Building landscapes of stone: two compositional paradigms = Costruire paesaggi di pietra: due paradigmi della composizione

The contribution proposes a critical rereading of two exceptional residential projects – built in the second half of the 20th century – in which the art of dry-stone walling is not only the admirable technical application of an ancient knowledge, but also, and above all, a fertile field of compositional experimentation on the relationship between nature and artifice. The stone substructures of the terraced landscapes are indeed the common point of convergence between Bruno Morassutti's villa von Saurma in Termini di Massa Lubrense (1961-62) and Eduardo Souto de Moura's house in Moledo (1991-98). Two projects far apart in time and space, yet both paradigmatic of the extraordinary expressive possibilities of an "architecture of stone" capable of combining a modern vision of inhabiting with the consolidated traditions and techniques of the local culture. The article focuses on the ways in which the encounter between soil and architecture has been declined in these two case-studies, in order to rediscover a possible consonance between contemporary housing design and landscape protection.