year 1 no. 3 June 2008

Piemonte’s Aura of Europe primacies is bella between and Oropa

Riccardo Bedrone Vittorio Barazzotto President of the XXIII UIA World Lord Mayor Congress of Architecture of the City of Biella After the take-off of its exhibition Astro- Biella is the administrative centre of Let us discuss, in this magazine -which the few certain reference points in re- nave Torino, MIAAO, with The Grand a district renowned all over the world also serves as a “catalogue” for the gards to completed architecture works Ceramics Theater. BAU+MIAAO for the quality of its textile products. BAU+MIAAO. The Grand Ceramics (not only designed). In the Manifesto is launching another cultural event Indeed, the initiative of its entrepre- Theater exhibition held at the MIAAO in of Aerial Architecture by Marinetti, -this time associated with the XXIII neurs and the skill of its workers Turin- of the new image & communica- Mazzoni and Somenzi -dated 1933, UIA World Congress of Architecture have, over the years, allowed to per- tion strategies and projects, of urban published on 15 February 1934 in UIA; cementing a relationship that is fect manufacturing techniques such identity. Let us not use the term “street Sant’Elia, issue no. 4- we read, indeed, destined to flourish. Turin’s Order of as to produce cloths and yarns of an furniture”, an expression which seems that “the Lingotto Fiat factory was the Architects, and its Foundation, have excellent quality. It is therefore natural limited, at least in its most widespread first Futurist constructive invention”. decided to transfer their head office that the most famous designers have usage. Not so in the past. Indeed, dur- Saying that the style of Giacomo Mattè to the monumental com- used Biella-made products for their ing the “foundation congress” of this Trucco -the architect who designed the plex of San Filippo Neri, designed by high-fashion and prêt-à-porter crea- discipline in -promoted by my- important Turin factory- can be con- ; where they will be the tions; that so many star-system ce- self in in 1982- Giovanni Klaus sidered as Futurist is perhaps pushing Museum’s new neighbours. It so hap- lebrities, managers, beautiful women Koenig said that “street furniture is the it a bit, on the other hand there is no pens that Juvarra is also one of the and international personalities have first form of communication of a city doubt about the avant-gardiste views subjects of the exhibition series: La worn and still wear clothes made towards its citizens”, it is an act of “cul- of Nicola Mosso, a follower of the Tu- città disegnata dagli architetti, which with Biella textiles. It may sound tural restoration” aiming at “removing rin Futurist group led by Fillia, and the includes the MIAAO exhibition. This is strange, but, in truth, only a few have a disturbance within a message” (and creator, in Biella, of some crucial works the Congress’s main collateral event, benefited of this undisputable record not at creating it, as too often hap- like the Casa and other works and may encourage participants, and, indeed, in the public perception, pens). If to this we add that it is also a which were unfortunately demolished visitors, and Turin’s inhabitants to Biella is still just a name, with no spe- way of “transmitting architecture”, we or not carried out. As regards the Ra- discover the old capital city’s concep- cific geographical location: everyone are in perfect harmony with the sub- tionalist Giuseppe Pagano -who, as tion, and the mastery that many great knows it exists but no one knows ject of the XXIII UIA World Congress of Bruno Zevi asserts, “as a driving force architects long ago lavished on it to exactly where it is. This is because Architecture, to be held in Turin: Trans- and leader of a renewing movement give it a rigorous and rational appear- of the understated attitude of the mitting Architecture. Here, we do all of has no parallel in the world, because in ance. The architects Juvarra, Guarini Biella people, who have long shun that based on the experience of the no other country modern architecture and Antonelli also worked at Oropa, the spotlight, preferring to retreat into BAU Biella Arredo Urbano (Biella Street experienced such extreme drama” (B. in the area of Biella. This small town a comfortable isolation: what really Leonardo Mosso, Architektur, 1969, writing-structure, key ideogram system Furniture) project implemented in Biella, Zevi, Storia dell’architettura moderna, has intelligently taken the strategic mattered, after all, was that the at- modulated square alphabet made up of a limited number of horizontal, vertical a province city of the region, Einaudi, Turin 1975)- besides the Of- opportunity of the Congress’s pres- tention was focused on this or that diagonal and curved graphemes, Istituto Alvar Aalto, Pino Torinese whose administrative centre, Turin, is fice Building he designed in Turin for ence to reveal its hidden beauty, and manufacturer of an excellent prod- this year the world capital of architec- industrialist Riccardo Gualino from the works of its artificers, including uct. That isolation, which until not ture and, temporarily, the World Design Biella, we want to remember here two important “avant-garde” 20th century long ago was regarded as a privilege, Variable Oropa’s Capital (the logo “world design capital” Biella works which represents impor- architects such as Nicola Mosso, his is now the reason behind a general has been recently registered by the city tant translations of his “moral” notion son Leonardo, and Giuseppe Pagano. redesign of the Biella territory, to bet- Biella hour of : a rapid move aimed at mak- of industrial and community architec- This number of Afterville also refers ter integrate it -through a suitable ing people used to call it so). As you ture. Other hommages in these pages to BAU Biella Arredo Urbano (Biella infrastructural network- into the com- Sergio Scaramal Mercedes Bresso