Figures of neorealism in Italian architecture (part 2)

Grey Room

Volumn , Issue 6, 2002, Pages 111-133

  Reichlin, Bruno ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 67149126698     PISSN: 15263819     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (80)

1. The towers of Viale Etiopia were designed for the Istituto Nazionale delle Assicurazioni (INA) and were built on the eastern outskirts of the Quartiere Africano between 1948 (first sketches) and 1954 (end of construction). See, for instance, Federico Bellini, Mario Ridolfi (Rome: Laterza, 1993), esp. 67-70
2. "Unité de Quartier à Rome," in L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui 27, no. 65 (May 1956): 19
3. Casabella 199 (December 1953-January 1954): 20-25
4. Guido Canella and Aldo Rossi, "Architetti Italiani: Mario Ridolfi," in Comunità 41 (1956): 50-55
5. and Paolo Portoghesi, "Dal neorealismo al neoliborty," Comunità 65 (1958): 69-79
6. Mario Ridolfi and Wolfgang Frankl, interviewed in Hinterland 13-14 (1980): 30
7. Concerning the inconsequentiality of Ridolfi and Frankl's work with regard to prefabrication, see Bellini, 69
8. In recent years the study of architecture in terms of tectonics has regained a certain prominence. See, for example, Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture, ed. John Cava (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995)
9. Giovanni Fanelli and Roberto Gargiani, Il principio del rivestimento (Rome: Laterza, 1994)
10. Werner Oechslin, Stilhülse und Kern: Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos und der evolutionare Weg zur modernen Architektur (Berlin: Ernst und Sohn, 1994)
11. Hans Kollhoff, ed., Uber Tektonik in der Baukunst (Wiesbaden: Vieweg, 1993)
12. "Magic of Materials," Daidalos 56 (June 1995)
13. and "Magic of Materials II," special issue of Daidalos (August 1995)
14. Canella and Rossi, "Architetti Italiani," 55
15. Theo van Doesburg, "Von der neuere Aesthetik zur materiellen Verwirklichung," De Stijl 5 (March 1923): 10
16. and "Kernieuwingspogingen in der Fransche Architectur," in Bouwbedrijf 1, no. 4 (October 1924): 173-177
17. Le Corbusier, "Des yeux qui ne voient pas ... II. Les avions," L'Esprit Nouveau 9 (June 1921)
18. See also the Italian critical edition of Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, Verso un'architecttura nuova, ed. Giovanni-Maria Lupo and Paola Paschetto, vol. 2 (Turin: Bottega d'Erasmo, 1983), 54-55, nn. 3 and 6
19. and Le Corbusier " Ce Salon d'Automne," L'Esprit Nouveau 28 (January 1925): 2333-2334
20. See the letter sent by Piet Mondrian to Alfred Roth on 26 June 1933, quoted in Alfred Roth, Begegnung mit Pionieren (Basil: Birkhäuser, 1973), 174
21. On this "antitectonic" position within the modernist avant-garde, see Bruno Reichlin, "Le Corbusier versus Stijl," in Yve-Alain Bois and Bruno Reichlin, De Stijl et l'architecture en France (Liege: P. Mardaga, 1985), 91-108
22. Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1932). See in particular the chapters devoted to architecture as volume and surface, as well as the many captions that refer to strip windows, smooth surfaces, etc
23. Walter Curt Behrendt, Der Kampf um den Stil im Kunstgewerbe und in der Architektur (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1920), 78
24. Karel Teige in Otakar Màcel, "Zur Theorie des sozialistischen Relaismus in der Architektur," Archithese 19 (1976): 49-50
25. The documents concerning the Movimento Studi Architettura have now been collected in M. Baffa, C. Morandi, S. Protasoni, and A. Rossari, Il Movimento di Studi per l'Architettura, 1945-1961 (Rome: Laterza, 1995). In the ritual presentations of projects, Franco Albini proved to be an especially stern critic of the errors made in structural logic; see the criticism of the projects of Gregotti, Meneghetti, and Stoppino (466 ff.)
26. Georg Lukács, Aesthetik, Teil I. (Neuwied and Berlin: Hermann Luchterhard, 1972), 402 ff. This essay is preceded by Lukács's celebrated essays on the literary realism of Honoré de Balzac, Thomas Mann, and others
27. Hans Heinz Holz, "Realismus: Ein Architektonischer Stilbegriff?," in Archithese 19 (1976): 35-42
28. See also Hans Heinz Holz, "Kunst und Gesellschaft" (lecture presented at a conference at the Forum MB & Co, Zurich, 13 December 1976)
29. and Hans Heinz Holz, "Kritische Theorie des aesthetischen Gegenstands," in the catalogue of Documenta V
30. B.P. Mikhailov, "Architektur," in Grosse Sowjet- Enzykopädie (East Berlin: Verlag der Nation, 1951), 6, quoted in Màcel, "Zur Theorie."
