Hilltop House

The Hilltop House, one of the Morgan’s greatest designs, epitomizes his intention to build with the earth, not on it, the essential attribute of his earth architecture. The site is a hill located in central Florida, 2000 feet in diameter, rising 70 feet, the top of which the clients chose as their favorite picnic spot before the house was built. When first seen from a great distance, the hose strikes one as being at once natural and artificial, archaic and modern. The house draws the massive heaviness of the hill up into a pyramidal form, its corners oriented to the cardinal points, and its spaces framed by earth-retaining walls of geometric precision. The rooms of the house open in four directions, fronted by protected terraces cut into ground, so that this most earth-bound of houses is paradoxically, cross-ventilated by all four winds. The upper level, named “the Observatory”, is a single, central room, crowned by a pyramidal roof that brings the lines of the house and hill to its peak, and from which one is afforded uninterrupted views of the surrounding landscape. Inspired by prehistoric earth architecture, this house provides its occupants both modern spatial freedoms and an intensely spiritual connection to earth. The Hilltop House, uno de los mejores proyectos de Morgan, encarna a la perfección su intención de construir con tierra, más que contruir sobre la tierra misma, atributo esencial de esta parte de su producción. La ubicación se encuentra en una colina en el centro de Florida, de 2000 pies de diámetro y 70 de altura, cuya cima fue elegida por los clientes antes de construir la casa como su lugar de picnic favorito. Vista por primera vez desde la distancia, la casa impresiona por su apariencia natural y artificial al mismo tiempo, siendo arcaica y moderna. La construcción eleva la pesadez de la colina en una forma piramidal, con sus esquinas orientadas a los puntos cardinales y los espacios delimitados por muros de contención de precisa geometría.