CASA MALAPARTE

Designed by Adalberto Libera, completed 1963 Island of Capri
The Casa Malaparte is a villa on the island of Capri designed by the Italian rationalist
architect Adalberto Libera (1903–63) for the writer and journalist Curzio Malaparte
(1898–1957). The building’s dominant position on its rocky outcrop reflect its expressive
and outward-looking spirit. Its bold volumetric form and symmetrical planning reflects
Libera’s desire for “sin cerity, order, logic and clarity above all” (Malaparte, 1989). All in
all, it is a textbook example of modernist 20th-century architecture. At first glance, this
might seem to be an accurate description of the Casa Malaparte. However, a closer
examination reveals these seemingly uncontestable facts as increasingly problematic.
The Casa Malaparte is actually a curious and contradictory work that directly reflects
the nature of its curious and contradictory client: Curzio Malaparte. Born Kurt Erich
Suckert into a Protestant family, Malaparte denounced these roots when beginning his
writing career by taking his mother’s maiden name and then later, on his deathbed,
converting to Catholicism. Malaparte is best known for his writings that glorified
Mussolini and the Fascist Party, yet he was jailed by that same party between 1933 and
1935. While he subsequently tried to become a member of the Communist Party,
Malaparte also served as a liaison officer for the U.S. Army after World War II. These
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examples are only the more concrete ones illustrating a soul who functioned in extremes
and was always torn between opposites.
The architect Adalberto Libera, a member of the rationalist Gruppo 7, is best known
for his works that helped advertise Fascist Italy: the staging of the Exhibition of the Tenth
Anniversary of the Fascist Revolution (1932), and the Italian Pavilions at the World
Expositions of Chicago (1933) and Brussels (1935). It is through these works that
Malaparte most likely became familiar with Libera. Sometime in early 1938, Malaparte
approached Libera to design a small villa on the island of Capri. The resulting design,
which was submitted for approval to the Capri authorities in March 1938, was never
built. For this reason, the attribution of the Casa Malaparte to Adalberto Libera can be
questioned. However, Libera’s initial design, although different from what was actually
built, can be seen as the “foundation” of the eventual building.
Libera proposed a two-story, elongated rectangular building with rooms on one side
and a corridor on the other. The linearity of the project took advantage of the linearity of
its site: the Massullo promontory. The project stepped up in section toward the sea, using
the lower portion’s roof as a sheltered terrace. The external ground-floor walls of the
project consisted of rough stone, presumably from the site, with the upper portion of the
walls plastered smooth. These characteristics of the project can be seen in the building as
built. However, this is where the similarity ends. Sometime during 1939, Libera and
Malaparte lost touch concerning the villa. Without an architect, Malaparte, however,
continued building, acting on advice from his builder, Adolfo Amitriano, and his circle of
artist friends as well as on his own thoughts and inspirations.
The most significant change to Libera’s initial project made by Malaparte is perhaps the
defining element of the Casa Malaparte: the curious wedge-shaped staircase to the roof
that extends for about one-third of the entire structure and gives the building its unique
silhouette. This form has been attributed to Malaparte’s memory of the Church of the
Annunziata, experienced during his exile imposed by the Fascists on the island of Lipari.
The staircase is a strange form, perhaps one that would never be designed by an architect,
yet it solved several problems for Malaparte once he began to deviate from Libera’s
project. First, although oversized, the staircase provided access to the roof terrace, which
Malaparte now placed on the very top of the building. Second, it unified the mass of the
building into a single, streamlined whole instead of a series of awkward jumps, as Libera
had proposed.
This unified mass, isolated on the rocky heights of a Mediterranean cliff, is what gives
the building its heroic and romantic appeal. However, these same characteristics also
strangely make the building belong to its natural surroundings: the building’s linearity
and the gradual slope of the staircase seem to echo the linearity of the site with its gradual
ups and downs. In addition, the color of the building, often described as “Pompeian red,”
is also subject to this paradox: on the one hand, it is not the typical Mediterranean (and
modernist) white, which would make it stand out from its natural surroundings of sea,
rock, and low shrubs; on the other hand, the deep red is completely foreign to an island
setting of natural blue, brown, and green tones.
Other changes that Malaparte made to Libera’s original design were less noticeable
than the staircase. Windows on the southwest facade were framed with a “braid of tufa
stone,” and iron security bars were installed on the ground floor. It is theorized that
Malaparte did this to make the house seem more like a prison, again evoking memories of
his exile. Yet, unlike a prison, the entire rooftop was to be used for sunbathing, with a
sweeping modesty wall to protect Malaparte from prying eyes.
Libera’s proposed interior configuration was completely changed by Malaparte from a
single-loaded corridor to a sym metrical layout, with the principal room consisting of a
large temple-like salon the entire width of the building. The building’s entrance,
however, was still located on the southwest elevation, and the resulting circulation pattern
is clumsy: once one is inside the principal entrance, an awkward L-shaped stair leads
upstairs to another awkward antechamber before the salon. In addition, to access the new
basement accommodation below the external staircase, a secondary external entrance also
exists on the southwest elevation. Although Malaparte masterfully reorganized the
building into a symmetrical layout that more accurately reflects the linearity of the
scheme, he was unable to follow this through to the circulation through the building.
In the end, the Casa Malaparte is an accurate reflection of the unusual “both/and”
character of its client: it is a combined product of its architect, client, and builder; an
example of both heroic modernism and humble vernacular traditions; an architectural
work that both dominates and engages its natural surroundings; and a house that is both a
prison and a temple. Indeed, Malaparte, on completion of the building, is known to have
described his Capri villa as a “house like me” and “a selfportrait in stone.”