Remilio da Re, Casa del Castello / Castle House

all images courtesy of Giada Carraro

The castle-like structure depicted above is situated in a garden near a house in Orsago, a small municipality located in the province of Treviso, Italy.

The city, with some 3700 inhabitants (2003) is situated about 60 kilometers north of Venice.

 Life and works

The structure was created single-handedly by Remilio da Re, who was born in 1927 and died in 2003.

He was married and the couple had a few daughters.

Remilio da Re had a job as a bricklayer, working for a construction company, where he resigned in the 1960s for health reasons.

A castle-like creation

The 1960s were also the period in which he devoted himself fully to the construction of a castle-like structure, situated in the front garden of his house. For the construction, he used cement, mortar and stone.

The castle-like building rests on a sturdy concrete foundation, and the images in this post clearly show that the castle is not only equipped with numerous entrance doors and various windows, but that spread over the entire structure of the creation it features several round towers and various pointed roofs.

As far as is known, the design is not based on a structure located elsewhere that served as a model and source of inspiration, but the de Casa del Castello as a whole stems from the creative mind of Remilio da Re.

The castle-like creation does not stand on its own, but is surrounded by a number of smaller creations.

The family and descendants of Remilio la Re ensure the continued existence of his creations after his passing.

Documentation

* Article by Giada Carraro, about Remilio da Re on her website Bric-á-Brac Italia. (As far as I could ascertain, this is the only publication on the internet  about the creation).

Remilio da Re

Castle House

Orsago, region Treviso, Italy

José María Pérez Ruiz, La Casa Barco España / The house "Barco España"

this image and the next six courtesy of Jo Farb Hernandez
see Docementation 

Almuñécar is a Spanish city with some 27.000 inhabitants (2024), located along the Mediterranean sea, in the southwestern part of the coast of Granadina in the province of Granada.

This city was the hometown of José María Pérez Ruiz (1937-2025), also affectionately known as Pepe Pérez.

If you're wondering what the image of a ship has to do with where he lived.. .that ship was his home !

Life and works

Pepe Pérez' was conceived in 1937 when his father, who had a job as a barber, was on a short leave from military service during the Spanish Civil War.

At age twenty-two he joined the Merchant Marines, a choice that would have a major influence on the rest of his life.

In 1967, thirty years old, he married María del Carmen, who worked as a teacher, The couple would have two daughters and a son.

From his early years, Pérez was professionally connected with the shipping industry, a connection so strong indeed that it could be said that his heart lay in life at sea. 

His favorite saying was, “My ship is my treasure, my god is freedom, my law is strength and the wind, my only homeland is the sea.”

Pérez's dream was to build a house in Almuñécar that would always remind him of his connection to the sea..

He succeeded in realizing that dream, because in early 1970, with the help of a cousin, he began building a house. It was a unique construction in the shape of a 75-meter-long ship, full of nautical details, located along a road to the nearby popular beach of San Cristóbal.

The building is filled with maritime items, which Pérez bought here and there in ports, for example, when he heard that a ship was being scrapped. He acquired portholes, masts, ropes...... in short, all sorts of ship parts and instruments.

The interior of the ship that Pérez Ruiz constructed includes what you'd expect in a typical house: rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and so on.

It's not visible from the street, but behind the building there is a terrace with a swimming pool and a vegetable garden.

José Maria Pérez Ruiz passed away on January 9, 2025.

Documentation

* This art enviroment is introduced and analyzed in the book: Jo Farb Hernandez, Singular Spaces II: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments. Milan: 5 Continents Editions, 2023 

* Article (January 2025) in Spanish newspaper Ideal

* Article (January 2025) in Spanish newspaper ABC de Granada

Video

* Video (2009, YouTube, 4'10#') by Canalsur, an interview with Pérez Ruiz

 

José María Pérez Ruiz

La Casa-Barco España 

Avenida del Mediterrano  34 

Almuñécar,  province of Granada, Spain

can be seen from the street

Google Streetview

Pentti Kangasaho & Mervi Rintala, Polttopuista tehdyt rakennukset / Buildings made from firewood

this photo and the next four courtesy of Minna Haveri

A recent post in this weblog, published on January 24, 2025, was dedicated to Veikko Salo from Padasjoki, Finland, who in 2017 began building small-scale houses and other buildings from stacked firewood, which he situated in a wooded area along road 24.

From the responses to the article it became clear that there is at least one other art environment in Finland that focuses on creations made with wooden materials collected in the forests as firewood.

Life and works

This refers to an art environment created by Pentti Kangasaho and Mervi Rintala, living in a hamlet that is part of the municipality of Urjala in the Finnish region of Western and Central Finland.

