CASA SPERIMENTALE

Casa Sperimentale

The family project that birthed one of the most interesting experiments in residential architecture.

Hidden in the trees on the outer fringes of Rome lies the remains of Casa Sperimentale, an avant-garde exploration of brutalist design that teetered into organic typology. It was a personal project of the Perugini family, with mother, father and son each making their own contributions.

In the state of decay it sits now, the form of it looks harsh and aggressive, even uninviting. To best get a sense of it however, it helps to imagine it in its heyday, before the colours faded and the dereliction set in. It’s a playful mishmash of three different architects who all happened to go home to the same dinner table every night, and you can almost read the relationships they had with one another in the relationships between the shapes on display at Casa Sperimentale.

The decades since may have made it look more sinister, but the Perugini family shared a great love for organic design.

In fact, Giuseppe Perugini made his start in 1944 by co-founding the Association for Organic Architecture, a direct opposition to the regimented forms you can find in Rome’s EUR district.

It’s a playful mishmash of three different architects who all happened to go home to the same dinner table every night.

His life’s work was in navigating design away from shapes and symbols that sought to subjugate or intimidate. Knowing that, you begin to appreciate this great experiment through the eyes of its creators; a lively melange of chaotic but synchronistic entities, as every family tends to be.