Kap A kritas

A gravel road climbs from the village of Vasilitsi, in the rural southern tip of Messinia in the Peloponnese, through an olive grove protected as part of the Natura 2000 network, to a rocky plateau 300 metres above the Ionian Sea. The site looks west to the open Mediterranean, south to the island of Venétiko, east to the Taygetos mountain range, and north to the dark silhouette of Mavrovouni, the so-called black mountain. Few buildings exist in any direction. The setting is more reminiscent of mainland Greek wilderness than of the holiday infrastructure of the better-known Greek islands further east.

Completed in 2024, Kap A kritas was designed by Düsseldorf-based studio bkarchitektur as an elongated, two-part composition aligned parallel to the coast. A main house with kitchen, dining and living area, fireplace, and one bedroom sits slightly offset from a separate guest volume containing two further bedrooms and a shared bathroom. The flat-roofed forms read as restrained modern geometry against the broken topography, with floor-to-ceiling windows, natural stone floors throughout, and a continuous wooden pergola covered with reed mats framing the ensemble and shading the terraces. Service spaces and the garage are absorbed into the slope on a lower level. The owners are Michael König, an airline captain, and Oliver Lueb, a museum curator specialising in Oceania.