31. Ridolfi and Frankl, in Hinterland, 30
32. On Italian architect's interest in Scandinavian architecture, see Bruno Reichlin, "Figures of Neorealism in Italian Architecture (Part 1)," Grey Room 05 (Fall 2001): n. 40
33. Bellini rightly mentions "the Scandinavian roof of Viale Etiopia" (76) and notes that Ridolfi had had a subscription to the magazine Byggmästeren even before the beginning of his Neorealist period (52 and n. 4)
34. Ridolfi and Frankl, in Hinterland, 32 and 34. See also the interview with Frankl in Controspazio 3 (November 1974)
35. Ridolfi and Frankl, in Hinterland, 31. Ridolfi, who had a son this age, spoke from experience
36. Portoghesi, "Dal neorealismo al neoliberty," 76
37. See Comunità 65 (1958): 69-79
38. See Gian Piero Brunetta, Storia del cinema italiano, vol. 3: Dal neorealismo al miracolo economico 1945-1959 (Rome: Editore Riuniti, 1982), 439-440
39. and Guido Aristarco, "Il Tetto dei Festival," Cinema Nuovo 83 (1956): 276-277
40. See Rosalind E. Krauss, "Grids," in The Originality of the Advant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985): 8-22
41. On the role of the grid in Lombard architecture from the 1930s to the 1950s, see Ezio Bonfanti and Marco Porta, Città, museo e architettura: Il gruppo BBPR nella cultura architettonica italiana 1932-1970 (Florence: Vallechi, 1973), 149
42. and Cesare Cattaneo, Giovanni e Giuseppe: Dialoghi di architettura, ed. Ornella Selvafolta (1941; reprint, Milan: Jaca, 1993), 192
43. On the Monument to the Dead in the Concentration Camps in Germany, see Ulrike Jehle Schulte-Strathaus and Bruno Reichlin, "Monumento ai caduti nei campi di Germania," in Das architektonische Urteil: Annäherungen und Interpretationen von Architektur und Kunst (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1989), revised in BBPR, Monumento ai caduti negli campi nazisti 1945-1995: Il segno della memoria (Milan: Electa, 1995)
44. On the architecture of Asnago and Vender, see Bruno Reichlin, "I prospetti inquietanti di Asnago e Vender," in Asnago e Vender: L'astrazione quotidiana, ed. Cino Zucchi, Francesca Cadeo, and Monica Lattuada, (Milan: Skira, 1998)
45. Piero Ostilio Rossi, Guida dell'architettura moderna a Roma 1909-1984 (Rome: Laterza, 1984), 9-14, 37-39, 59-72, 143-145
46. See Mario Ridolfi, Il Manuale dell'architetto, with contributions by C. Calcaprina, A. Cardelli, M. Fiorentino, et al. (Rome: CNR-USIS, 1946)
47. For the events linked to the manual's conception, implementation, and reception, see Bellini, esp. 51 ff. and 157, n. 8. The idea of a manual, largely inspired by German examples, had already come to Ridolfi in 1938. His friendship and collaboration with Konrqad Wachsmann and Frankl probably encouraged this undertaking. Bellini points out the important role played in this project by Ridolfi's trip to Germany in 1934. The manual began development in 1945 when Bruno Zevi received funding from the United States Information Service. "Ridolfi oversaw the editing, but he only designed the plates concerning the fittings and technical drawing, and probably also those on perspective drawing" (Bellini, 53). An indispensable tool for the entire profession, it was republished in 1953 and 1962. Opinions about the role that the manual actually played are varied. Some claim that it translated an artisanal production of a certain level but one substantially behind the rest of Europe. See, for example, Bonfanti and Porta, 108-109
48. Manfredo Tafuri, History of Italian Architecture 1944-1985, trans. Jessica Levine (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989)
49. and Manfredo Tafuri, "Architettura e realismo," in Architettura moderna: l'avventura delle idee, 1750-1980, ed. Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani (Milan: Electra, 1985), 123-48
50. See also Giorgio Muratore, "L'Esperienza del Manuale," Controspazio 6, no. 1 (September 1974): 82-85
51. and Maria Lucia Cannarozzo, "Le Manuel et la Théorie du Projet - Réflexions sur l'Idée de 'Mesure' dans les Manuels de Ridolfi et de Diotallevi-Marescotti" (paper presented in Grenoble, 3-6 November 1992)
52. The metaphor is from Louis Sullivan, Kindergarten Chats (New York: Wittenborn Schulz, 1947), 28-29, but it seems applicable as well to these buildings, since Ridolfi, as Bellini points out (75-76), was in the habit of personifying buildings and attributing to them a character or temperament, in accordance with a typically Roman custom
53. For a left-wing critique of De Sica and Zavattini, "Il Tetto dei Festival." See Aristarco, Le edizioni di comunità in Milan, mouthpiece of the intellectuals who gravitated around Adriano Olivetti, published translations of the classics of sociology, evidently already well-known to scholars and the focus of passionate debates in specialty magazines and journals, but also known in general-interest magazines and newspapers. Lewis Mumford was known in Italy since 1945 thanks to the journal Metron, where Zevi and others spread his thought and writings. Nonetheless, the Italian translation of The Culture of Cities appeared only in 1954. On the influence of Mumford on Italian culture in the postwar period, see Fabrizio Brunetti, L'Architettura in Italia negli anni della ricostruzione (Florence: Alinea, 1986), 111 ff
54. Karl Scheffler, Die Architektur der Groβstadt (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer Verlag, 1913), 34-35
55. Giorgio Grassi wrote the introduction to the Italian edition of Ludwig Hilbersheimer, Entfaltung einer Planungsidee (Berlin: Ullstein, 1963), published in Padua (Marsilio) in 1967
56. In the plans and drawings of Rossi and Grassi the reference to the icons of the Groβstadtarchitektur (Stuttgart: J. Hoffmann, 1927) is quite manifest
