Download or read book Building Transatlantic Italy written by Paolo Scrivano and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the end of the Second World War, America’s newly acquired status of hegemonic power- together with the launch of ambitious international programs such as the Marshall Plan- significantly altered existing transatlantic relations. In this context, Italian and American architectural cultures developed a fragile dialogue characterized by successful exchanges and forms of collaboration but also by reciprocal wariness. The dissemination of models and ideas concerning architecture generated complex effects and frequently led to surprising misinterpretations, obstinate forms of resistance and long negotiations between the involved parties. Issues of continuity and discontinuity dominated Italian culture and society at the time since at stake was the possible balance between allegedly long-established traditions and the prospect of a radical rupture with recent history. Architectural culture often contributed to reach a compromise between very diverging attitudes. Situated in the larger realm of studies on Americanization, this book questions current interpretations of transatlantic relations in architecture. By reconsidering the means and effects of the dialogue that unfolded between the two sides of the Atlantic during the postwar years, the volume analyzes how cultural and formal models were developed in one context and then modified when transferred to a new one as well as the fortune of this cultural exchange in terms of circulation, amplification, and simplification.

Download or read book Post war Architecture between Italy and the UK written by Lorenzo Ciccarelli and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2021-10-14 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Italy and the UK experienced a radical re-organisation of urban space following the devastation of many towns and cities in the Second World War. The need to rebuild led to an intellectual and cultural exchange between a wave of talented architects, urbanists and architectural historians in the two countries. Post-war Architecture Between Italy and the UK studies this exchange, exploring how the connections and mutual influences contributed to the formation of a distinctive stance towards Internationalism, notwithstanding the countries’ contrasting geographic and climatic conditions, levels of economic and industrial development, and social structures. Topics discussed in the volume include the influence of Italian historic town centres on British modernist and Brutalist architectural approaches to the design of housing and university campuses as public spaces; post-war planning concepts such as the precinct; the tensions between British critics and Italian architects that paved the way for British postmodernism; and the role of architectural education as a melting pot of mutual influence. It draws on a wealth of archival and original materials to present insights into the personal relationships, publications, exhibitions and events that provided the crucible for the dissemination of ideas and typologies across cultural borders. Offering new insights into the transcultural aspects of European architectural history in the post-war years, and its legacy, this volume is vital reading for architectural and urban historians, planners and students, as well as social historians of the European post-war period.

Download or read book Cold War American Exhibitions of Italian Art and Design written by Antje Gamble and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-13 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enriching the existing scholarship on this important exhibition, Italy at Work: Her Renaissance in Design Today (1950–53), this book shows the dynamic role art, specifically sculpture, played in constructing both Italian and American culture after World War II (WWII). Moving beyond previous studies, this book looks to the archival sources and beyond the history of design for a greater understanding of the stakes of the show. First, the book considers art’s role in this exhibition’s import—prominent mid-century sculptors like Giacomo Manzù, Fausto Melotti, and Lucio Fontana were included. Second, it foregrounds the particular role sculpture was able to play in transcending the boundaries of fine art and craft to showcase innovative formalist aesthetics of modernism without falling in the critiques of modernism playing out on the international stage in terms of state funding for art. Third, the book engages with the larger socio-political use of art as a cultural soft power both within the American and Italian contexts. Fourth, it highlights the important role race and culture of Italians and Italian-Americans played in the installation and success of this exhibition. Lastly, therefore, this study connects an investigation of modernist sculpture, modern design, post-war exhibitions, sociology, and transatlantic politics and economics to highlight the important role sculpture played in post-war Italian and American cultural production. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, design history, museum studies, Italian studies, and American studies.

