Tuesday, January 13, 2009

The House That Always Faces The Sun

clipped from deputy-dog.com
it’s surprising that there’s so little (english) information available about this house as it seems to be such a piece of engineering brilliance and a building which, when designed, was way ahead of its time. it was built and lived in by an italian ship engineer by the name of angelo invernizzi (along with assistance from architect ettore fagiuoli) between the years of 1929 & 1935 and can still be found in marcellise, italy.
the top half of the building rotates around the centre of the circluar track on which it rests (which happens to form the roof of the lower, static half of the building), much like the hands of a clock
the ‘tower’ which forms the pivot is 43 metres tall and the power needed to move the structure is generated by 2 motors (3 horsepower in total): a full revolution of the 1′500ton building would take just over 9hrs, travelling at a speed of 4mm per second, unless of course the rotation was delibrately slowed.

the house is called ‘il girasole’ - the sunflower

google maps
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