This hamlet, called Pertunkulma, is located some 5 km east of the built-up area of ​​Urjala and is situated in a very wooded area.

Pentti Kangasaho and his wife Mervi Rintala live here in a rural home, which means that there is plenty of space around the house to situate piles of firewood, a fuel that in Finland is widely used for heating homes, especially in rural wooded areas. 

This was also the case at Pentti and Mervi's house, and so it happened that Pentti, who always found it very attractive to make something with his hands, came up with the idea of ​​transforming piles of firewood into small buildings. 

And so, in 2005 Pertti, assisted by Mervi, began constructing firewood buildings which got situated in the space near their house. as shown in the photos.

The first building the couple created, was a stacked construction of firewood, covered with a ridge of a fiber cement plate, which protected the stack from too much moisture.

After more than ten years of creative construction and partly also the burning of some creations, in the summer of 2017 a cozy village had been established, comprising a church, a rectory and several residential buildings.

The church, depicted below, named Ketunaho Chapel, occupies a special place amidst all other creations.

Fifteen cubic meters of birch and spruce wood were used for its construction.

The roof, in the shape of a saddle roof, has been made of old mineral wall plates and the whole is decorated with a small square tower with a spire made of residual wood.

The church was consecrated in 2013 by the Reverend Kauko Keränen, who stated in his speech that Mervi and Pentti had the right to set fire to the building if this was considered as convenient and appropriate.

Another notable event involving the church occurred in 2014, when the Finnish newspaper Yle Tampere organized a competition for the most beautiful photo of a self-created wooden structure, which was won by Mervi Rintala who had made the photo of the church which she herself had helped to create.

The above text describes the situation of the art environment as it had developed in around 2015. No information is available on the internet about the developments of the site in the ten years or so that followed.

This also means that it is currently unclear whether the site can be visited, which in the early years was possible once a year during a weekend in a summer month.

Environmental and health aspects of collecting and burning wood

For followers of this blog who live in other countries then Finland it can be interesting to hear more about environmental and health aspect of working with firewood. 

The Finnish website Puu-info, a promoter of responsible wood use, states that in Finland, despite the use of wood from forests (which account for 75 percent of the country's total area) thanks to forest management measures, the amount of wood in Finnish forests has increased by 60 percent in 70 years. 

 As for the use of wood as fuel, it is stated that this doesn't lead to an increase in the concentrations of carbon dioxide and sulphur in the air or to an increase in the greenhouse effect of the climate. The combustion of wood releases the same amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the decomposition of wood in nature. 

Finland also has an annual prize, the Wood Award, which is awarded for an interesting and responsible use of wood.

Documentation

* Article (undated) on the website Maaseudun Sivistysliitto, ITE Pirkanmaala/Urjala

* Article  (July 2014) about the site in newspaper Yle Tampere

* Article (July 2016) about the site in regional periodical Luonnon Varassa, p 20-23

* Article (July 2014) in newspaper Yle Tampere about the photo contest, with a series of photos of all kinds of stacked firewood in Finland

Pentti Kangasaho & Mervi Rintala

Buildings made from firewood

143 Pertunkulmantie

Hamlet of Pertunkulma, municipality of Urjala, dept Pirkanmaa, region Western and Central Finland, Finland

it is not clear whether the site can be visited today

an image on Google Streetview, most likely shows the location of the art environment because of the church building that can be seen

Veikko Salo, Pinottu polttopuun luomukset / Creations of stacked firewood

photo (2021) by Juho Haaviko on Google Streetview

In rural areas in Finland it is not uncommon for residents to collect a winter supply of firewood from a nearby forest. It also happens in Finland that someone comes up with the idea to transform such a pile of wood into small-scale buildings, as shown in the image above. 

To my knowledge this is a unique Finnish happening. because so far elsewhere in Europe I haven't come across art environments with singular architecture made from firewood.

photo (2021) by Marja Leena-Kounia on Google Streetview

 Life and works

The small buildings and other items featured in this art environment have been created by Veikko Salo, who lives in Padasjoki, a municipality of about 2,750 inhabitants (2022) in Päijät-Häme in the region of Southern Finland.

He was born in August 1947 and was active as a forestry engineer throughout his working life.

Around 2016 Salo read in an article in a newspaper about people in Finland who had made a creation from firewood. (Maybe about Pentti Kangasaho and Mervi Rintala who in 2005 began to enrich the surroundings of their home in the municipality of Urjala in Finland with all kinds of small buildings made of firewood).

