Final Design
Although the revised plan followed the existing foundations, the transformation achieved a compression and coherence in the spatial organization which had been almost entirely lacking in the ‘Proto-Mairea’. The entrance opens into a small top-lobby, from which another door straight ahead leads into an open hall positioned four steps below the main level. One enters on axis with the dining table beyond, but the axiality is undermined by the asymmetry of a screen of wooden poles and a free-standing, angled wall which together define an informal ante-roombetween the living room and dining room. The angle of the low wall is set from the corner of the white-plastered fireplace diagonally opposite, which becomes the natural centre of attention as one ascends the step into the living room. Similar diagonal relationships are established between Harry Gullichsen’s private library/study and the ‘winter garden’ (which Maire used for flower arranging and from which a stair leads directly up to her studio), and between the main staircase and open sun-lit part of the living room into which eyes are drawn as you emerge from behind the vertical poles which screen the stairs.
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