cryptic.k

Roberta Frumușelu-Untaru, Eduard Untaru

‘Ion Mincu’ University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest, Romania
office@cryptic-k.com

House of Earth (the Second Glance)

Over the past few years, we have closely studied significant architectural works, translating them into spatial models for first-year architecture students. Among these, House of Earth proved uniquely resistant. Despite extensive archival research, dozens
of hand-drawn redrawings, and iterative conversations with students, the house retained a sense of opacity. Working on a broader project about hidden rooms, we returned to Shinohara’s work. We found ourselves compulsively redrawing everything all over again, attempting to reconstruct the house down to its final screw. The essay we propose reflects on the notion of the second glance – one that reveals, contradicts, interrogates, and ultimately subverts the superficial engagement that so often characterises our present-day encounters with architectural references. This essay offers a critical and personal re-reading of Kazuo Shinohara’s House of Earth. While the house initially appears to stage a clear opposition between two realms, one that is sunken, dark, and enclosed, and one that is lying on earth, luminous, and open, this binomial collapses upon closer examination. Through spatial analysis, reconstructed “technical project,” and theoretical reflection, the essay traces how the house operates not through contrast alone but through ambiguity, inversion, and layered continuity. It also compels a deeper, slower engagement with architectural reference, one that values ambiguity, presence and time.

Keywords: House of Earth; Kazuo Shinohara; disection; shelter; isolation; space; darkness; drawings.