We’ve written before about Constantino Nivola’s inspiring outdoor garden rooms at his home in the Hamptons in the 50’s. Recently enjoying Mondo-blogo’s stupendous visual riff on the sculptor, we came across his open air “solarium”, which was often mistaken for a pool.

According to Weekend Utopia, Alastair Gordon’s classic guide to modernist beach houses in the Hamptons, it wasn’t a pool, but a “solarium” designed with high, white walls to reflect the sun “to such a degree that nude sunbathing was possible even in the winter.”

We love the murals on both interior and exterior walls, as well as the steps. Concrete blocks turned on the edge and cemented along the side lend a wonderful visual element and seem singularly un-blockish. The solarium is a sculpture unto itself.

We wonder if in winter, it would act as a kind of passive solar sauna, with the cold air around it being the sea in which to dive…

via Mondo-blogo via Daddytypes