Survey and Digital Representation of an Architecture in a Landscape Between Karst and the Sea

Abstract

The proposed research focuses on the reconstruction of the Casa Alberi by Romano Boico obtained by integrating different types of survey to the cadastral documentation. Commissioned by the Alberi family in 1957 and built in Duino, well-known municipality in the province of Trieste, this villa is characterized by its complete integration in the coastal naturalistic context. It is located close to the promontory where there is the XIV century Castle of Duino. It is inserted in the rocky ground near the sea and it is an example of organic architecture, because it combines the traditional form of local architectures and landscape aspect of the surrounding environment in a modern way. As described by Boico, the House in the Rock is like “a large rock shattered here and there and reassembled” that is camouflaged among the karst rocks of the promontory, characterized in plan and elevation by jagged shapes and lines. The villa is also characterized by the consistent use of raw materials for the structural elements and details such as the autochthonous stone of Aurisina and larch wood. The study in question has previously analyzed the historic evolution of the project, the construction phases of the villa, and the artistic context through historical and photographic sources. The next phase involved the digital reconstruction of the building, in which its architectural peculiarities have been illustrating. The traditional survey has been integrated with the photogrammetric one, that allowed to effectively reconstruct the orography and the territorial character in which the building is inserted, with particular attention to the passage in the rock that leads to the pier and the natural cave.