Download or read book Italian Imprints on Twentieth Century Architecture written by Denise Costanzo and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-05-19 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Italian architecture has long exerted a special influence on the evolution of architectural ideas elsewhere - from the Beaux-Arts academy's veneration of Rome, to modernist and postmodern interest in Renaissance proportion, Baroque space, and Mannerist ambiguity. This book critically examines this enduring phenomenon, exploring the privileged position of Italian architects, architecture, and cities in the architectural culture of the past century. Questioning the deep-rooted myth of Italy within architectural history, the book presents case studies of Italy's powerful yet problematic position in 20th-century architectural ideologies, at a time when established Eurocentric narratives are rightly being challenged. It reconciles the privileged position of Italian architecture and design with the imperative to write history across a more global, diverse, heterogenous cultural geography. Twenty chapters from distinguished international scholars cover subjects and architects ranging from Alberti to Gio Ponti, Aldo Rossi, Manfredo Tafuri, Vittorio Gregotti; cities from Rome and Venice to Milan; and an array of international architects, movements, and architectural ideas influenced by Italy. The chapters each question where, how, and why the disciplinary edifice of 20th-century architecture-its canon of built, visual, textual, and conceptual works-relied on Italian foundations, examining where and how those foundations have become insecure. Indispensable for students and scholars of both Italian and global architectural history, Italian Imprints on Twentieth-Century Architecture provides an opportunity to consider the architectural and urban landscape of Italy from substantially new points of view.

Download or read book Building a new New World written by Jean-Louis Cohen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential exploration of how Russian ideas about the United States shaped architecture and urban design from the czarist era to the fall of the U.S.S.R. Idealized representations of America, as both an aspiration and a menace, played an important role in shaping Russian architecture and urban design from the American Revolution until the fall of the Soviet Union. Jean-Louis Cohen traces the powerful concept of “Amerikanizm” and its impact on Russia’s built environment from early czarist interest in Revolutionary America, through the spectacular World’s Fairs of the 19th century, to department stores, skyscrapers, and factories built in Russia using American methods during the 20th century. Visions of America also captivated the Russian avant-garde, from El Lissitzky to Moisei Ginzburg, and Cohen explores the ongoing artistic dialogue maintained between the two countries at the mid-century and in the late Soviet era, following a period of strategic competition. This first major study of Amerikanizm in the architecture of Russia makes a timely contribution to our understanding of modern architecture and its broader geopolitics.

Download or read book Building the Modern Church written by Robert Proctor and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty years after the Second Vatican Council, architectural historian Robert Proctor examines the transformations in British Roman Catholic church architecture that took place in the two decades surrounding this crucial event. Inspired by new thinking in theology and changing practices of worship, and by a growing acceptance of modern art and architecture, architects designed radical new forms of church building in a campaign of new buildings for new urban contexts. A focussed study of mid-twentieth century church architecture, Building the Modern Church considers how architects and clergy constructed the image and reality of the Church as an institution through its buildings. The author examines changing conceptions of tradition and modernity, and the development of a modern church architecture that drew from the ideas of the liturgical movement. The role of Catholic clergy as patrons of modern architecture and art and the changing attitudes of the Church and its architects to modernity are examined, explaining how different strands of post-war architecture were adopted in the field of ecclesiastical buildings. The church building’s social role in defining communities through rituals and symbols is also considered, together with the relationships between churches and modernist urban planning in new towns and suburbs. Case studies analysed in detail include significant buildings and architects that have remained little known until now. Based on meticulous historical research in primary sources, theoretically informed, fully referenced, and thoroughly illustrated, this book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the church architecture, art and theology of this period.

