Slug: architetture-per-le-collettivita
Numero di articoli: 28
Descrizione: At the end of the war, the Milan to Rome connection would still take thirty-three hours by train. Women would vote for the first time, and a veteran from the front, Fausto Coppi, would become the symbol of the country’s reconstruction. On the city streets would run an intriguing new vehicle, the Vespa, that immediately became a metaphor of freedom, soon followed by the Lambretta. In 1953, Hollywood immortalized them: the movie Vacanze Romane shows the Italians discovering the collective rituals of modernity, in a still popular context. In a country discovering the value of spare time, a new focus is put on public spaces. In the fifteen years from 1945 to 1960, Italy changed skin, tempted by the dream of progress but not yet completely liberated from nostalgia for tradition. Even the province sought emancipation, looking at large cities like Turin, Milan, Naples and Rome, equipped not only with the most advanced social models, but also with new urban architectures such as churches, theaters, cinemas, squares and gardens. These became the country’s places of social life, where the communities live, meet, find and recognize each other. At the beginning of the new decade, a film set in Rome again marked a new era: the Sixties, opening with La dolce vita, would close with a crisis that, starting from the universities, transformed the whole Italian culture. Leisure spaces for young people were built: universities, sports venues and arenas for mass entertainment. Since the eighties, bourgeois art has entered a crisis, the consumer society was finally consolidated and its symbol became the so-called “Milano da bere”. In this scenario, the Vespa finally returns, this time driven by a disenchanted Nanni Moretti, who in the capital’s lonely streets captures the different beauty of public spaces of Rome’s suburbs.
Slug: mare
Numero di articoli: 22
Descrizione: Through “Architetture riflesse” a journey is proposed among the buildings designed and built in areas close to the coast, with particular attention to landscape and natural aspects. Italy is characterized by one of the largest coastal extensions in Europe and its relationship with the sea has been, and continues to be, a central theme for many designers. The relationship with water and the coastal landscape often presents itself as a dual design challenge that gathers both aspects related to insertion in the context, and the interpretation and transcription of the functions located near the sea into physical objects. The works selection offers a broad overview of the project in marine areas, ranging between the different typologies of this environment. Through the description of architectures distributed along the Italian coasts, the itinerary allows us to appreciate the characteristics and variety of the marine and coastal environment of the country, offering a cross-section of the ways of experiencing the sea, starting from the island coasts, passing through the profiles of the peninsula and ranging from the work activities traditionally carried out in buildings, in port infrastructures and in maritime stations, without forgetting the recreational activities of seaside resorts such as establishments, holiday villages and all the related services.
Slug: caccia-al-tesoro
Numero di articoli: 21
Descrizione: As is well known, Italy possesses the largest collection of cultural heritage assets in the world, including more than 3,400 museums, 2,000 archaeological sites and 54 UNESCO “World Heritage” sites. Wandering around Italy means embarking on a real “treasure hunt” because, in addition to our art cities, you can come across precious treasure chests, rich in objects and fascinating finds, even in the most unexpected places. The itinerary is only a summary of some of the many possible trips to be taken. It refers to places where the interest in the contents of a museum, library, or archaeological site, a cultural building or an exhibition space is matched by the architectural quality of the buildings designed to contain the works or by the quality of the expositive systems designed to show them, according to a cognitive path. Our country has a consolidated tradition in which this kind of projects and figures such as Franco Albini and Franca Helg, Carlo Scarpa, Franco Minissi or the BBPR represent international landmarks. Italy offers museums of all kinds designed not only to exhibit art works or archaeological finds, but also products of industry or technological research, to narrate the stories of science, cities or territories. For this reason, the itinerary proposes, alongside well-known works, interventions that are less known to the general public, such as the Turin Automobile Museum or the Museo del Ciclismo del Colle del Ghisallo.
Slug: costruire-case-fare-citta
Numero di articoli: 24
Descrizione: The theme of public and private housing, in its forms and in its relationship with the city and the landscape, is central to Italy’s post World War II economic development. The itinerary tells the story of the construction of the modern city through the planning of social housing and private houses. The heroic season of the INA-Casa neighborhoods (1949-63) gives a very clear picture of the role and the theoretical-cultural approach taken by Italy in the Reconstruction period and then, in the period of the “Italian economic miracle”. The itinerary also includes some specific experiences of bourgeois architecture (the Milanese condominium, the Roman apartment block called “palazzina”): buildings, sometimes small, which have managed to “make cities” thanks to their specific architectural quality. In the late 1980s, a period of 20 years saw the completion of public housing for about 900,000 families, three times those created by the Fanfani Plan. However, the approach is very different: the neighborhoods planned with law n. 167/1962 abandon an organic idea of living, focused on the themes of community and “human scale”, replacing it with a model of self-sufficiency, but also of abstraction, leap of scale and rupture with the urban fabric. In the last decades of the Twentieth Century, Italy underwent a strong disinvestment on social housing. At the same time, large private investments brought Italy to a new building boom at the turn of the millennium, driven by the expansion of the main metropolitan systems. Unfortunately, they seem to have had more impact in terms of quantity, rather than quality.
