco glamour meets Corbusier’s discipline—monochrome geometry, sculpted curves, and details made to catch the light. This residence is imagined as a sequence of frames—architecture that reveals itself through rhythm, shadow, and curve.
The brief: elevate an existing villa with a façade of presence, drawing on Art Deco’s poise and Corbusier’s clarity while keeping the palette disciplined and contemporary. We retained the bones that mattered, then refined the composition so old and new read as one clean line.
From the street, the silhouette is unmistakable. A cylindrical corner volume anchors the plan, balanced by horizontal bands of glazing a restrained nod to ribbon windows. A circular aperture punctures the ground floor like a lens, hinting at the home’s cinematic intent. The material language is precise: warm white render as canvas, blackened frames, and stone set where it is touched—thresholds, steps, plinth.
Arrival sets the mood in monochrome. The existing entrance floor is laid in a graphic black-and-white pattern that stretches under a sculpted balcony and steel-framed doors. Light washes the curves and throws crisp shadows along the lobby walls; the sense is ceremonial without being grandiose. A softly radiused stair ascends beside hand-troweled plaster, its geometry kept pure with concealed fixings and shadow gaps.
Inside, Deco notes meet modernist discipline. The dining room arcs towards a large circular window, the table a streamlined ellipse beneath a cloud of glass pendants. Adjacent, a salon flows across split levels, anchored by stone travertine piers and deep, textural sofas. Spaces for conversation arranged like scenes on a storyboard. Throughout, the palette is consistent and tactile: veined stone, lacquered and fluted timbers, bronzed metal, wool and bouclé in quiet neutrals.
The private rooms refine the language with intimacy. In the principal suite, an arched fireplace is framed by dark fluting and stone reveals—an architectural vignette that glows at night. The bathing suite captures daylight along a glazed roofline; honed stone and polished plaster keep the atmosphere calm, while slim wall-mounted taps and linear hardware maintain the project’s disciplined detail.
At garden level, leisure becomes a study in geometry.
The indoor pool is lined with mosaic and anchored by a half-round window and bold graphic mosaic artwork. A curved, stone-faced bar sits opposite like a Deco proscenium, its shelves backlit to a soft amber. Outside, terraces step through clipped greenery; a vertical chimney becomes an axis in the courtyard view, its arch opening to a sheltered hearth.
Every junction was considered—mitred stone edges, recessed lighting, fine mullions, to let line, curve, and light do the talking.
The result is a villa that feels inevitable: period references distilled, proportions clarified, and a cinematic calm that holds the frame.
