And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The "Zen House" residential project came to life while dipping into words and concepts, realism and metaphysics, looking to stabilize some notion of truth. There would come a point when we were able to seize onto something, grab onto a branch, as it were, and stop our free fall (or rise) and then, we would go into action. Architecture and its action. Building is a freezing of such a flow of thoughts and experiences at that given moment when, what the falling and rising in the chaos of ideas and experiences has taught, needs to be applied.
"Zen House" is located on the Island of Paros on a hill facing the Isterni Bay and the Island of Naxos. Designed by the renowned architect Kostas Gouzelis, a unique architectural work built with attention and meticulousness by the best professionals in Greece.
Archetypal Roots
In particular places, like here on the Cycladic islands, the architectural tradition is well rooted and visible, with specimens from many historical periods in architecture and sculpture: Venetian features and buildings, rare Ara- bic ones, Italian rhythms, Byzantine churches and, lastly, the miracles of modern day, anonymous popular architecture. A special respect is in order that needs to be based on a deep understanding of tradition in its archetypal origins, rather than on copying the morphology of volumes that can’t ever be reproduced, given the absence of know how and of the forms of energy employed in the past. Every design and every construction entails by definition a projection of autobiographical elements on the part
We are made to live simultaneously in two houses. The physical one made of matter and the inner house of the mind, made of memories, dreams and images. The endeavors was for that house to be built so that its material being also reflects the inner house of the mind.