Slug: g2
Numero di articoli: 30
Descrizione: For a designer, dealing with the theme of pre-existence is one of the most arduous and perhaps most interesting challenges. The reuse of non-functional architecture and the restoration or partial reconstruction of damaged or mutilated buildings require, in fact, that a delicate balance be reached between historical memory and renewal. By setting itself the objective of recovering the existing, rather than demolishing and rebuilding, architecture aims at the re-functionalization of places, intervening on forgotten spaces to restore liveable spaces. The key words are reconvert, add, modify, integrate, stratify and, sometimes, replace. The itinerary offers a remarkable variety of experiences. Some interventions have been selected not only for their undisputed design quality but also for their surprising ability to adapt to the historical context. Others have been chosen for their symbolic value, permanent testimonies of the events that have marked the history of the country.
Slug: giardini
Numero di articoli: 1
Descrizione: Sono la descrizione dei giardini
Slug: h3
Numero di articoli: 14
Descrizione: The sector of large infrastructure works is probably the sector that is most suited to urban development. In fact, the role that infrastructures have in the formation and definition of a place cannot be overlooked since their impact has long-lasting effects on the landscape. Designing infrastructures therefore means thinking about and developing spaces that last over time, transport networks and connection points, logistics bases, intermodal hubs, not ends in themselves, but conceived as parts of a whole; tools and services necessary to increase and improve the accessibility and mobility of the country. The itinerary ‘Traveling around Italy’ offers some examples of the complex system of public facilities and structures spread across the country.
Slug: n7
Numero di articoli: 15
Descrizione: This itinerary is an anthology of spaces that invite encounters. The square, which has always been a symbol of our country, is the emblem par excellence of outdoor living, where people pass, stop, relate and participate in events that are important to the community. In recent decades, this space rich in meaning has been joined by new places, generated in the contemporary fabric. Some are even “non-places”, according to the expression introduced by the French anthropologist Marc Augé to indicate architectural and urban spaces of transitory, public and impersonal use, which become meeting places if they are able to welcome and encourage social interaction. In architecture, “non-places” have been investigated by Rem Koolhaas who, in the essay Generic City, theorized the modern city as a place without pre-established cultural constraints, which shapes and adapts to the needs and requirements of citizens. “Meeting in the city” is precisely an itinerary among places that, responding to the interactions of the user, somehow self-determine with respect to the historical and cultural context in which they are inserted, beyond the project functions. The route therefore connects architectural spaces, urban and non-urban, located in correspondence with railway stations, bathing establishments or waterfronts, that is, liminal places, facing connection areas between the built city and the natural landscape.
Slug: itinerari
Numero di articoli: 332
Descrizione: They are thematic routes that include more than one hundred architectures that testify to the excellence of Italian architectural culture in the second half of the 20th century. The titles of the themes are the first communication tools. Inspired by the productive revival of the 1950s and 1960s, they mark the start of a collective journey from what we were to what we are. Not referring to circumscribed territorial areas but to the entire national territory, they interpret the unifying features of works belonging to even distant geographical contexts, within an extremely varied heritage. The itineraries indicated should be read as open and exemplary. Open in the sense that, with reference to the prevailing character highlighted by the itinerary, they can be increased. Exemplary in the sense that they do not exclude the many other ways of interpreting the heritage of Italian architecture of the second half of the 20th century. All the works in the general itineraries were the subject of a photographic campaign.
Slug: paesaggio
Numero di articoli: 40
Descrizione: The landscape has historically been a key element of quality architectural design. The heterogeneous identity of the Italian landscape has been a challenging terrain for designers, who proposed different readings of its relationship with architecture. The selection of images proposed here explores the Italian territory through last seventy years works, allowing us to appreciate the different interpretations of the landscape concept. The reading of architecture is entrusted to the eye of young photographers who have documented the works in their respective contexts, capturing previously unseen points of view. Passing through the different regions, a description of the territory is composed that addresses the recurring themes of contemporary architecture, from the infrastructural works that intervene in the design of important stretches of the natural landscape to the bathing establishments that contribute to the definition of the coastal landscape. In the itinerary, the urban landscape has been taken into account as a characterising element of the contemporary language, to highlight the key to understanding architectural quality also in continuity with the historic built environment, thus contributing to the definition of some of the many distinctive aspects of the Italian landscape.