Download or read book Neorealist Architecture written by David Escudero and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-10-31 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ***Winner of the American Association for Italian Studies Book Prize 2022*** After World War II, a wave of Italian films emerged that depicted the life and hardships of characters left helpless after the conflict, bringing to the screen the struggles of a time of existential angst and uncertainty. This form of filmmaking was associated with a broader artistic phenomenon known as ‘neorealism’ and is now considered a pivotal point in the history of Italian cinema. But neorealism was not limited to film any more than it was to literature. It spread to other areas of artistic production, including architecture. What was, then, neorealist architecture? This book explores the links between architecture, filmmaking and the built environment in dopoguerra Italy (194X–195X) seeking to ascertain whether, and how, neorealism manifested itself in architecture. Terms such as ‘neorealist architecture’ or ‘architectural neorealism’ were hinted at in these years and recalled by historians of architecture in the following decades. Therefore, the concept was adopted ad hoc and popularized post hoc, in the absence of any declarations prior to 1955 that proclaimed what neorealism in architecture was or wanted to be. However, while the concept has been internalized by Italian architectural history, transfers between neorealism—as an aesthetic and ethic—and architecture—as one potential medium of its embodiment or expression—are still not fully understood. Therefore, its main goal is to provide an in-depth discussion of the concept ‘neorealist architecture’, the working assumption being that the connection between both terms is not meaningless. The book is beautifully illustrated with over 100 black and white archival images and is the first book to be published on neorealism in architecture. It will appeal to scholars, professionals, and students interested in history and theory of architecture, Italian studies, art history, and cultural studies.

Download or read book Aesthetics and Technology in Building written by Pier Nervi and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2018-07-23 with total page 976 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The UNESCO headquarters in Paris. The Pirelli skyscraper in Milan. The Palazetto dello Sport in Rome. The "soaring beauty" of Pier Luigi Nervi's visionary designs and buildings changed cityscapes in the twentieth century. His uncanny ingenuity with reinforced concrete, combined with a gift for practical problem solving, revolutionized the use of open internal space in structures like arenas and concert halls. Aesthetics and Technology in Building: The Twenty-First-Century Edition introduces Nervi's ideas about architecture and engineering to a new generation of students and admirers. More than 200 photographs, details, drawings, and plans show how Nervi put his ideas into practice. Expanding on the seminal 1961 Norton Lectures at Harvard, Nervi analyzes various functional and construction problems. He also explains how precast and cast-in-place concrete can answer demands for economy, technical and functional soundness, and aesthetic perfection. Throughout, he uses his major projects to show how these now-iconic buildings emerged from structural truths and far-sighted construction processes. This new edition features dozens of added images, a new introduction, and essays by Joseph Abram, Roberto Einaudi, Alberto Bologna, Gabriele Neri, and Hans-Christian Schink on Nervi's life, work, and legacy.

Download or read book Modernism and the Professional Architecture Journal written by Torsten Schmiedeknecht and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-06-27 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The production of this book stems from two of the editors’ longstanding research interests: the representation of architecture in print media, and the complex identity of the second phase of modernism in architecture given the role it played in postwar reconstruction in Europe. While the history of postwar reconstruction has been increasingly well covered for most European countries, research investigating postwar architectural magazines and journals across Europe – their role in the discourse and production of the built environment and particularly their inter-relationship and differing conceptions of postwar architecture – is relatively undeveloped. Modernism and the Professional Architecture Journal sounds out this territory in a new collection of essays concerning the second phase of the reception and assimilation of modernism in architecture, as it was represented in professional architecture journals during the period of postwar reconstruction (1945–1968). Professional architecture journals are often seen as conduits of established facts and knowledge. The role mainstream publications play, however, in establishing ‘movements’, ‘trends’ or ‘debates’ tends to be undervalued. In the context of the complex undertaking of postwar reconstruction, the shortage of resources, political uncertainty and the biographical complexities of individual architects, the chapters on key European architecture journals collected here reveal how modernist architecture, and its discourse, was perceived and disseminated in different European countries.

