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The Architect Luigi Moretti. from Rationalism to Informalism1

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The Architect Luigi Moretti. from Rationalism to Informalism1 Jedno z ostatnich zdj B4 architekta zrobionych pod nowy, strukturalny paradygmat tworzenia architek- koniec bycia to podsumowanie, czy mo be raczej wi- tury, który realn = nieci =goV4 form przeciwstawia zja Vwiata kultury Luigiego Morettiego (il. 53). Ar- ich poza realnej ci =goVci, tak jak ci Bb ar materialnej chitekt fotografuje si B z makiet = Palazzo dei Conser- rzeczywisto Vci – lekko Vci jej obrazu, aby stworzy 4 vatori, symbolem bliskiego zwi =zku jego prac z hi- rodzaj architektury marze L, która b Bdzie w stanie stori =, trzyma uformowany w kul B zwój metalowych dostarczy 4 prze by4 najintensywniejszych, jakich do- pasków od Claire Falkenstein, wyra baj =cy emocjo- zna 4 jeste Vmy w stanie, nazwanych przez Morettie- nalny zwi =zek z nowoczesn = sztuk = l‘art informel , go - incantamento – zakl Bciem, bo to ono stanowi przed nim stoi makieta [ lara z Fiuggi, obrazuj =ca gówny cel sztuki. Tumaczenie I. Szyma Lska, D. K osek-Koz owska Annalisa Viati Navone, dr arch. Archivio del Moderno Accademia di Architettura Università della Svizzera italiana Mendrisio THE ARCHITECT LUIGI MORETTI. FROM RATIONALISM TO INFORMALISM 1 ANNALISA VIATI NAVONE Many pictures portray Luigi Moretti in his materials, which led him to a kind of Informal elegant, enormous and famous of [ ce extended Art called «materic». Many artists of this circle on two \ oors of Palazzo Colonna, rented from were fascinated with gestural art (action painting), the Colonna Princes, near Piazza Venezia, in the among them Lucio Fontana, the famous author historical heart of Rome. This was the place where of cuts, Jackson Pollock with his drippings, and Moretti spent most of his life, his of [ ce, but at the Georges Mathieu, author of abstract compositions same time his home, where he kept his great art made by repeating a few signs many times on the collection and his very rich library, in the 1960s used canvas. Moretti also liked the works of Giuseppe by architects coming from all over the world. He Capogrossi, canvases depicting sequences of signs, was described as a Renaissance man, with his own a little different in form, differently orientated on following, on board of the most beautiful American the surface of the canvas, creating innovative spatial cars, as a very prodigal and big hearted man. He relationships between the [ gures (the prominent always appears surrounded by numerous works of signs) and the background. This interest in art, signs of his intellectual interest in both ancient contemporary art was very important for Moretti’s art and contemporary developments (ill. 1). He was conception of architecture. especially interested in the new art form, which was called «Informal Art», or «Art Autre» [“Other Art”], The education as an architect by the French art critic Michel Tapiè at the end of the forties. Informal Art was created by many young Moretti was born in Rome in 1907 and he died artists such as Alberto Burri, the inventor of tactile there in 1973. His father was a Belgian mathematician collages made of various unorthodox “non artistic” and engineer, who had two sons from a previous 1 This essay is based on a lecture that I gave at the Faculty of May 2012. I am deeply grateful to Prof. Stefan Westrych for his Architecture Warsaw University of Technology on the 29 th of invitation. 31 marriage. That is why Luigi did not take his father’s While Moretti was studying architecture in Regia name Rolland but he inherited his mother’s name Scuola di Architettura in Rome from 1925 to 1930, Moretti. he showed his professors a very deep knowledge Little Luigi learnt the interest in science, in many [ elds of culture. Two of them, Gustavo mathematics and architecture from his father. His [ rst Giovannoni and Vincenzo Fasolo, called him to be of [ ce was in his parents’ house, which remained his their assistant for several years while he was still own house for his entire life: in fact he got married a student. He earned his degree with the highest honors only at the end of his life, when he was already very and in the following year he received a scholarship ill, to a secretary, who was 25 years his junior. that allowed him to collaborate in the investigation He was [ rst an intellectual man and then an and restoration of monuments in Rome, especially in architect (ill. 2). He collected an enormous library restructuring the Mercati Traianei with the famous with old and precious books, most of which he archaeologist Corrado Ricci. This occasion to work inherited from his father, who died when he was physically with historical architecture made him only 14 years old. His mother, who also died after consider history an important source of inspiration, a long disease when he was about 28, represented