Slug: l-italia-va-in-vacanza
Numero di articoli: 21
Descrizione: Between 1963 and 1964 four popular 45 laps records were released: Sapore di sale, Una rotonda sul mare, Abbronzatissima and Sul cocuzzolo della montagna. Four songs, sung respectively by Gino Paoli, Fred Buongusto and Edoardo Vianello, which can be considered the pop celebration of a new rite – often full of optimism – that characterized the Italian “economic miracle”: summer holidays. Precisely in those years, the so-called “boom” was coming to an end (again in 1963 came out a movie by Vittorio Sica called The boom, played by Alberto Sordi). The strong economic growth gave way to a more complex and delicate phase of the political and economic life of our country, which was given the name of “conjuncture”. Holidays, however, had already become a phenomenon that involved an increasingly significant part of the population: in 1959 13% of Italians went on vacation, but in the early sixties the percentage had already risen to 21% to then reach 46% in the mid-eighties. A formidable incentive was constituted by private motorization policies and by the construction of the Autostrada del Sole, from Milan to Naples (1956-1964). The itinerary show together a series of works that embody this important phenomenon that would soon become one of the engines of the economic dynamics of our country, highlighting its great potential for tourism. The illustrated works are hotels, residential complexes, holiday houses, tourist villages, lidos, mountain huts, mountain settlements, as well as spas and recreational theme parks. Many Italian regions and different kinds of offerings are represented: sea, mountain, hot springs, hills and lakes.
Slug: l5
Numero di articoli: 11
Descrizione: Always dear to Italians, the home is a significant and meaningful place, whose role, as a resource and/or expression of social status, depends on demographic, political, and cultural factors. Residential architecture, however, is also thought, born from the direct relationship between designer and client. This intertwining has in many cases produced very high results, which are collected in this itinerary. The representative home presents a notable typological variety, ranging from the single-family villa in isolated places to the apartment in the heart of the city. Even the shape of the holiday home is not univocal and the choice between a typology attests to the evolution of social dynamics. Thus, the exclusivity and privacy of the single-family villa is contrasted by the residence with its common spaces, specifically designed to satisfy the desire for conviviality of the modern family. A particularly interesting aspect of this construction typology is the possibility of multidisciplinary collaborations. In fact, it is not uncommon for projects to involve architects and artists, with highly suggestive results, the consequence of a vision of living that becomes shared aesthetics. The itinerary shows several surprising living solutions, with their original furnishings, which, courtesy of the owners, are published for the first time.
Slug: m6
Numero di articoli: 62
Descrizione: During the economic boom Italy invests in the construction of new major public works. In addition to significant projects dedicated to housing, work is being done to implement structures intended for the community. Next to the offices of central and peripheral administrations, new accommodation facilities for local development are being built. Each city is equipped with new buildings for the performance of public functions: the buildings of the Regions, provinces and municipalities are being built, the headquarters of the Chambers of Commerce and the courthouses, but also buildings for the tertiary sector, such as those that house the telephone and electricity companies and the RAI radiotelevisione italiana, a consequence of the nationalization of some strategic industries for the country. The intensification of trade, the growth of commerce and the circulation of industrial products give new impetus to the foundation and renewal of commercial zones and trade fair centers. The projects for these new metropolitan areas often foresee the coexistence of different functions and are the result of a choral work between several designers. The itinerary collects examples of buildings different in form and function that, in their peculiarities, offer an eloquent overview of a historical phase, that of the rebirth of the system, in which investments were made in design and new construction materials were tested. Of these “innovations of construction”; spatial and technological, today above all the traces remain. Many buildings of this type, in fact, are in a state of profound deterioration; others more intact are still waiting to be valorized.