will see, many pages of this magazine are more direct operating models for Street Furniture) project coordinated munication and economic system of President President are dedicated to the history of the de- the BAU project, i.e. the ones paid to by Enzo Biffi Gentili. Afterville would the macro-areas of Northern Italy and of the of the Piedmont Region sign culture of Biella and Turin. This Ettore Sottsass and Achille Castiglioni, also like to celebrate three European Europe. Indeed, in the last decades, choice has been made for two rea- invited by me to come to Turin and con- primacies of Piedmont: the Colour, under the pressure of a global mar- The Biella Province has in its small The Piedmont Region aims to en- sons: the first, dictated by the need of tribute to the preparation and imple- Lighting and Street Furniture Urban ket, low-cost products have invaded size and morphological variety a very hance its resources. Important cultural cultural “references” to be introduced mentation of the Turin Street Furniture Plans. These innovative instruments the consumer world and many Biella- valuable asset: its mountains and hills, events can be considered as factors to a world assembly; the second, dic- and City Lighting Plans at the begin- were all drawn up in Turin between the based plants have been forced to shut its plain and human settlements all of development, as tourist attractions, tated by our belief -as Manfredo Tafuri ning of the eighties. Sottsass Associati end of the seventies and the begin- down or relocate production in better- contribute to creating a landscape of as promotional vehicles or as possible teaches us- that history does not pre- are also the designers of some recent ning of the eighties. Their international positioned areas. A number of small countless nuances. From the Oropa sources of employment. The Region cede action, but it is an action itself. Biella street furniture projects, such as success led their promoter, Enzo Biffi and medium manufacturers, though, Sanctuary, a UNESCO World Heritage has great pleasure therefore in wel- Besides, there are some important the shelters and supports for informa- Gentili, to be given an entry in the remain active, maintaining their focus Site, to the lake, the views coming the XXIII World Congress of Ar- anniversaries which should not be for- tion (while the Biella Colour Plan, is Dictionnaire international des arts ap- on a high-quality product, for a more change gently, reminding us that the chitecture, an event that thousands of gotten by 2008 Italy. It is exactly eighty based on the Turin plan of 1978 -an- pliqués et du design, (Éditions du Re- upmarket consumer segment, fortu- landscape perfectly embodies the professionals have awaited, at Venaria years since three important events other thirtieth anniversary- managed gard, Paris 1996). Among the project nately growing. What is needed is an notion of Common Good: and that Royal Palace: a symbol of the capac- were organised in Italy in 1928: the first by Giovanni Brino, the director at that leaders were the architect Achille innovative strategy, designed also to there are some things whose quality ity of cultural, architectural, urban and Exhibition of Futurist Architecture, held time, fortunately still active and alive). A Castiglioni, and the designer Ettore revitalise the many empty spaces left and excellence must be protected social rebirth of an area that seemed in Turin, which saw the participation of totally Biella “invention”, with no Turin Sottsass. By the way, as it is seldom in the city by the shutting-down fac- because they belong to us all. One of until a few years ago to be destined the local Futurist group led by Fillia; the precedent, is the fight to establish a known that Sottsass graduated and tories, once sources of work, income the most attractive features of Biella’s for a sad decline. A rich programme first Italian Exhibition of Rational Archi- “urban and territorial graphic design”, did his youthful professional training and employment. And this is why the architecture is that it is immersed in of associated events complete this tecture promoted by MIAR, which was being also “decorative”, which is led in Turin, the city’s Order of Architects City I lead has committed itself, right the surrounding landscape: even the cultural offer, and are aimed at a vast held in ; and the first issue of La together with the AIAP, the Italian As- is inscribing him in its Roll of Honour. from the beginning of its term, to a old industrial heritage buildings lie on public. In particular we’re pleased that casa bella, rivista per gli amatori della sociation planning for visual design. Biella’s latest street furniture project programme focusing primarily on the the sides of rivers, reproducing their the Biella area will be featured in the casa bella, published in Milan, whose In sum, with its territory including the by Ettore is the one carried out with externalisation -also in environmental colours (and once even their sounds). combined event: The Grand Ceramics name was subsequently be changed World Heritage Site Oropa, to which is Sottsass Associati for Biella. Biella is and architectural terms- of the identity Textile factories -whether they are still Theater. BAU+MIAAO. This exhibition into Casabella. As chance would have dedicated the final part of this maga- now conducting new research, under of Biella, a city which has already in- in use, disused or used for other pur- of art, architecture and design organ- it, we have mentioned some primary zine, we can safely say that Biella can the artistic direction of the same per- troduced the concept of quality in the poses- represent a central feature of ised by MIAAO in the splendid com- events and cultural movements whose really contribute to identifying new son who promoted these Turin Plans production and provision of services our architecture. A member of Recep, plex of San Filippo Neri, designed by