The bourgeois, the architect and the palazzina

Abstract

“Plainclothes” architecture identifies a specific social class, although today it gathers a wider and more diversified pool than in the past. The term “bourgeois” epitomizes ambiguous definitions addressing multiple dichotomous interpretations, in which the perimeter of privacy, where to find “happiness”, can be interpreted here as the architecture of the house, which contains the private ritual within the city public scene. Although the bourgeois may be “the one who has a sitting room” for Charles Seignobos or “the one who owns a piano” for André Siegfried, the translation of the collective bourgeois spirit into architecture is set on the “measure” of the palazzina: a de facto lives collection characterized by authorial operations aimed at satisfying the principles of “the good way of living”. Crossing the Mediterranean area, the palazzina seems to revive and find new meaning. The Stone Garden residential building (2016-2020) by Lina Ghotmeh Architecture in Beirut houses apartments and a cultural hub dedicated to Middle Eastern Art, becoming an example from which to restart and re-found the architecture of the palazzina as the rediscovery of a social, community and
biological sense.