The Mir House

arhitect Aleksandar Paris
project Family House Mir, Rovinj, Croatia
written by Alan Kostrenčić

 

Collecting the passage of time...
the house becomes a calendar
It register the movement of time during the year or during a life time...
Enric Miralles, El Croquis 100-101, 2000.

 

In Croatian circumstances, building a family residence serves primarily to solve the issue of finding a place to live in. This means that this type of investment has to serve a housing purpose before anything else – to satisfy the need of having enough rooms for all household members, but then it also has to serve a symbolic purpose – to show “what kind of a family this is”, to show its social status and the cultural sphere to which it belongs. Of course, it has to be beautiful as well and to show the taste of its inhabitants. Therefore, a house is a kind of mixture between the need for space and the need for display. As a result, a typical Croatian home is a two-storey house with a floor area of at least 300 sqm, has a saddleback roof and a spacious garage in front of it. In Croatian circumstances, a home rarely satisfies the need for hedonism, the urge to enjoy living in it.