Monday, March 22, 2010
Villa Can Feliz by Jørn Utzon
Twenty-two years had passed from the construction of Can Lis when Jørn Utzon and his wife decided to spend the majority of the year in Mallorca. Due to the high humidity in winters, they handed Can Lis to their children and moved to a new house that they named Can Feliz. It is in the mountains, far away from the humid sea breezes, with big windows overlooking the green pine grove that reaches down to the sea.
Although both houses use the same materials, the second is a house in the mountains that belongs more to the traditional houses of the island, even reaching the point of being passed by unnoticed. Can Feliz is built round a terrace, following the pattern of orthogonal axis and is built under one tiled roof.
However much Utzon has insisted on his joy at receiving visitors, the fact that the house is so difficult to locate has contributed to the creation of the myth of the badly treated architect who has retreated into his refuge. Can Feliz has appeared in publication as it were a magical place and, includes, of course, the indispensable requirement of any utopia, apart from it marvellous qualities, be an insuperable gap from the rest of the world. In the same way as any novel on magic lands starts - with the loss of memory of the shipwrecked person who does not know how he arrived on the island, or the predicable cough made by the servant right in the moment when the narrator reveals the secret coordinates - the published articles on Can Feliz are reports by visitors who affirm that they are not able to remember the way that leads to the house.
(quoted from http://storiesofhouses.blogspot.com/2005/07/can-lis-and-can-feliz-in-mallorca-by.html)
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