tempietto – frame

two facade studies and a rotunda

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Facade as generator: that is, starting with a facade and working back to a floor plan instead of the opposite, more traditional, fashion. Here, a scored plaster exterior references brick construction, with radiating joints at the circular window and jack arches over the rectangular side windows. A tall pyramidal skylight centers the whole.

Another facade, this time actual brick with rounded corners, simple square double-hung windows under jack arches with thin metal overhangs and stone shoulders at the inset front door. The plan suggests a small linear courtyard at the center.

This circular rotunda has a few things going on in plan that a section won’t illustrate. But not to mind, for the section shows enough of its own intrigue. The dome is cut, making it shallow at the center than the ends. A large skylight sits above, illustrated here as a small tempietto, a room beyond a room, above which the skylight proper is positioned.

a rotunda

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This is a simple room, with a shallow dome set on squinches capping a square room. The whole is topped with a small tempietto-cum-oculus. A perpendicular section (top-left) is paired with a diagonal section (top-right), and a wormseye sectional axonometric on the bottom-right.

lewerentz’s crematorium at malmö

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An unbuilt project for a crematorium complex at Malmö, Sweden. Three conical brick chimneys top square window-less boxes, with small temples linking them one to another. An elongated temple-fronted portico acts as the formal entry at the center volume.

graves does a townhouse

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A golden oldie from Michael Graves’ heyday – this small townhouse or ‘carriage house’ is a perfect example of Graves’ mastery of the floor plan. Say what you want about his elevations, but his plans are money, and the enfilade depicted here is extraordinary. The foyer is an autonomous tempietto-like volume, with a walk-through library preceding the full-width living room to one side, and the kitchen-dining room volume to the other, with a long pilastered hall beyond flanked with a study and guest bedroom, while the master bedroom opens onto a patio.