chief protagonists, over the time, ways to make every city bella (beau- thirty years ago, not only into street to its citizens: schools, safety, sup- the European network of local author- Juvarra, is also about street furniture, were the architects Nicola Mosso and tiful). Even though, some time ago furniture, but also into urban identity, port to the disadvantaged segments ities for the implementation of the Eu- and Biella’s capacity to profit from the Giuseppe Pagano, also active in Biella Paolo Portoghesi warned us in Stresa with projects in the applied public arts, of the population, public green areas, ropean Landscape Convention, the pioneering experience of Turin in terms and Turin, to whom we pay homage. by saying: “letting it believe it is beauti- involving works by world-famous de- cabling of the city’s territory for IT pur- Biella Province strives to protect and of reviving its Lighting and Colour City Regarding Futurism -the centenary of ful is not enough to cure it, but let us signers including Jean-Michel Wilmot- poses. This is the reason behind the promote its territory, its cultural iden- Plans. Besides, it also takes account which will be celebrated next year- our not abandon it any longer than it has te, Enric Miralles and Benedetta Ta- effort being made to renew the im- tity, its social fabric, overseeing to its of Oropa’s great environmental, archi- Subalpine region represented one of already been done...”. gliabue, Jordi Garcés and Enric Sòria. age of Biella and make it even more necessary transformations and treat- tectural and artistic traditions between Besides, again for the first time in Italy, enjoyable through initiatives such as ing its diversity as a source of value. the 17th and 19th centuries. In this Biella has started up a “town and area the BAU Biella Arredo Urbano (Biella We care for our landscape, not only way it enhances an extraordinary her- graphic arts plan”. Five young graph- Street Furniture) project, whose aim in that we defend its historical and itage that is both “local” and interna- ics studios, after being invited to de- is that of setting off and conveying environmental assets, but in that we tional: Oropa’s Sanctuary and Sacred sign new urban “reading“ and “writ- the value of certain features of the protect our space and quality of life, Mountain, which have been included Time present and time past ing” projects are involved in this as city through colours, lights, writings in the attempt to build a future based since 2003 in the UNESCO’s list of members of the commission that will and street furniture. on the history of our living spaces. World Heritage of Humanity Sites. Are both perhaps present in time future select the best designs. The theme of the World Congress is Transmitting Ar- And time future contained in time past chitecture. It is instructive to consider this type of project as one of the ways Bugella to transmit architecture, and with it, a town’s history and reality; as an exer- Summary pivella T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, 1935 cise in communicative feedback be- tween citizens, visitors and the built environment. Here’s a golden oppor- Doriano Raise tunity to forget the old platitude that Councillor for Town Planning Diversi Associati, Trademark and Logo of the BAU Biella Arredo Urbano project, 2008 Biella is just a little “provincial town”... and Street Furniture of Biella

Let me explain the title of this article, Futurist Laboratory tribute to Nicola Mosso 02-03 Bugella pivella, an expression (chosen by the editorial office) now perhaps ob- Rationlist Laboratory tribute to Giuseppe Pagano 04-05 scure but once perfectly understood, appropriately describing its content. Building Exercises tribute to Ettore Sottsass 06-07 Bugella is Biella’s old Latin name, dat- ing from at least 826 AD, while pivella Illumination Exercises tribute to Achille Castiglioni 08-09 means young woman. An oxymoron really, a figure of speech, revealing the Decoration Exercises tribute to Carlo Ravizza 10-11 “back to the future”-inspired approach which underpins the work of the city’s Architectural Laboratory tribute to Filippo Juvarra 12-13 Council Department of Town Planning and which, in 2006, led to the launch Ceramic Laboratory tribute to Giovanni d’Errico 14-15 of the BAU Biella Arredo Urbano (Biella Street Furniture) project and the institu- tion of the UAU Ufficio Arredo Urbano (Street Furniture Office). For these ac- tivities, Biella has counted in the past and can count today on the coopera- following at last page futurist laboratory tribute to nicola mosso june 2008

A Futurist turning

Leonardo Mosso The Casa Cervo at Biella is the most namic, visual-plastic characteristic of famous still existing example of Nicola the Casa Cervo appears immediately Mosso’s Futurist architecture -and complete and definite, because of its much more than that. The chance obvious sculptural and pictorial “ges- to construct a building on the corner tures” confirming the parameters of of two of the city’s main streets gave its poetic “Futureplastics” features, Mosso a fine opportunity to express which need to be explained. Some his very personal, “sculptural, Neo- reading keys could be: abandoning plastic” Futurism. The work resulted in the closed, blocked, “box-shaped” being the only sculpture-architecture parallelepiped -unfortunately so com- in the Futurism’s history. The Casa mon in urban environments- and the Cervo, says Enrico Crispolti -one of planimetric facade, in favour of a con- Fillia, Pippo Oriani, Mino Rosso, Sketch the first experts to “revalue” Italian Fu- structive critique adopting a polymor- of a plastic mural for Casa Cervo, no. 18 turism after the second world war- is phous, multi-coloured, three-dimen- 1934, gouache on paper, 33x24 cm “an exceptionally important example sional volumetry that aims to achieve Nicola Mosso Collection, at Istituto Alvar of the integration of the arts”. In reality, an