Baron House
Sweden 2005
Driving
through a broad expanse of landscape with distant coastal views, one's
first impression of this vacation house is of its virtual invisibility.
The rise of the land shields the property from the quiet public road,
but even at those points where the house falls within the line of
vision, its white planes and silvery pitches seem to
dematerialise, receding into the vast overarching sky.
The
design draws significantly on local vernacular models which are
transformed through the introduction of elements of new materiality and
detailing, to create volumes with a contemporary quality of abstraction
whose interiors are bathed in light and views. Entry is via a lofty
space framed by a pair of walls finished in fine vertical slats of dark
stained timber and set below steeply angled roof planes. The relative
darkness and the sense of powerfully compressed space combine to create
a charged experience of arrival. From here one emerges into a central
courtyard and views which slice through the architecture to landscape
in every direction - north, south, east and west.
Photographs by Fabien Baron