Casa Sperimentale
Architects: Giuseppe Perugini, Uga De Plaisant, Raynaldo Perugini
Design and Construction: 1968-1975
Location: Fregene, Italy
Danger of collapse
Latest update 23 April 2020
Download our extensive Dossier #01
Photos French+Tye.
Casa Sperimentale
Designed by Guiseppe Perugini with Uga de Plaisant and Raynaldo Perugini, Casa Sperimentale (also known as Casa Albero, Treehouse) was built on a large, well-treed corner plot in an area of villas within the pine forest at Fregene, Italy. The house was constructed between 1968 and 1975 as an experimental villa for weekend occupation. Fregene, a coastal resort about 30 km from Rome, became culturally prominent in the 1960s and 1970s when it was at the centre of the worlds of cinema and fashion. It was used as a location by Federico Fellini, who shot some of the scenes of The White Sheikh, Juliet of the Spirits and La Dolce Vita in the large pine forest in which Casa Albero was built. Fellini had a summer house there. Photo credits slide show: French+Tye.
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Extensive Dossier #01
Latest News
KooZA/rch, 27 November 2019
Casa Sperimentale - Interview with Patrick Weber, Storp Weber Architecture
From the 1960s, Perugini was among the first to explore the application of the language of computer programming to the design of buildings
3D scan of Casa Sperimentale by StorpWeber. Architects Giuseppe Perugini, Uga de Plaisant and Raynaldo Perugini.
History of the building, its design and significance
From the 1960s, Perugini was among the first to explore the application of the language of computer programming to the design of buildings. Casa Sperimentale investigated the possibilities for an architecture of rotating structures and prefabricated elements and was of a deliberately unfinished nature. The house comprised several experimental structures: the house itself, a suspended structure formed of a series of reinforced concrete frames, supporting plates of standardized size, divided by glass inserts with a ground level spa/pool; a sphere of 5m diameter in the grounds, with a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom; and the ‘cubes’, a sequence of three 3x3x3m cubes containing two room and a kitchen, separated by two modules of 3x1.5m for the baths.
The building consists of four elements that can all be considered individual projects and are quite distinct in what they represent and how they there designed.
1. the house
2. the sphere
3, the guest houses
4. the fence
Download our extensive Dossier #01 for more information.
Exhibitions
architekturgalerie am weißenhof, Stuttgart, 2019
Patrick Weber and Sabine Storp at The Bartlett School of Architecture in London have been documenting the house for the exhibition CASA SPERIMENTALE, giuseppe perugini, uga de plaisant and raynaldo perugini, The House in the Trees at the architekturgalerie am weißenhof (Stuttgart,16 January-3 March 2019) and the accompanying publication shown here below.
MAXXI, Rome, 2018
The house is of interest to contemporary architects and was included in the exhibition Bruno Zevi: Zevi’s architects. History and counter-history of Italian architecture 1944-2000 (curators: Pippo Ciorra, Jean-Louis Cohen, MAXXI, Rome, April-September 2018). The exhibition positioned Perugini’s work within the context of architects including Maurizio Sacripanti, Luigi Pellegrin, Franco Albini, Giovanni Michelucci, Mario Ridolfi and Carlo Mollino. Photo: Raynaldo Perugini at the opening of the exhibition.
Literature
Casa Sperimentale
Sabine Storp and Patrick Weber
2019
Buy the book
La Casa Albero. Un Esperimento di Architettura
Giuseppe e Raynaldo Perugini
2018
Buy the book
News Archive
Dezeen, 22 February 2018
Photos and scans reveal abandoned ruins of Casa Sperimentale
Casa Sperimentale
Giuseppe Perugini, Uga De Plaisant, Raynaldo Perugini
1968-1973, Italy