original “angular solution”; the Aalto, Pino Torinese the management of the work, charac- reciprocally unbalanced geometrical- terised in its final state by the plastic kinetic relationship of the two facades; murals of Fillia, Pippo Oriani and Mino the elements recalling traditional ar- Futurist Rosso, did not originally involve other chitecture, such as eaves, mullions artists. Mosso, in fact, at first ignored and windows, transfigured into ab- Biella the possibility of adding further works stract notations; the high relief treat- of art. The archive documents show ment of the volumetric corner, with its how the operation was both a “Futur- positive and negative multi-directional Luisa Perlo ist” architectural work and a dynamic “excavations and filling”; the plasticity neoplastic “installation”; or “pictorial in depth of the recessed balconies, a That Biella is part of the history of Futur- structure”. The “integration” between tradition in Biella western region; the ism is due in large part to Nicola Mos- the arts and the artists that Crispolti striking red frames marking the an- so. Born in Biellese in 1899, mentioned, occurs perhaps after a gular facies of the building; and the Mosso was one of the many Piedmont meeting with Marinetti -who describes colours of the Casa Cervo, strongly architects who emerged from the Turin Mosso as a “friend of strong soaring marking it pictorially and wrapping it Academy of the Fine Arts’ School of Ar- Santelia architectures”. The Casa up in a sort of Futurist chromatic sym- chitecture. Painting was part of his de- Cervo’s notably large and colourful phony. Here the materials, geometries signer DNA and shaped his career until perspective, with its bright yellow, or- and colours are superimposed and 1986, the year he died. In 1927 he was ange, light and dark grey, white, red articulated in rigorous stereometry, to one of the few Italians to participate in and black colours, makes it resemble express one of the happiest inventions the international competition held to a large multi-coloured urban sculp- of the 20th century’s Futurist and Ra- choose a design for the Palais des Na- ture -and shows that Mosso did not tionalist season. Mosso had a second tions in Geneva, submitting a project anticipate the involvement of other opportunity to develop the concept influenced by the Juvarian stylistic ele- artists at that time. The Futurist, dy- of “synthesis of the arts”, through the ments he had cultivated at Studio Fra- polli. The competition brought him into contact with Europe’s avant-garde: Mosso was thunderstruck by the Le Corbusier work he saw exhibited. Ex- Nicola Mosso, Casa Cervo, One of the Fillia, Pippo Oriani, Mino Rosso, Sketch amples of how his style evolved include plastic murals of the balconies, 1933-34 of a plastic mural for Casa Cervo, no. 11 Nicola Mosso, Design for Casa Cervo at Biella, Perspective view, 1934, drawing in pencil and pastels on paper, 49,5x57 cm his own studio-house in via Grassi in marble plaster in colours, Nicola Mosso 1934, polymateric life size sample, 98x74 cm Nicola Mosso Collection, at Istituto Alvar Aalto, Pino Torinese, Photo by Studioelle Torino; Casa Campra, built in 1928, a Collection, at Istituto Alvar Aalto Nicola Mosso Collection, at Istituto Alvar Déco edifice Mosso reworked in 1950, Pino Torinese Aalto, Pino Torinese, Photo by Studioelle adding a Rationalist element in homage to what he had learnt in Geneva with resonance between the works of art- including the Electric Railway Station size model in the Alvar Aalto Institute the use of a plan libre. But what deter- ists active in different fields, when re- at Orbassano, and Nasi Agnelli Pal- in Turin, shown here. Even when sim- mined his modernist bent was meeting viewing his design for the Casa Cervo. ace in Turin’s piazza Carlina, but these plified and organised as frescoes to fit Fillia and the group of Turin Futurists, Perhaps he did this after discussing it were not carried out. Finally, the Casa the geometry of the balconies, these which led him to abandon “pastists” Futurist meetings -frequently held also Cervo as constructed had the same plastic murals are really synthetic references and create his own version in Biella- or with Marinetti. This was a volumetry as in its original design, but “paintings” of the city and territory of of rational-Futurism. Beginning in the big opportunity for Turin’s futurist art the “artificial” tones and timbres of its Biella, which appear along with their early thirties, Mosso concentrated on movement to collaborate in creating colours were softened, reducing them symbols: the factory, the ploughed interior architecture -developed through an obvious “manifesto” of arts integra- to the natural, tonal chromaticism of fields, the mountains, flight, etc. Neoplastic chromatic scales, such as tion. Some of the subsequent tables the materials, and to the large, red These works echo the landscape that the Electric Railway Station at in colour demonstrate the original ne- horizontal and vertical corners. The can be seen all around from the top of 1932-33, which has been lost, and oplastic volumetry of the architecture plastic murals, as well as being re- floor balconies. Thus, the architectural the furnishings he designed, including and its Futurist envelope of colours; duced in number, were transformed, design of the Casa Cervo, while losing those for Casa Campra and for Casa but with an important addition: the from polymateric bas-reliefs, pro- its bright colours, acquired different Barberis in Asti, which still stand. His plastic murals of his artist friends Fil- duced from the different treatments environmental and educational values settings and architecture from this lia, Oriani and Rosso, which appear in of the skin-like layers of materials as from the valley; allowing its frescoes period appeared in the periodicals La the walls of the galleries. Other plastic Mosso intended, into “frescoes”. The to be