Around 2000 Salo had already made a firewood structure, a kind of pyramid. with a height of ten meters and a round base with a diameter of about eight meters. However, the wooden parts of the structure were stacked very close together and filled a large portion of the interior of the creation, which caused the components to deform from within, resulting in a collapse of the structure.

photo (2022) by Merja Kukkonen as on Google Streetview

The newspaper article in 2016 inspired Salo to start creating firewood structures again, but this time better, taking into account the previous experience.

Assisted by his friend Ripa Töyry, who helped him with the design of the creations, he got to work.

And soon these creations began to form an art environment with its own characteristics.

The images above, dating from 2021 and 2022, show structures with a realistic design. As a visitor, one may get the idea of walking in a cozy village street.

this image (August 2022) and the next
two from Facebook

Because of the experience he had gained around  2000. his new creations got a much more airy structure, such as the tipi pictured above, which has a diameter of 4 meters and a height of 4.7 meters, and includes some 300 wooden stakes. .

this image published in October 2018

The image above shows a close-up of how the buildings that now decorate the art environment takes shape;

They are constructed from trunks of young trees, which are sawn into small units and then stacked, with the sawn surface or the long side facing forward. 

In this way, wall sections are created, which are grouped in such a way that an entrance, a front facade, a roof section or other part of the building emerges.

By maintaining the same dimensions for the various building elements, a balanced whole is created when they are combined.

When structures are somewhat bulky or rising upwards, such as the mill in one of the images above, the help of a mobile tool with a gripper arm is called in, so that for example the mill sails can be easily lifted and attached. 

The video in the documentation below shows such an approach.

this image published in April 2017

In addition to the houses, the mill and other structures that comprise the art environment, there are also some creations in the form of a wooden wall on which a message is proclaimed.

For example, the wall above is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Finland, which was celebrated in 2017. 

Documentation

* Article (November 2018) in newspaper Maasedun Tulevaisuus

* Article (October 2018) in newspaper Yle

* Article (August 2017) in newspaper MTV Uutiset

Video

* Video by Timo Lampinen (2020, YouTube, 4'35")

Veikko Salo

Creations of stacked firewood

along road 24 

Quarter Likoniementie, city of Padasjoki, region Päijät-Häme, dept Southern Finland, Finland

can be seen from the road

Google Streetview

Franco Ferrari, Casa tipo castello autocostruita / Self-built castle-like house

this image and the next one from Google Streetview

The image above shows a special house located in an ordinary street in the city of Colombaro in Italy. The special character is at first sight mainly expressed in the donjon-like roof structure, but the construction has numerous other elements that support the unusual character.

Life and works

The house was built by Franco Ferrari (1923–2009), a mason by profession, who started the project in the late 1950s when he was in his mid-thirties.

Working primarily with cement and wood, it would take him around ten years to complete the three-storey building, which, in addition to the donjon-like roof structure, also includes a more rectangular tower on the roof, as seen in the image above, which shows the creation from a different angle.

In addition to the elements added to the roof, the hand-built house features all sorts of battlements and capitals, several arches, and a staircase running up an outer wall.

After Ferrari died in 2009, the house remained in the hands of the family, who maintained it with care.

Documentation

* Entry on the Italian website Costruttori di Babele, with a series of photos that give a good impression of the creation as a whole and also in terms of details

Franco Ferrari

Self-built castle-like house

Via Tito Speri 17

25040 Colombaro, Brescia, Lombardia, Italy

can be seen from the road

Google Streetview

Jaroslav Horák, Umělecká prostředí v Černilově / Art environments in Černilov

unless stated otherwise, images are courtesy of Jaroslav Horák

The community of Černilov with about 2,200 inhabitants in the east of the Czech Republic, can boast of the presence of two art environments.

These sites were created from the early years of the 21st century by Jaroslav Horák, who lives in Černilov and was born into a family of millers.

The art environment with a mill 

and an area named Pohádkov (Fairy Tales)

Jaroslav Horák owned a piece of grassland just outside the village, along the road from Černilov to Libřantice. 

This meadow was no longer used for grazing cattle and there was only some dilapidated shed. 

Around 2011 Horák decided to renovate this shed, but the renovation wasn't just a matter of repair, it rather was a creative project, as a result of which the shed became a house with a lovely appearance, beautifully designed, especially with regard to the windows.

As the above image shows, near the now renovated and embellished barn, there is an area with arrangements of small-scale decorative wooden creations, made by Horák himself, This are was named Pohádkov, which means Fairy Tales.  

There are all kinds of fairytale items here, such as mushrooms, strange trees and giant flowers. 

Children of visitors can have fun here to their heart's content, such as playing hide and seek, using the many bushes to hide.

As the images show, the colorful elements are characteristic of the art environments created by Jaroslav Horák. 

