Cliffs Impasse

Antonin Ziegler posed a little volume shaped like an open book in the landscape of Impasse des Falaises to host a private library that is also a place of contemplation.

Inserted into the existing house, a small stair leads to a space that is suspended amongst the trees. From it, we can perceive the village and the horizon along the sea below. Open on three sides, the private library designed by Antonin Ziegler is like a book opened onto the landscape.

The space provides an escape from every known frame of reference. It clears away limits through a rupture in form, scale, and structure. It marks the will to create a special and unique place.

Antonin Ziegler Architecte, Cliffs Impasse, Impasse des Falaises, Senneville-sur-Fécamp, France

Abandoning the roof in order to create a simple form without any particular associations, the walls are covered inside and out with wooden boards. The dimension of the main window, unusual and nonstandard, entirely modifies the relationship with the exterior. From the concealment of the structure – so that the window can open completely onto the landscape – to the repetition of the lamps into the distance through a game of reflection, the space leads its occupants into towards an unknown and mysterious world.

Beyond simply providing a view for its inhabitants and offering a place for evasion, the space also creates a new image within the landscape. It dramatizes an introspective life as incarnated by the library, frames it through the large opening, and decorates it with the surrounding nature. The focalization on this newly unveiled space creates a relationship that tends to make the existing house disappear.