enjoyed by residents, local citi- Città Nuova and Stile futurista and in murals were proposed to be included original technique for this process has zens and foreigners alike, in a dazzling Fillia’s Gli ambienti della nuova archit- in other works of that time by Mosso, been uniquely preserved in the big life- synthesis of domestic and public art. tetura published by UTET in 1935. One of Mosso’s most typically Futurist de- signs was the physical education room presented the same year at the Mostra del Naturismo in held at the Threnody for railway Nicola Mosso friend of Promotrice delle Belle Arti in Turin. But for Mosso, the “Futurist reconstruction strong soaring Santelia architectures of the universe” was also worked out in reiterated attempts at “integrating the arts”, which he did by inserting plastic- Laura Castagno Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, 1941 pictorial elements, especially ones by Fillia, in architectural designs, most of Nicola Mosso is one of the architects works, and it always arises from a between floors, walls and ceilings, zone -accessible from both inside the examples of Mies van der Rohe, which never saw the light. An excep- of the Modern Movement who are spatial module building the whole he introduced continuity and discon- the Station and the square in front of they showed conceptual connec- tion was Casa Cervo at Biella, from highly focused on spatial relationship volume starting from just a simple tri- tinuity elements. “Modern architect the Station- featuring a strictly Neo- tions -for example in the exploiting of 1933-34, whose final version includes between flat and raised, volumetric dimensional element. In the thirties, thought on the architectural problem plastic style partitioned service glaz- diagonals- with the line followed by plastic murals by Fillia, Pippo Oriani fluency, colour game and dialectic for interiors Mosso chose to adopt turns back to the essential principle ing, almost seems to be a Mondrian the brothers Luckardt for some metal and Mino Rosso. Mosso’s dedication of materials. Before being a design pictorial arrangement solutions -that stating that the function must con- piece articulated in the space, to- chairs at the beginning of the thirties. to his birthplace never wavered. His attitude, this is a mental attitude, most of times he was barred from dition the shape: thus interiors take wards the waiting room: the restau- Such composition of diagonals will most important buildings from his Biella which is particularly evident in how using outside- often featured by on primary importance together with rant was furnished with small square become a characteristic element of period include the impressive Palazzot- he utilises the interior space. We can chromatic creations having Neo- the purpose for which a building is stools and round tables made of Mosso’s architecture and furniture in to Ripa, constructed in 1936. Many find such attitude also in his mature plastic filial relationship and where, constructed”, as Italo Lorio writes in chrome aluminium, coloured Securit the fifties, joined at and coming from of his ideas for buildings in the Biella the volume Gli ambienti della nuova glass and linoleum; the waiting room his studies on geometry of the space. area were never used, from the open- architettura. The highly up-to-date was harmoniously enveloped by the air Pavilion of Sacred Art in Oropa to Nicola Mosso, Electric Railway Station at Cossato Biellese, 1933, Nicola Mosso Index of architectures and arrange- notes of different colours -yellow- a church for the town of Vaglio Chia- Collection at Istituto Alvar Aalto, Pino Torinese ments managed by Fillia -mentor and lemon plaster to walls, brown-crème- Nicola Mosso, Veranda piece of vazza, from 1931. The relationship with leader of the Turin Futurist group- for orange lino to floor- and furnished furniture for the engineer Migliau’s villa Biella was destined to become more the UTET types in 1935, is the fullest with austere oak benches featur- in red and yellow buxus, 1931, drawing in intense in the post-war years, when expression of the Rational-Futurist ing Pompeian red lino upholstered pencil and pastels on paper, 25x21,4 cm his interest in light and how it could be climate reached in the Subalpine seats and masonite backs, stand- Nicola Mosso Collection, at Istituto Alvar handled in architecture deepened. Em- area, which includes the Electric Rail- ing out against the dazzling walls of Aalto, Pino Torinese blematic of the “white expressionism” way Station of Cossato Biellese, one the room and creating an intriguing with which he began the fifties (when of the most interesting manifestation contrast, and a Luminator lamp, con- he devoted himself to studies on expo- on this matter in the design work of nected to one of the benches and sure to sunlight, the basis of his project Nicola Mosso, alas lost to us. In 1931, functioning as the centre of gravity of for an “Organized Solar City”, which Mosso created the first complete de- the spatial composition. Chromatic were published by Torino’s Academy sign of the furniture for the “veranda temperature suddenly changed in of Sciences) were the designs he did piece of furniture” of the villa of the the stairs to upstairs, where Mosso in 1950 for the exhibition spaces at the same client, the Biella engineer Italo cooled down it by using veined blue Archaeological Museum and Fine Arts Migliau, Railway Managing Direc- Italy’s marble to steps and blue-black Museum in Biella, which won him the tor. A design -which was not adopt- to the opposite floor, adding a touch Domus Prize and an exhibit at MoMa in ed- characterised by red and black of softeness by using pink to walls. New York. His best known work from buxus furniture which is evidence of In the stationmaster’s office, func- this decade is the Church of the Holy his transition from the Déco heritage tioning as ticket office, in addition to Redeemer, built in