57. Schulte-Strathaus and Reichlin, "Monumento."
58. On the massacre at the Fosse Ardeatine, see, among others: Francesco Motto, "Gli sfollati e i rifugiati nelle catacombe di San Callisto durante l'occupazione nazifascista di Roma: I Salesiani e la scoperta della Fosse Ardeatine," Rivista di ricerche storiche salesiane 1 (1994)
59. and Robert Katz, Le massacre des Ardeatines (Paris: Stock, 1969)
60. Among the numerous commemorative articles in the Italian and international press, see, for instance, La Repubblica, 20 March 1994
61. La Stampa, 8 February 1994
62. Here the structural failings of the film are unable to dilute the pietas and the truth of the narrative which makes it possible ... to understand metonymically just what comprised the Nazi ferocity and violence and to identify, in this episode, the significance of a national tragedy." On Serandrei, see Laura Gaiardoni, ed., Mario Serandrei, gli scritti. Un film: Giorni di gloria (Rome: Scuola Nazionale di Cinema, 1998)
63. On the Monument to the Fosse Ardeatine Caves, I consulted, among other sources: "Sistemazione delle cave Ardeatine," Metron 18 (1947): 35-17
64. "Sistemazione delle cave Ardeatine," Metron 45 (1952): 16-23
65. Mario Fiorentino, "Monumento ai caduti delle Fosse Ardeatine, 1946-1948," in Mario Fiorentino: La Casa: Progetti 1946-1981, ed. Francesco Moschini, 31-36 (Rome: Kappa, 1985)
66. "Sistemazione delle cave Ardeatine," Metron 45:17
67. "Sistemazione delle cave Ardeatine," Metron 45:17: "We feel that we can state safely that this work will go down in the history of the Italian modern movement as a certain achievement that no change of figurative direction and no new fashion can alter."
68. Which I have already had the opportunity to explore in a separate context; see Schulte-Strathaus and Reichlin, "Monumento."
69. See "Sistemazione delle cave Ardeatine," Metron 18; and "Sistemazione delle cave Ardeatine," 45
70. Fiorentino, "Monumento," 35. On the broad popular involvement, see note 42 on Giorni di Gloria
71. Fiorentino, "Monumento," 35; "Sistemazione delle cave Ardeatine," Metron 18; and Aymonino, "Topography of Memory."
72. "Sistemazione delle cave Ardeatine," Metron 18:45
73. Adolf Hildebrand, Das Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst, 8th ed. (Strasbourg: Heitz, 1910), 86-89
74. translated as The Problem of Form in Painting and Sculpture, trans. Max Meyer and Robert Morris Ogden (New York: G.E. Stechert, 1945)
75. Aymonino, "Topography of Memory," 9
76. Fiorentino, "Monumento," 31; and Aymonino, "Topography of Memory," 9. Unfortunately, I do not know the explanations given by the architects for this first version
77. Fiorentino, "Monumento," 36. See Adolf Loos, "Architecture" (1910)
78. trans. Wilfried Wang, in The Architecture of Adolf Loos (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1985), 108
79. Marco De Michelis, Heinrich Tessenow, 1876-1950 (Milan: Electa, 1991), 299-305; and Hans Gerhard Hannesen and Jörg Fessmann, eds., Streit um die Neue Wache: Zur Gestaltung einer zentralen Gedenkstätte (Berlin: Akademie der Künste, 1993)
80. Aymonino, "Topography of Memory," 9; and the explanatory sketch by Giuseppe Perugini on 13