Download or read book Dialogues on architecture written by Emilio Faroldi and published by LetteraVentidue Edizioni. This book was released on 2022-01-20 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: he dialogue, as “the talking of the soul with itself” that constitutes the act of thinking (Plato), has been selected as the ideal form through which to vividly and accurately convey the thinking of a number of protagonists of Italian modern architecture. Knowledge remains a latent legacy of the soul until a given stimulus reawakens its memory: architecture, more than sophia (wisdom), becomes philo-sophia, i.e. love of knowledge. A reading of the architectural phenomenon aimed at faithfully bringing out its complexity cannot help but involve the stories directly told by the protagonists, and the micro-stories of individual episodes, in order to explore the relationship that exists between the poetic and the technical-scientific spheres, underlining their complementary and conflictual nature. The disciplinary tools of exegesis of design and its materialization stimulate a form of critique of criticism driven by the rejection of an angle of interpretation of architecture oriented exclusively towards its results. Method and result constitute the inseparable terms: the direct testimony of certain protagonists of Italian architecture makes it possible to reconnect the interrupted threads of a narrative that has often been rendered syncopated and unilateral by excessively superficial explanation. The Dialogues on Architecture explore the interaction between idea, design and construction, revealing different operative and conceptual modes through which to achieve the finished work. Franco Albini, Lodovico B. Belgiojoso, Guido Canella, Aurelio Cortesi, Roberto Gabetti & Aimaro Isola, Ignazio Gardella, Vittorio Gregotti, Vico Magistretti, Enrico Mantero, Paolo Portoghesi, Aldo Rossi, Giuseppe Terragni, Vittoriano Viganò are the authors of this narrative.

Download or read book Architectural Drawings as Investigating Devices written by Marianna Charitonidou and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-10 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Architectural Drawings as Investigating Devices explores how the changing modes of representation in architecture and urbanism relate to the transformation of how the addressees of architecture and urbanism are conceived. The book diagnoses the dominant epistemological debates in architecture and urbanism during the 20th and 21st centuries. It traces their transformations, paying special attention to Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s preference for perspective representation, to the diagrams of Team 10 architects, to the critiques of functionalism, and the upgrade of the artefactual value of architectural drawings in Aldo Rossi, John Hejduk, Peter Eisenman, and Oswald Mathias Ungers, and, finally, to the reinvention of architectural programme through the event in Bernard Tschumi and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). Particular emphasis is placed on the spirit of truth and clarity in modernist architecture, the relationship between the individual and the community in post-war era architecture, the decodification of design process as syntactic analogy and the paradigm of autonomy in the 1970s and 1980s architecture, the concern about the dynamic character of urban conditions and the potentialities hidden in architectural programme in the post-autonomy era. This book is based on extensive archival research in Canada, the USA and Europe, and will be of interest to architects, artists, researchers and students in architecture, architectural history, theory, cultural theory, philosophy and aesthetics.

Download or read book Drawing and Experiencing Architecture written by Marianna Charitonidou and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2022-11-30 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How were the concepts of the observer and user in architecture and urban planning transformed throughout the 20th and 21st centuries? Marianna Charitonidou explores how the mutations of the means of representation in architecture and urban planning relate to the significance of city's inhabitants. She investigates Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's fascination with perspective, Team Ten's interest in the humanisation of architecture and urbanism, Constantinos Doxiadis and Adriano Olivetti's role in reshaping the relationship between politics and urban planning during the postwar years, Giancarlo De Carlo's architecture of participation, Aldo Rossi's design methods, Denise Scott Brown's active socioplactics and Bernard Tschumi's conception praxis.

Download or read book Exhibiting Italian Art in the United States from Futurism to Arte Povera written by Raffaele Bedarida and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores how Italian institutions, dealers, critics, and artists constructed a modern national identity for Italy by exporting – literally and figuratively – contemporary art to the United States in key moments between 1929 and 1969. From artist Fortunato Depero opening his Futurist House in New York City to critic Germano Celant launching Arte Povera in the United States, Raffaele Bedarida examines the thick web of individuals and cultural environments beyond the two more canonical movements that shaped this project. By interrogating standard narratives of Italian Fascist propaganda on the one hand and American Cold War imperialism on the other, this book establishes a more nuanced transnational approach. The central thesis is that, beyond the immediate aims of political propaganda and conquering a new market for Italian art, these art exhibitions, publications, and the critical discourse aimed at American audiences all reflected back on their makers: they forced and helped Italians define their own modernity in relation to the world’s new dominant cultural and economic power. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, social history, exhibition history, and Italian studies.