Slug: opere
Numero di articoli: 61
Slug: f1
Numero di articoli: 40
Descrizione: ”The design of a modern school must arise above all from the search for a space that is psychologically, as well as functionally, suitable for the development of educational problems”. So wrote Ciro Cicconcelli, winner in 1949 of the competition for an Open-Air School project and then director of the School Building Studies Centre of the Ministry of Public Education, which since 1954 has published the orientation notebooks resulting from the discussion between architects and pedagogists. A first goal of the debate on education is the reform of the middle school, which becomes unique and compulsory in 1960. In the same year, the school is the theme of a special issue of the architecture magazine “Casabella e Continuità” and of the XII edition of the Milan Triennale. In 1968, nursery school also becomes public and in 1969 access to university is no longer limited to graduates of the classical high school. Meanwhile, demographic growth and urbanization have caused a boom in school building, with an average of almost 800 new buildings per year. In 1975, the first technical regulations on school buildings were issued by ministerial decree, which took into account the indications of the Study Centre, conceiving the building as a “homogeneous architectural organism and not as a simple addition of spatial elements, thus contributing to the development of the student’s sensitivity and becoming itself a tool of communication and therefore of knowledge for those who use it”. Experiments on prefabricated architecture began in those years. “University. Designing the change” is the title of no. 423, of “Casabella” of 1977, dedicated to the debate on the reform of the University, after a decade of protests that, from politics, pass to architectural and urban planning. University buildings, more than other school buildings, due to their size, the coexistence of a multitude of activities and the significant flows of users, represent real infrastructures, capable of radically modifying entire areas. Often inserted in the urban context or in proximity, if not contiguity, of historic buildings, universities can also lead a completely autonomous life, in the form of campuses or university cities. The autonomy of the institutes is precisely at the center of the reforms on the Italian school and university organization between the 20th and 21st centuries, with implications also on the conformation of their spaces. The itinerary therefore allows us to reflect on the role of school and university architecture in national socio-political events and on its ability to plan change.
Slug: spazio-sacro
Numero di articoli: 52
Descrizione: Common to all eras and cultures, sacred architecture can be considered one of the main constructive manifestations of man. In Italy, in the 1950s and 1960s, there was a renewed interest in this architectural theme and its derivations. For places of worship of the Catholic religion, the liturgical reform decreed by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council with the Constitution Sacrosantum Concilium of 4 December 1963 was decisive. The more active participation of the faithful in the celebration required, in fact, to rethink the sacred space, contributing, with the evolution of architectural languages, to significantly modify the form and layout of new churches. New constructions were often stimulated by Jubilees, both ordinary and extraordinary, but the role of urban planning was also important, which, in the areas of expansion of the city, provided for the presence of places of worship and burial of the different religions. The expansion of cemeteries often becomes an opportunity to reform their structure, allowing designers to simplify and functionally restore spaces using the languages of contemporary architecture. Civil rites are instead those for the commemoration of figures and events of national history, for which the architectural form ensures material continuity with the present and the future. In the post-war period, in particular, the desire to consign to collective memory the dramatic events that had just passed, materialized in the monuments to the fallen and martyrs of the Resistance or in the musealization of places that were the scene of events that have become emblematic. The itinerary is a visual journey through spaces of worship and burial that stand out for their design accuracy and careful choice of materials, with a section dedicated to architecture as a memorial.
Slug: storie
Numero di articoli: 0
Descrizione: These are more limited thematic itineraries, often illustrated through the production of a single author, who embodies in an exemplary manner the theme referred to. They too have an exclusively exemplary and open character and indicate directions of reading that are not intended to be exhaustive. We propose them as secondary access keys to the contents of the site, using archive materials. They illustrate how from a broader narrative (the ‘general itineraries’) other cross-readings, particular stories, can then derive, the recognition of which strengthens both the perception of the works that represent them, and the perception of the themes already illustrated in the main itineraries.
Slug: un-paese-industrioso
Numero di articoli: 25
Descrizione: The process of industrialization of Italy is one of the indispensable thematic lenses to fully tell the story of our country. You cannot understand the languages of modern Italian, nor can you understand the achievements of our most famous engineers, without reflecting on the propulsive role of the so-called “economic miracle”. The economic boom had the effect of directing architects and engineers towards innovative solutions, outlining the new image of a finally modern country. The strong growth and technological development that followed the end of the Marshall Plan are reflected in a large number of industries, office and commercial buildings, warehouses, trade fair venues and infrastructures, partly collected in this thematic itinerary. The itinerary combines shots of bridges and road infrastructures – the true backbones of the country – with photographs of some of the main hydroelectric and thermoelectric power plants, built from the Second World War to the present day. The story of some of the main national production complexes (Olivetti, Zanussi, Elmag, Mondadori, Benetton) is followed by images of market places, places of commerce and management centers. The overall impression that one gets is that of a country that has kept pace with modernity. A country that is not only industrial, but industrious. A country capable, then as now, of investing in its future and of finding the expressive languages to convey an alternative identity to the one handed down to us by history and tradition, no less alive and interesting for that.
Slug: x15
Numero di articoli: 0
Descrizione: questa è la descrizione della categoria x15