Torino’s Mirafiori to a completely modernist language. two wall mounted cabinets with dark neighbourhood in 1957, a mature, lofty Designed in 1932 and built in 1933, edges there were a buxus desk with evolution of his “red period”, designed the Cossato Station was shown dur- metal supports and some chairs with with his artist-architect son Leonardo ing the International Exhibition of chrome aluminium frame and fabric and Livio Norzi: a tetrahedron of natu- Architecture of the Royal Institute of upholstery to seat and back. Dated ral light in brick and cement, “expres- British Architects, which was held July 1933, those chairs are particu- sion of his mathematical/structural in London in 1934, and then widely larly interesting: although they could thought”, whose genius loci, according treated in the Fillia volume (testimoni- not certainly ignore the metal furniture to Augusto Sistri, can be traced “to a als which were not enough to save survey exhibited the same year at the possible reference to Guarini”. This fas- it from being demolished during the Milan Triennial, they were able to face cinating edifice, admired by outstand- postwar period): black & white pages the problem of the articulation of the ing architects like Richard Neutra and reproducing its main spaces and the tubular furniture into the space with Alvar Aalto, was awarded the “Architet- stairs, which, although deprive of the simplicity and elegance, necessary to ture rivelate” prize by the Turin Order of kaleidoscopic palette, restore with ensure stability to the small construc- Architects Council. The Nicola Mosso plenty of details the striking arrange- tion. Although being totally original archives are conserved in Mosso’s ment solutions and, in particular, the chairs, oppositely to almost all Italian studio-house in via Grassi and the original furniture solution designed tubular furniture proposed that faith- Istituto Alvar Aalto in Pino Torinese. by the architect. The bar-restaurant fully followed the Stam-Breuer line or futurist laboratory tribute to nicola mosso 03

Futurist group of the Second Turin Futur- ism, whose leader was Fillia. How- Celestial spheres hemilife ever, he was not alone. The painter Franco Costa, born in 1903 in the Cervo valley which crosses Biella and died in 1980, joined the Turin Elisa Facchin e Undesign Juan Abelló Juanpere Futurist group of Oriani, Diulghe- roff, Allimandi, Mino Rosso, and Fil- In the opinion of Laura Castagno, the A typical Futurist Life existed and lia in the twenties and exhibited as plate we see here of a design made by was even depicted in a film of this a Futurist al the Biennale of Nicola Mosso in December 1931 for title made in Florence in 1916. The and at international-level shows. In the Church of Vaglio , just idea for the film was conceived by the post-war period it was Ugo Ne- outside Biella, represents the climax Marinetti and others and it was di- spolo, born in 1941 in of a “linguistic crisis”. In the view of the rected by Arnaldo Ginna. But there in the province of Biella, who sub- scholar, who is one of his most discer- also exists something that I would scribed to the lessons of the Futur- ning exegetists, this is a design that define using a term from physics ists, not from the formal point of marks “his shift towards modernity, as it and pharmacology as “Futurist view -omnia tempus habent- but was viewed in those years”, clearly indi- hemilife”, i.e. how long a radioac- in very up-to-date ways creating cating “the transition from an academic tive material or a substance in an a kind of “house of art” and of ap- style, referred to in those years as rear- organism lasts before its degra- plied arts, strong in the auctoritas ward-looking (‘passatista’) to a rational- dation. Among the avant-gardes of Fortunato Depero. And finally Ar- Futurist language”. We agree, and take Futurism has the longest hemilife; rigo Lora Totino, born in 1928, son it further. In our view, this drawing ap- much was written about a Second of a Biellese wool manufacturer and pears to levitate, considering the almost Futurism and at times about a third internationally famed concrete and aerostatic quality of the object, not only up to the forties and the Second visual poet is also mentioned as an between “pastism” and Futurism, but World War. But even in the post- interpreter of the “words in freedom” also between past and future. It is true war period Futurist traces were and “the gymnastic poet”. For fur- that “buildings in the shape of a sphe- measurable in the blood of some ther proof note that two episodes re” were envisaged in the Manifesto of Italian artists, some of whom are in the 1916 Florentine film by Ginna Aerial Architecture, written by Marinetti, still alive. With regard to the Biella were called Declamazione futurista Mazzoni and Somenzi in 1933, once region we have already seen Ni- (Futurist declamation) and Ginna- again revealing Mosso’s ability to inspi- cola Mosso who was part of the stica futurista (Futurist gymnastics). re, and anticipate, the air du temps. But, accustomed to “visual thought” and in- clined to the practice of homography Arrigo Lora Totino, Spazio and Tempo, 1966, wordtectures (which was considered unmentionable by some), Castagno’s description of that “great and daring hemispherical dome that descends almost to the ground... marked by a crown of small horizontal openings” brings to mind an analogy with the 1784 design by Etien- ne-Louis Boullée for Newton’s Cenota- ph. So here we bring in the church in Vaglio -evocatively, we believe. Taking an indulgent view of the relationships between design culture and the ima- gery of science fiction, on the other hand, we also consider as judicious the linking of this sacred building in Biella with the “spherical architectures” in the sidereal spaces of Kubrick’s and Lu- cas’s films. These are visions that have also had great impact upon current masters like Rem Koolhaas and Rei- nier de