There are few many items that know how to heat up not only a space. Able to decorate and fill the most anonymous among rooms. That can evoke that sense of ‘nostalgia’ and comfort, the pleasure of staying at home, to read a good book and drink a tea with cinnamon.
I always associate a fireplace to that idea of heat especially a human one related to home and affection. The fire that squeaks means to me only two things: my grandparents’ house and a cottage on the mountains. That’s why I have often dreamed of transferring this object and its idea of family and serenity in my place in the city.
When I saw that Rem Koolhaas, in the latest Biennale of Architecture, has listed it among the fundamental elements in architecture I thought I should find a way to add it in an urban environment at least as a decorative element.
I certainly don’t forget the teaching of Loos remanding that ‘the ornament is a crime’ which kills the architecture and its functional and rational value, but I want to prove that the true idea of a house is made from the composition of a set of elements.
And whether building a chimney might be too difficult, a ‘fake fireplace‘ to hang on your wall or decorate with candles that simulate a fire I think may be able to change the atmosphere of a room easily.