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Stone Age House Showcases Ephemera of the Anthropocene Era

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Alexandre de Betak’s stone house by the sea is as ancient as any house that can be light-heartedly adapted to life in the 21st century.

In the house, some gigantic boulders are left in place, even in the entrance to some rooms.

The house provides some interesting contrasts between the extremely primitive…

…and the totally modern.
The silly electronic ephemera of the Anthropocene is showcased against the dignity of the stone age house.

Comfort is not sacrificed. Pebbles set in whitewashed plaster create the durable flooring. Beams to support the roof are barely altered from their natural state, as cut from the tree.
Some tree trunk shelves are plastered over. The floor is uneven, as the ground is. Simply plastering over the dirt, then just sealing it with a modern sealer keeps nature tamed. Light shades are formed from old pottery, plastered white.

One of the first surprises to our ancestors, the first people to cut stone, must have been the polished smooth interior that is found inside boulders. Here, this smooth edge is used to make a bookshelf. Each cut creates another shelf.

The exterior of the house falls somewhere between the two ages: the extremely ancient and the totally modern.

The house incorporates the technology of the typical stone house developed over time, starting ten centuries ago, adding such modern improvements as shutters, from the middle ages, five or so centuries ago.

In strict chronological time, this exterior is much closer to the present day, than to the Stone Age. But in a psychological sense, this is closer to the primitive era, because it hails from a time before today’s electronic communication technologies that have fundamentally altered our experience.

Via Trendir