Download or read book Re Humanizing Architecture written by Ákos Moravánszky and published by Birkhäuser. This book was released on 2016-12-19 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the Second World War, a divided Europe was much affected by a period of reconstruction. This was influenced by the different political systems – in the socialist East and in the capitalist West, the focus was on cohesion in society and its cultural and architectural expression. In parallel to the rapidly progressing industrialization of the building industry, debates on the humanization of the built environment were led on both sides with great intensity. The volume shows how, on the back of existentialism, new monumentality, and socialist realism, quite similar concepts and strategies were developed in order to find answers to questions relating to adequate structures for new forms of community and identity.

Download or read book The Architecture of Luxury written by Annette Condello and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-16 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past century, luxury has been increasingly celebrated in the sense that it is no longer a privilege (or attitude) of the European elite or America’s leisure class. It has become more ubiquitous and now, practically everyone can experience luxury, even luxury in architecture. Focusing on various contexts within Western Europe, Latin America and the United States, this book traces the myths and application of luxury within architecture, interiors and designed landscapes. Spanning from antiquity to the modern era, it sets out six historical categories of luxury - Sybaritic, Lucullan, architectural excess, rustic, neoEuropean and modern - and relates these to the built and unbuilt environment, taking different cultural contexts and historical periods into consideration. It studies some of the ethical questions raised by the nature of luxury in architecture and discusses whether architectural luxury is an unqualified benefit or something which should only be present within strict limits. The author argues how the ideas of permissible and impermissible luxury have informed architecture and how these notions of ethical approval have changed from one context to another. Providing voluptuous settings for the nobles and the leisure class, luxury took the form of not only grand palaces, but also follies, country and suburban houses, private or public entertainment venues and ornate skyscrapers with fast lifts. The Architecture of Luxury proposes that in Western societies the growth of the leisure classes and their desire for various settings for pleasure resulted in a constantly increasing level of ’luxury’ sought within everyday architecture.

Download or read book The Architecture of Edwin Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew written by Iain Jackson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-16 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew were pioneers of Modern Architecture in Britain and its former colonies from the late 1920s through to the early 1970s. As a barometer of twentieth century architecture, their work traces the major cultural developments of that century from the development of modernism, its spread into the late-colonial arena and finally, to its re-evaluation that resulted in a more expressive, formalist approach in the post-war era. This book thoroughly examines Fry and Drew's highly influential 'Tropical Architecture' in West Africa and India, whilst also discussing their British work, such as their post World War II projects for the Festival of Britain, Harlow New Town, Pilkington Brothers’ Headquarters and Coychurch Crematorium. It highlights the collaborative nature of Fry and Drew's work, including schemes undertaken with Elizabeth Denby, Walter Gropius, Denys Lasdun, Pierre Jeanneret and Le Corbusier. Positioning their architecture, writing and educational endeavours within a wider context, this book illustrates the significant artistic and cultural contributions made by Fry and Drew throughout their lengthy careers.

Download or read book The Challenge of Emulation in Art and Architecture written by David Mayernik and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emulation is a challenging middle ground between imitation and invention. The idea of rivaling by means of imitation, as old as the Aenead and as modern as Michelangelo, fit neither the pessimistic deference of the neoclassicists nor the revolutionary spirit of the Romantics. Emulation thus disappeared along with the Renaissance humanist tradition, but it is slowly being recovered in the scholarship of Roman art. It remains to recover emulation for the Renaissance itself, and to revivify it for modern practice. Mayernik argues that it was the absence of a coherent understanding of emulation that fostered the fissuring of artistic production in the later eighteenth century into those devoted to copying the past and those interested in continual novelty, a situation solidified over the course of the nineteenth century and mostly taken for granted today. This book is a unique contribution to our understanding of the historical phenomenon of emulation, and perhaps more importantly a timely argument for its value to contemporary practice.