Graaf of the Office for Metropo- litan Architecture: the Convention and The best history of contemporary Italian architecture Conference Centre in the Waterfront City project in Dubai, The Sphere, is a is not that of constructed buildings or of realised projects... sensational quotation from Death Star in Star Wars… And yet this is not just Giuseppe Pagano, 1938 some extravagant “futuristic” project. A statement from OMA claims we are not facing the “creation of the next bizarre image” but a “return to pure form”, be- Futurist furniture and fittings cause “the sphere existed even before man”. This bears out our dual interpre- tation of the design by Mosso, who Laura Castagno proves to be a prophetic and cosmo- politan architect -another association One distinctive quality of Nicola Mos- inspiration), an orthogonal grid which is required with the spherical Maison so’s architectural projects, starting was the precursor of a “variable struc- d’un cosmopolite by Antoine-Laurent from his earliest work, is that he saw ture”, the basis for a “standardized Vaudoyer- in a territory where the furniture as “structure”, as a device for project” for rooms for teenagers, a Church of Vaglio was never built, and the division, scansion and articulation definitive version of which was shown the Station in Cossato was demolished... of domestic, waiting and work spac- at VII Mostra dell’Artiganato, the fair es -an approach which in his mature for artisan-made furnishings held in work became true mastery of “interior Florence in 1937. Mosso’s “Futurist” decoration”, giving real sense to this leanings and Neoplastic influences are overused expression. Pertinent to the visible in his pictorial talent, the use topic, particularly persuasive com- of painted walls, the lacquering and positional examples are to be found finishes applied to furniture, and the in three 1935-36 projects: the room colours of linoleum floor coverings. For designed for his son Leonardo and example, the red-black contrast he the living rooms of the Mosso and the often used is a typical Futurist device, Barberis houses. An antecedent can which can also be found in Depero’s Almost circles... be seen in Le Corbusier’s modular Cabaret del Diavolo, Pannaggi’s Casa furniture, exhibited in the Esprit Nou- Zampini, many of Dulgheroff’s works, veau Pavilion in 1925. Therefore, not and in furniture Fillia designed in the in order that their individual pieces of furniture made to early thirties. It is a culture and sense be placed against a wall or rigidly po- of colour which had their roots in his sitioned but instead elements that can studies at Turin’s Academy of the Fine impossible perfection be stacked and oriented in a variety of Arts, but which are rationally magnified ways, to such an extent that they we and neo-plastically declined in the way could think of them as “toy building space is handled. The Rationalist com- would have the form of bricks”. The pieces for his son were ponent in his work becomes legible not made by the Cavagnoli company and only in the taut technical perfection, from the top then painted grey, dark green and ol- but also in the highlighting of construc- project Etienne-Louis Boullée, Design for the Cenotaph of Isaac Newton, 1783, exterior view ive green by expert furniture lacquerer tive logic, in his projects’ modularity Pietro Ciravegna. Additional notes of and ability to be produced as series, Nicola Mosso, Design for the Parish Church of St. John the Evangelist at Vaglio Chiavazza, 1931, drawing in pencil on paper colour come from the orange and grey as sets of options or alternatives com- 51x52 cm, Nicola Mosso Collection, at Istituto Alvar Aalto, Pino Torinese striped rug, placed on the black and patible with different spaces, following white chequerboard floor (of Viennese Le Corbusier’s master lesson.

Death Star II, image from the film Star Wars Episode VI The Return of the Jedi, 1983

Guido Strazza, Dioce, 1991 Office for Metropolitan Architecture/Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Waterfront City, Dubai, 2008, central island Nicola Mosso, Son’s bedroom, 1936, pencil and gouache sketch on paper rendering of design, Courtesy of OMA, Amsterdam Nicola Mosso Collection, at Istituto Alvar Aalto, Pino Torinese

cal of his newly adopted “structural Leonardo abstract language” is the light hyper- bolic paraboloid-like covering of the architect “Benedetto Croce” Library, created for Augusto Co-lonnetti at Biellese in 1958-60. His research into “natural and spatial flexibility” Luisa Perlo inherited from Aalto modulates into a minimal variation in the design for Born in Turin in 1926, and a “de offices and warehouses for the Vit- luxe” emigrant to Northern Eu- tor Tua Ski company in Occhieppo rope regions -since his season Superiore, from 1963-64. The first in the Finnish studio of Alvar floor, a single hall, is lit from above Aalto from 1955 to 1958, until by “conically sectioned” skylights, his more recent residences as while the Luserna stone cladding of artist and teacher- as an architect the external volumes of the building Leonardo Mosso can claim he is makes them vibrate with light, marry- from Biella; and not only because ing its geometrical rigour to a certain of his collaboration with his father Rationalist genius loci. Nicola. Himself the future father of “semiotic structural design” which characterised his most noteworthy work up to the Light Structures discussed elsewhere Leonardo Mosso, Offices and warehouses in these pages, Mosso in his thir- for the company Vittor Tua Ski at ties was still orientated towards , 1963-64, Istituto “the architectonic object”. Typi- Alvar Aalto, Pino Torinese rationalist laboratory tribute to giuseppe pagano june 2008

Sensorial geometries

Maurice Lesna

