Palladian fragments: Villas Norrköping by Fehn and Belvedere Georgina by Clotet-Tusquets

Abstract

Since the Renaissance, architects have turned their attention back to the classical Palladian legacy as a timeless reference capable of adapting to the sensibilities of each moment, to the casual and circumstantial. In the contemporary view, in its recognition of the fragment, this reference is present and reflected in two villas built in the second half of the 20th century: Norrköping by Sverre Fehn (1963) and Belvedere Georgina by LLuís Clotet and Óscar Tusquets (1972). In the former, Palladio's influence concerns the geometric order of the floor plan, the ‘eidos’; in the latter it concerns the image and elevation, the ‘morphe’; both remain, in their respective ‘morphe’ and ‘eidos’, continuists with the modern legacy, which, as Palladio's, is present without its completeness. The article adds a degree of complexity to this analysis by questioning how the order brought about by Palladio's floor plans configures a modern space through its continuity and fluidity, while the image it conveys infringes the palladian one, and becomes modern and POP. It concludes by pointing out how this ‘fragmentation’ and ‘complexity’ do not adulterate the powerful classical unity that emanates from both works through their isotropic volumes: the counterpoint with which the promise of order inherent in the Palladian reference nuances and enriches the unstable contemporaneity.