Rome, August 29, 2014
Walking the narrow streets of
Castelvecchio Calvisio--the small town on the Apennine Mountains of
Abruzzo--one is immediately struck by the proliferation of stone stairs
rhythmically projecting out from the façade of the buildings. They reveal a distinctive
fabric of shops and warehouses at ground level and housing on top. The stairs
run parallel to the street, cantilevering from the outer stone walls. The
fabric is mostly two stories high, but extremely dense, with many portions of
the private upper level arching over the public passageways. As far as I can tell, each stair
gives access to an individual dwelling, strengthening the use of the street and
creating a matrix akin to what Team 10 architects such as Alison and Peter
Smithson or Candilis, Josic, Woods liked to call carpet housing or mat
buildings (yes, only just a number of centuries before the Golden Lane project or
the Berlin Free University.)
Even more surprising is the curious configuration of the
stairs, narrow at the bottom and wider at the top, as if they had been shaved just above human height. The purpose of this ground level reduction is to allow passage, particularly along the main street at the center
of the village, where the cuts seem to literally trace the outline of a loaded donkey.
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