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One of the most captivating architectures on earth, Casa Malaparte on the island of Capri is as remote as it is world-famous. "A beautiful thing, forged by a brutal environment," is how the architect Simon Jacobsen describes this minimalist basement of a house, built in 1942 on a steep promontory on the island of Capri. Its owner, Curzio Malaparte, a controversial Tuscan writer, wanted to create a lyrical place, free from all extras, on the edge between heaven and earth. This is how the staircase to infinity was born, a triangular brick set of stairs, designed by the famous architect Adalberto Libera, which overlooks a flat terrace hidden by a curvilinear Le Corbusier structure. This is a place of pure contemplation.
Today the house is owned by the writer's heirs and is more easily seen from the sea or in Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film "Contempt", in which an unbeatable Brigitte Bardot enjoys the sun on the villa's unique ceiling. But it is also worth spending a few words on the interiors, austere, but spacious and bright. The simple parallelepiped structure of the villa in fact hides three floors, where a large hall with four infinity windows dominates Capri's landscape. The large fireplace stands out on the furnishings, among which the tables in local stone and wood remain impressed. The study, on the other hand, is surrounded by a low bookcase with drawers interrupted at the center by an arched desk with a view on infinity. The bathroom, perhaps the most sumptuous part of the house, is completely made of striated marble and hides a bathtub embedded in the floor. For the final definition of the interior was decisive the contribution of Alberto Savinio, author of the drawings of the coloured majolica tiles, as well as the large wooden frames that frame the external landscape.
The last commercial shot in the villa was with Emma Stone presenting the new fragrance by Louis Vuitton and dates back to a few months ago. But there is also the one in which the English model Kate Moss steps down the stairs of the villa for the Yves Saint Lauren commercial and finally the very romantic one staged in the villa by Ermeningildo Zegna. And if this is not enough to tell the success of this iconic place, we suggest you get Karl Lagerfeld's book with the collection of Polaroids taken from his visit to the villa in 1993. Villa Malaparte is today an emblem of the Italian way of living, even if his owner had originally planned to leave his villa to the Republic of China... something worth remembering especially today.
