Model Images

A northern aerial view of Villa Can Feliz. The perfect fit of the house into the site and the level of complexity especially with the different levels that Utzon had to deal with at the beginning can be seen here.



Villa Can Feliz displays a great level of balance and rhythm which is expressed to a greater extent in a 3D model compared to plan or elevation drawings. Similar to Chinese gardens which consists of certain buildings protruding outward more than other buildings to accentuate volume and rhythm, Villa Can Feliz does the same by having the semi-public area pushed inward compared to the public and private areas. The swimming pool, albeit not portrayed dominantly, is used to complement and give visual balance to the semi-public area.



Utzon has gained much insight of the use of platforms after his visit to the ancient Mayan ruins in Mexico. He employed it at the Sydney Opera House which gave the Opera House much momentum and force. The slope that Villa Can Feliz rests on is a natural platform, and Utzon combined the natural platform with the stairs and different levels to establish not only solidity and firmness, but also genius loci (genius of place).



Architecture deals with antinomical qualities. If we have unity, the antinomical quality would be multiplicty, and so does completeness to transformation. While studying Villa Can Feliz, a thought struck my mind. If Utzon has managed to capture such richness of the landscape from within, what would I get when I look into the house from outside? I saw that they aren't a lot of furnishings in Villa Can Feliz, plus the matte tiles and sandstone walls are not reflective materials which means that the house, if viewed from outside would usually be quite dark (the rear part of the house faces North). While enjoying the identifiable richness of the distant sea and macchia mediterranea (Mediterranean shrubs), one would turn and sense an elusive emptiness within the house which is the perfect time and place for contemplation.



A great understanding of formal composition is needed to build Can Feliz. Utzon has done tremendously well in creating this piece of beautiful architecture in his seventies. My group members and I have studied the villa, and we resolved to cut the villa on an east-west axis. Conventionally, as what we have seen in previous years' students who did Villa Can Feliz, all of them did the cut on a north-south axis. My group, however took a different approach as we wanted to show the change in levels of privacy from the western wing to the eastern wing. Great masters of architecture, when building their house, will never fail to consider the public/private zoning and circulation through their designed houses. The two diagrams below show the section cut of Villa Can Feliz






Note:
The original photographs are taken by Nicholas Hobbs on 31 March 2010. Used with kind permission from author and photographs are modified by Jabez Ho.