Michael McDonough | Architect
Malaparte: A House Like Me
By Michael McDonough
- Malaparte
Malaparte: A House Like Me offers an extraordinary look at Malaparte, the man and the house. Often called the most beautiful house in the world, Casa Malaparte in Capri, Italy is dramatically sited on a promontory overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. It was home to Curzio Malaparte (1898-1957), the Italian writer who designed the building. A perpetual enigma, he still confounds nearly all who care to look. Actor, novelist, poet, filmmaker, soldier, playwright, journalist, political figure, prisoner, composer, charmer — inventor and revealer of truths — Malaparte associated with Mussolini and Stalin, vilified Hitler, and admired Mao. He was a journalist in London, a collaborator with the Surrealists in Paris, and a war correspondent in Berlin and on the Russian front. “Casa come me,” he called the building — “House like me” — inviting perpetual speculation as to what meaning lay within.
Much as Picasso, Breton, Pound, Eliot, and Godard discovered the house and its legendary owner earlier in the century, such international personalities as Robert Venturi, Emilio Ambasz, Willem Dafoe, Steven Holl, Michael Graves, Peter Eisenman, Arata Isozaki, Louis Cha, Carla Fendi, James Wines, and Karl Lagerfeld have created a special portfolio embodying unique insights into the controversial artist and his provocative home.
A work of art in itself, Malaparte: A House Like Me includes photographs produced especially by the renowned Italian photographer Mimmo Jodice, archival images and documents, poetry, original art, letters, memoirs, commentaries, and an original musical score. Organized in cooperation with the Casa Malaparte Foundation, and edited by noted architect, designer, and writer, Michael McDonough, this remarkable book ultimately celebrates Casa Malaparte’s enigmatic contradictions, seeing it as a “living literary work, an autobiography, and a mysterious tabula rasa; a house that lives in myth.”
Table of Contents
- Foreword • Tom Wolfe
- Malaparte: A House Like Me • Michael McDonough
- Elegant in the Noblest Sense • Carla Fendi
- Mar Tirreno • Michael Graves
- Politics, Aesthetics, and Fascism in the World of Malaparte • Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi
- In Form and Symbol • Robert Venturi
- A Curious Blurring of Reason and Nature • Peter Eisenman
- Inevitable Inheritance • Karl Lagerfeld
- Cable From Milan • John Hejduk
- The Life of the House • Mario Mariotti
- Invited by Malaparte We Leave for Capri • René Novellá
- On Reading Malaparte • Willem Dafoe
- From the Gate • Mario Botta
- A Masterpiece Come il Maestro • Louis Cha
- Malaparte in Time • Francisco Perfetti
- 1898 – 1957: A Political Life • Giuseppe Pardini
- On the Way to Villa Lysis/On The Way to Villa Malaparte • Raffaele La Capria
- A Basket of Oysters • Steven Holl
- From Ego-centric to Eco-centric • James Wines
- Casa Malaparte: Photographs • Mimmo Jodice
- Letter from Capri • Arata Isozaki
- Color and Casa Malaparte • Steven Skov Holt
- Metaphysics More Than Symbolism • Ettore Sottsass
Prospettive: An International Journal of Culture and the Arts, 1938 – 1952 - 360° Views • Hotel of the Rising Star
- The Bet • Ed Koren and Michael McDonough
- Eating Malaparte • Colman Andrews
- Krasny Means Red Means Beautiful • Constantine Boym
- A Moral Interpretation of Casa Malaparte • Jaron Lanier
- The Path Eroded • Linda Garland
- Minotaurus • Daniele Lombardi
- Unbuilding Malaparte: An Auto-destructive Text • Grant Morrison
- Deux Chapeaux de Paille D’Itailie • Bruno Bressolin
- Like a Ship at Sea • Thomas S. Bley
- Contempt and Casa Malaparte • Phillip Lopate
- In the Center of the World • Ara and Philippe Starck
- The Salt of Casa Malaparte • Giancarlo Broggi and Angelo Broggi
- House of Pixels • Marco Broggi
- First Encounters • Ralph Jentsch
- Casa Elicottero • Massimo Scaffei
- Simple but Eternal Things: Reflections at Casa Malaparte • Laima Slava
- Beautiful and Strange Anonymity • Simón Vélez
- A State of the Spirit • Emilio Ambasz
- Dusk at Pian delle Noci • Andrejs Grants
Where to Buy
- Malaparte: A House Like Me
- amazon.com
- Malaparte: Une Maison Qui Me Ressemble (French)
- proxis.be
- Malaparte: Ein Haus Wie Ich (German)
- amazon.de