In the preface to Gli ambienti della But it is inside that the sample nuova architecttura, edited by Fil- book of materials, natural and ar- lia and published by UTET in 1935, tificial, expands and exhibits high Filippo Tommaso Marinetti lists the tactile and sensorial values, from distinctive features of the “new the staircase parapet that is inno- beauty” the Futurists proclaimed: vatively minimal in style but made “fervid with polychromatic flames, of walnut wood given a traditional with mirroring walls, large windows high-gloss finish, to then proceed embracing the landscape, a wealth between blue buxus and ivory lino- of contrasting or matched woods leum; yellowy Tunisian marble and Giuseppe Pagano’s cell in the judicial fabrics metals, this beauty enters, others veined marbles; turquoise prison at , 1944, from Costruzioni imposes itself, caresses our lives Termolux window glass and rose- Casabella, no. 195-198, 1946 and becomes intimate, almost car- coloured crystal. Yes madamin, nal...”. Yet the “carnal” would seem that’s the list and it is colourful. As little inclined to couple with the “ra- it is in other settings in the Biella tional”. But in another contribution area, Palazzo Fogliano for exam- to the volume cited, it is the de- ple, from the “hard” bathroom with clared “Rationalist” Italo Lorio that black and antique rose mosaic tiles, notices that there may be “intimate contrasted with its brushed stain- poetry even in a bare geometric less steel inserts and wainscoting. setting” and that “geometrism has a The Pagano charm of its own”, especially when the “beauty of material” is “shown mystery forth in all its qualities and charac- teristics”. Rather than material, let us speak of materials, at least as concerns Nicola Mosso’s work, in- cluding projects in the Biella area, Valeria Garuzzo and even those constructions which are apparently most Ra- In the twenties and thirties, the Pied- tionalist and “geometric”. Like the mont was characterised by a lively 1936 Palazzotto Eredi Ripa, facing Nicola Mosso, Main facade and cultural and cosmopolitan milieu. a park in Biella: starting from its staircase of the flat in Palazzotto Eredi The Piedmont intellighentia, which exterior -albeit solid and squared- Ripa at Biella, 1936, finishing in yellow had always had close ties with that it declares its propensity for poly- pink profiled bricks door and window of the French, was in fact intoxicated chrome polymaterialism with facing frames in pink granite, on the right, detail with that Esprit Nouveau “in the arts, made of shaped, coloured (yellow of parapet in walnut wood, Nicola Mosso literature, science and industry”, and pink) Italgres bricks and flesh- Collection, at Istituto Alvar Aalto stimulated by Le Corbusier homon- coloured granite window jambs. Pino Torinese ymous magazine. However it was always open to Central European influences through its economic and industrial contact with and . The people of Turin and Biella lived strong social and political contrasts especially in the more industrialised and developed Combing Mill complex areas. An emblematic ideal place for “high” discussion was the cultur- Valeria Garuzzo al lounge of the entrepreneur from Biella, Riccardo Gualino, a haunt for The Combing Mill building for the Ri- block for the stairs and lifts; while artists and intellectuals. Technologi- vetti woollen industry is believed to be the building sheds extends nearly to cal innovations and Tayloristic prin- one of the first examples in the Biella the Biella- railway line, along ciples of scientific management had area of an industrial structure ration- with other buildings used for logistics. driven Gualino in a quest for essen- ally designed by a professional, rather The high building is built of reinforced tiality and even taste, as he himself than improvised within the ambit of a concrete, with its floors supported by states in Frammenti di vita: “Our era family firm. “The design of these build- mushroom-shaped pillars, to eliminate of steel and glass, of haste and dar- ing, constructed in 1939, attempted to the use of any beams which could ob- ing, of sobriety and confrontation, resolve some of the technical and aes- struct the machinery. The horizontal may find in itself profound roots of thetic problems of the textile industry windows allow uniform interior lighting. aesthetic renewal”. The Polytech- with modern criteria, especially regard- A semi-artisan style of building system nic of Turin guaranteed high level ing the need for flexibility; or the capac- was adopted for the sheds, which scientific technical studies that at- ity to organise the work in such a way rises from the foundations on “hollow tracted students from all over Italy, that it could be continually updated S.A.P. type blocks”, which then abutt especially the North East, including and extended as necessary”. This was on the supports for the head beams in Giuseppe Pagano Pogatschnig, Um- how in 1942, just after the building had a style reminiscent of Pier Luigi Nervi. berto Cuzzi, Ettore Sottsass Senior, been finished, Casabella Costruzioni The vertical windows are fitted with and the Swiss Alberto Sartoris, all emphasised its most important char- strong Termolux glass panes, which of Central European background. In acteristic, its flexibility. Thanks to such can be easily darkened to throw a dif- 1928, the Italian National Exposition flexibility, its large multi-purpose spac- fused light. Again in 1942, in Casabella of Turin began a new chapter for Tu- es, fallen into disuse, are likely to be Costruzioni, Pagano had some stud- rin: some of the best recent gradu- effectively and easily reutilised even to- ies published of the urban environment ates of the Polytechnic had the day. The same year, Pagano wrote that of a big woollen mill near the Oremo chance to establish themselves for industrial architecture was considered river, at the crossroads of the provin- the first time in the design of the pa- by many to be a “beneficial plague, cial road to and Pollone. These vilion. Among these was the young (…) like a very necessary but rather projects were accompanied by a tex- