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The Secret Dichotomy of Soplo House

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An intriguing house from Cazú Zegers G is the fruit of a conflict between two design aesthetics.

This curvy maze-like entrance to Soplo House is conceived as a “pavilion open to the landscape.”

The architect says it was “inspired by the experience of walking through the sculpture of Richard Serra in Guggenheim Bilbao with my daughter Clara.”

The entry is accessed down the flight of obscured stairs – hermetically sealed and enclosed by the curved walls.

Set in Camino Punta de Aguilas interior, Santiago, Chile, Soplo House is inspired by “the shapes that draws the wind on the sand.”

Soplo is Spanish for breath, “which breathes life, is the wind that passes smoothly through the openings.”

He describes the curves as “designed in a double system of golden ratios, which give form to the breath.”

Giving rise to this unique skylight, the curved exterior walls continue within to the interior…

But once fully inside the house, here, the curves end.

Because in an abrupt about-face, the entire front of the house is entirely linear.

Why? Because the architect wants it to match this house next door – by the national architecture prize winner Luis Izquierdo.

So, in a startling change from the curved walls of the entry, the shared public street view replicates the neighbors long straight facade.

(Although, in a quirky addition, its matching long and linear harsh roofline is softened by a goofy covering of scrubby plants and wildflowers.)

Now the public side of Soplo House matches the neighboring architecture of the Casa Rollan Zegers.

But even within the linear “modern” side, the private spaces still reveal the hankering for nature’s earthy curves.

Both houses overlook the distant mountains from the foot of Santiago’s Manquehue hill.

But conflict remains between the hard lined and rational and the imaginative rough hewn.

The ‘curves’ versus ‘linear’ dichotomy is unresolved, in part, because the architect seems not to want to challenge the architecture next door – which happens to have been designed for the architect’s own sister.

So this is more like two houses, one a private house full of gentle curves, and one aping the much more linear house next door.

But the long linear expanse of windows soaking up the sun certainly generates a lot of sunny space within.

The combination is actually additive, making the plot “become infinite, with multiple possibilities.”