They can also be found, for example, on the entrance gate, which has been decorated with colored round plates.  

In 2016, Horák started a big project that he had dreamed of for a long time. On the highest part of the meadow he built the mill that would become rather iconic for Černilov

Just as the renovated shed, the mill is characterized by colorful accents, such as the blades that are colored at the ends. These blades can rotate, but they do so powered by an electric motor.

The tower has three floors, is 13.5 meters high and has a diameter of 8 meters. The blades are 12 meters long. The interior of the mill includes a gallery with photos of interesting and attractive locations in Černilov and there is also a room for meetings and other social/cultural activities,

A plaque is attached to the facade in memory of victims of the 1950s, among whom Horák's parents.

As shown above, on the site also a special a creation has risen, consisting of nine high poles.

This ensemble is referred to as Černilov's Stonehenge, this because of the association with the megalithic monument in the English county of Wiltshire.

The two areas with semi-circular shelters are equipped with a table and benches, this to offer visitors a place to consume a drink or meal, if they have brought something similar.

This art environment can be visited by the public and visitors are welcomed with the text on the entrance gate saying Vitel kdo v dobrém přicházíš, which means Welcome who is coming in a good way.

The art environment Wet Meadow Gallery

this image (April 2024) as on Google Streetview

Around 2020 Horák started to create another art environment, also located on an arterial road from Černilov, but this time the one to Librice.

The site is located on a somewhat boggy piece of grassland and is referred to as the Wet Meadow Gallery (in Czech Mokrá louka-galerie)

The image above shows a small cottage, reminiscent of the shed near the mill site.

Seen from the road, a fairly long series of colorful sculptural ensembles starts to the right of the cottage, and it seems that this line, probably running along a ditch, continues until a side road of the arterial road.

Along the line there is a tulip tree, as in the image below, and then there is a group of aliens and there sheep, vases of flowers, gentlemen with parasols and so on.....

 

Gallery Mokrá Louka can be visited for free all year round.

Documentation

* Website dedicated to the two art environments, edited by Jaroslav Horák, with a variety of images

* Brief article about the two art environments in a publication dedicated to sights in the Czech Republic

* Facebook "Mlýn Černilov" (Černilov Mill) with various recent photos

Video

* Video (2023, YouTube, 5'32") by Patka Filmové studio

Jaroslav Horák  

Art environments in Černilov

along the roads to Libřantice and to Librice

Černilov, region Hradec Králové, Czech Republic

visitors welcome

Google Streetview with over 750 photos of the mill and the area around 

Google Streetview of the Wet Meadow area

Dominique Zanardi, Musée de le Bataille de la Somme / Battle of the Somme Museum

this image from the Facebook-account of
Le Tommy, Café du Souvenir

At first glance, the building in the image above looks like an average café-restaurant, but upon closer inspection one sees that it not only bears the name Le Tommy, but is also referred to as Musée 1914-1918. 

The building is located in Poziéres, a village with a few hundred inhabitants in the Somme region in the north of France. More than a hundred years ago, this part of France was hit by the First World War, which in the Somme area was mainly a trench war. However, around Poziéres from 25 July to 7 August 1916 the war turned into a gigantic battle that led to many deaths and almost completely destroyed the village.

In the Somme area there are numerous memorial monuments and cemeteries dedicated to this war, Dominique Zanardi, owner of the café-restaurant, has made in his own way a special contribution to this series of places dedicated to memories of World War I.

a view of the area behind the cafe that was transformed in trenches
this image and the next six are screenprints from the 
first video in the documentation

Life and works

Zanardi was born in the early 1960s in Albert, a town located 7 km south-west of Poziéres. This city also houses an official Museum about the war in the Somme area.

At the age of twelve he started exploring the fields where the war had raged, in order to collect scraps of metal, which he sold to the local scrap dealer. That's how he got money to buy a nice moped.

On his trips through the former war zone he met visitors from England, who told him about the war that had raged there. They showed him the cemeteries and told him about the soldiers who belonged to their family. 

Young Dominique, who had learned some English at school, became increasingly proficient in speaking English and he got first-hand information about what had happened during those war years.

After his younger years he would continue to avidly collect items reminiscent of the war in the Somme region. Shovels, pieces of grenade, other ammunition, rifles, cannons, it became an extensive collection.

He went to work in the world of cafes and restaurants. The most important moment came in 1995. when he, around 35 years old, took over the Café de la Victoire, which had existed in Pozières since 1922.

Reopened in 1996 as Café-restaurant Le Tommy, this place, where visitors were welcome, offered him every opportunity to do something with his collection of memorabilia relating to the Somme war.