a vital starting point for his projects, also for the his person of reference during his whole life ( mater most innovative buildings that he realized. dulcissima , the sweetest mother, he engraved on the This particular relationship with history is the [ rst family vault designed by himself). of the three magnets around which Moretti’s interests He was a very religious man. In fact his plans are concentrated, the others being his attention to the of churches, unfortunately none of them realized, inner space, resulting in the new way to consider it show that he thought about a religious building as and to describe its qualities as nobody in Italy had a place of light, where the matter is splitting and the before, and his curiosity for science, which led him space is continuously in contraction and expansion to explore its possible connection with architecture to stimulate the beholders’ emotions, the contraction and art. giving the feeling of discomfort, embarrassment, malaise, the expansion on the contrary giving the The interest in Michelangelo’s works and the sensation of comfort and well-being. He also lights relationship with history up some places of the religious space to produce joy, or creates darker spaces as though to invite visitors Michelangelo as an architect, sculptor and to meditate 2. painter was in focus of Moretti’s attention for all his The last important element in the picture is life, from the early studies, where he analyzed the a project for an important competition concerning relations between the structure and the form, and the Palazzo del Littorio (Rome, 1934), Mussolini’s therefore considered the tectonic of Michelangelo’s political district. As everybody knows, Moretti was many works, for instance the “Palazzo dei involved in the Fascist Regime, and was head of Conservatori” at Campidoglio Square, and the Opera Nazionale Balilla technical of [ ce since 1933 Vestibule of the Laurenziana Library in Florence (ONB was an institution looking after the health (ill. 3-5). Here Moretti analyzed the real structure, and the moral and political education of the youth). made by the elements carrying the static weights, as In this role he made an important contribution to columns and giant pillars, which we can see because developing new Italian architecture, combining they are not hidden under the visible surface; on European Rationalism with the Italian tradition. The the contrary, Michelangelo shows us what element buildings he created in the thirties are emblematic of is more or less charged (so we can reconstruct in the way of making new without giving up history, our mind the diagram of the static strengths), and which was always a source of inspiration for him. also he shows us the matter being formed. This 2 I refer to the project for the Chiesa del Concilio Sancta Maria male, edited by B. Reichlin, L. Tedeschi, Electa, Milano 2010, Mater Ecclesiae (Rome, 1965-1970) and another very interesting pp. 295-311. See also Moretti’s Spazi-luce nell’architettura re- project for the new sanctuary of Primato di San Pietro on Tibe- ligiosa , in “Spazio”, extracts, 30 April 1962 (the English transla- riade Lake, at Taghba (Palestine, 1965-1968). On this topic, see tion is in Luigi Moretti. Works and writings , edited by F. Bucci G. Belli, Luigi Moretti. Il progetto dello spazio sacro , Alinea, and M. Mulazzani, Princeton Architectural Press, New York Firenze 2003; and also G. Gresleri, La questione del sacro , in 2002, pp. 185-190 under the title Light-Spaces in Religious Ar- Luigi Moretti. Razionalismo e trasgressività tra barocco e infor- chitecture, without images). 32 point was very important for Moretti, who was The studies on the conditions of vision of the Last charmed by the [ gure of the «colonna inalveolata», Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, elaborated in 1931- the column while being formed and becoming 1934, returned in the project of Piazzale dell’Impero independent of the wall around. He interpreted at the Foro Mussolini (Rome, 1937), where Moretti this [ gure as a sign of the temporality of the tested how to get the best vision of the obelisk placed architectural construction, as a temporal structure, at one end of the promenade, before the bridge on as a sign of time we can hardly feel running as we the Tiber, when the beholder was walking towards it stand in front of a Baroque sculpture, for example (ill. 7-8). He said: «high minimal and [ nely carved the Fontana dei Fiumi by Bernini in Navona square 3 elements give by contrast scale and dimension to the in Rome, where the rough and unaccomplished Obelisk [that] reaches the best value in dimension matter of the group shows the process of transition and character if placed in a space architecturally from “informal” to “formal”, from a condition de [ ned and by gradually reducing measures». In without form to a condition with form.
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