Villa Dall’Ava (1984–91) has been recognised as a significant work in the oeuvre of Rem Koolhaas/OMA. The building’s enduring intrigue is tied to a set of famous photographs taken at the villa whose enigmatic subjects have long baffled critics and that have raised conjectures regarding the villa’s connections with surrealism and the oeuvre of Salvador Dalì. Drawing on archival research and interviews with the protagonists of the project, this article identifies the origins of the photographs’ subjects in an unpublished short film and in a series of 400 film stills by Hans Werlemann and Claudi Cornaz that were made in 1991 but only recently resurfaced from the archives. Werlemann’s ostensible intention was to narrate the villa’s future life through ‘memories’ rooted in his shared interests with Koolhaas, but his secret aim was to unveil the principles that guided OMA in the villa project. The creative process behind the short film provides evidence that challenges the traditional Daliesque interpretation of these images and instead indicates they were inspired by the cinematic and photographic work of Man Ray, whose ‘analogies’ enabled Werlemann to transform the villa into a ‘personality’ that comes alive to narrate its secret life. Finally, the article discusses Koolhaas’s and Werlemann’s contrasting interpretations of the short film and their differing views of it as a medium for the interpretation of architecture.

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