Grotte, cavità e nuvole = Caves, Cavities and Clouds

The cave, as a dark, cavernous, and enclosed space, has occupied a marginal position in the modernist architectural imagination, contrasting sharply with the era’s fascination with light, transparency, and openness. However, modern architects and theorists intermittently engaged with the cave as a conceptual and spatial pattern, from Bernard Rudofsky’s research studies to Frederick Kiesler’s Endless House. explored the cave as a prototype for urban dwelling, emphasizing interiority, enclosure and corporeality. More recently, the cave metaphor has resurfaced in contemporary architecture, in projects by Herzog & de Meuron, Junya Ishigami, and Diller & Scofidio, where cavernous spaces mediate light, atmosphere, and sensory experience. As contemporary architecture increasingly integrates subterranean typologies, natural materials, and passive climatic strategies, the cave becomes a powerful symbol of contemporary living, blurring boundaries between ground and sky, interior and exterior, artificial and natural, enclosure and exposure, space and the body. This article examines the historical and theoretical implications of the cave in architecture, from its modernist roots to its present-day relevance, arguing that it represents a shift toward an architecture of atmosphere, interiority, and interconnectedness, in tune with contemporary concerns about habitation, climate, and sensory experience.