The indoor space became partly a museum about the war and the outdoor space was transformed into a faithful replica of a trench area.

The trench area

The four photos above and the three below give an impression of the outdoor area at the rear of the café-restaurant, where the world of the war is depicted on a life-size scale.

The image at the very top shows that the terrain is so extensive that the trenches, which include both those of Germany and those of the Allies, with no man's land in between, can be depicted realistically.

The next two images show a cannon and the collection of thousands of grenade casings, meticulously stacked together along a wall. The use of grenades during the battle in and around Pozières was very intense, sometimes 140 grenades fell in a single minute.

The next image of a soldier with a gun shows how much Zanardi was able to portray this person realistically. The barricades made of coils of iron wire in the following image also demonstrate this ability to express the reality of trench warfare.

Finally, the two images around give an impression of the way in which the trenches themselves are depicted. 

Here too, one is struck by the specific feelings of constriction that the creations convey.

The interior

The image below shows part of the interior of the museum attached to the cafe-restaurant. The walls are filled with gigantic black and white photos of soldiers and there are all kinds of weapons.

The bar in the the cafe-restaurant is standing on grenade casings.

Visitors from Australia

The group of Allied soldiers stationed near Pozieres during the Somme war, was part of the Australian army, which means that many of the visitors to the Café-restaurant/Museum are from Australia.

a view of the interior
image from the Facebook page of Le Tommy

Documentation

* Article (January 2018) in journal Ouest-France, with pictures of the site

* Article (February 2024) in journal France Bleu, also with pictures 

* Article on Wikipedia with details about the battle of Pozières

* Facebook account of Le Tommy, Café du Souvenir

* Tripadvisor has a series of photos of the café and the site 

Videos

* Video (2013, YouTube, 2'57") by Stuart Curry

 

* Another video (February 2024, YouTube, 4'25"), with recent scenes of the trenches

Dominique Zanardi

Musée de le Bataille de la Somme

91 Route d’Albert

80300 Pozières, dept Somme, region Hauts de France, France

visitors welcome

Colin Stokes, Colin's barn

pictures are screenprints from the videos in the documentation

The complex of buildings pictured above partly includes living space and for a larger part stables and storage facilities for hay. It is located in an area of grass near the hamlet of Chedglow, part of the village of Crudwell with about 1000 inhabitants in the Wiltshire region, about 85 miles west of London.

Life and works

This complex, known as Colin's Barn, or Hobbit House, was created by Colin Stokes, who was born in 1945 and who not only became skilled in making stained glass windows, but also went into farming as a keeper of a flock of sheep.

To properly care for his flock of sheep, in 1989 he built with his own hands a simple rectangular sheepfold, using chunks of Cotswold stone found lying around in the surrounding field.

This was the start of a construction project that would keep him busy in the years that followed. His singular architecture was built of stacked stones, decorated with cement on the inside to provide strength.

He built a hay warehouse and other structures functional to his business, but he also created -as depicted in above image- a two-story living area where he could stay with his flock when necessary.

The images of this temporary accommodation structure show that the shelter was higher and more extensive than all other structures.

The building had two floors and was equipped with turrets and dovecotes. Inside there was a spiral staircase from the ground floor to the first floor, where also was a simple bedroom, which Stokes could use to spend the night during the lambing season.

And then there were all kinds of narrow stairs, fences and attics, all constructed single-handedly.

The images above and below show that Stokes  had artistic skills, which allowed him to provide some rooms with beautifully decorated arches and windows inlaid with stained glass. 

The information available on the internet does not indicate whether Stokes had any professional training in this regard.

​

In 2000, a marble quarry was opened near Colin Stokes building. The noise that this business entailed prompted him reluctantly selling his property and moving elsewhere, leaving his project in the good condition it was in at the time.

In 2013 it was reported that Stokes, then aged 68, was farming sheep, poultry and angora rabbits near Moffat in Scotland. 

As far as is known, Stokes died in 2021

The barn is a little difficult to find, and is on private land. The current owner of the site does not appreciate visitors and chases them away when he is around. A sign discourages visitors, but it doesn’t seem to work, because there are various reviews from visitors on the internet.

Documentation

* Article on website Atlas Obscura

* Article (November 2013) on Mail Online

* Article (January 2021 by Hugh Williams, with pictures that give a good impression of the stacked stones in Stokes' creations

Videos

* Video (4'52", May 2021, YouTube) by RPM Adventure

Video (17'41", 2022, YouTube) by Partners of the Forgotten World

Colin Stokes

Colin's barn

Chedglow, Wiltshire, United Kingdom

address not available

visitors not welcome