Villa Blochwitz

When architect Arthur Blochwitz built the house in Leipzig for himself and his family in 1931 and 1932, the formal principles of the Bauhaus were evident from the very first moment: Compact, functional, and yet following an aesthetic based on lines and axes as well as a balanced interplay of openness and unity. With a floor area of just under 150 square meters, all living and adjoining rooms were located on the ground floor, the upper floor was used as a drying loft and the characteristic flat roof was not used as a terrace. Today, the building has been adapted to modern requirements – naturally in strict compliance with the preservation order, as it is one of the most valuable testimonies to the Bauhaus movement and therefore one of the most important examples of modern architecture during the interwar period.

The Occhio portfolio is not a series of singular centerpieces. Although the individual series follow different guidelines in terms of form and function, they all speak the same lighting and design language. A holistic approach once again comes to the surface in this project: technology and design complement each other perfectly. The unique Mito sospeso takes center stage above the dining table, accompanied by the Più alto spotlights, which provide suspenseful ambient lighting for the room. The paired arrangement of the spotlights, which can be found in various places in the house, is a stylistic element often used in Occhio lighting designs as a visual anchor point that provides a certain recognizable feature and thus brings more calm and balance to the ambiance.

One of the greatest strengths of Bauhaus architecture is the use of light as an irreplaceable design element. The atmospheric spatial experience is supported on the one hand by generous window areas and on the other hand by transparent stylistic devices such as glass blocks, which turn the house into a genuine light catcher. The light streams in from all sides like a soft focus, constantly creating a new perception. Nevertheless, everything follows a clear geometric structure. In this context, the axes of the architecture were taken up with Occhio luminaires. This principle is particularly evident in the staircase, where a single Sento verticale has been precisely positioned in response to the vertical and horizontal lines defined by the architecture.