Villa Nurbs

Apropos of the mention of my coursework intro to computer-based 3D modeling, check out this slick NY Times web special about architect Enric Ruiz-Geli and his Villa Nurbs*, a house designed with use of related computer-based modeling. It was commissioned for property near Barcelona and is under construction now.

While I don't think the notion of house as 'machine for living' is any more convincing today than when Le Corbusier & those like him first promoted it early in the last century, and while I think architects like Ruiz-Geli and publicist-critics like the NY Times's Ouroussoff misunderstand something fundamental about well-living when they can talk about a house functioning as 'isolation chamber' and 'luxury car' as though this were a good, or at least an indifferent, thing, it can't be said that the latter-day expressionist-futurist formal exploration and the technological tricks on display in this luxury villa aren't impressive & intriguing for their own sake.