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Iannis Xenakis /// Villa Mâche /// Amorgos Island, Greece /// 1966-77
Iannis Xenakis worked with Le Corbusier on the “Convent of Sainte Marie de La Tourette” (1956-60) and was the principal architect of the outstanding “Philips Pavilion” (1958). Xenakis left his master’s atelier to pursue a successful career as an experimental musical composer; he never abandoned architecture, but didn’t built much.
In 1966, he built this villa on the Greek island of Amorgos for his daughter, who was married to the French composer François-Bernard Mâche. The building complex is located on the slope of a hill, overlooking the northern coast of the Tirokomos gulf, near Lefkes village.
The House in Amorgos was considered a personal challenge for the re-invention of the design process and the redefinition of the dwelling itself. It is an architectural event. Each of the four volumes is a separate room (living room, dormitory-cum-guestroom, bedroom and bathroom), laid out at the same level on a slight curve parallel to the hill. An exterior corridor connects the rooms, while verandas and open sitting areas are fitted in between the independent volumes. The composition combines elements of traditional architecture with some basic principles of the modern movement, as well as Iannis Xenakis’s personal investigations.
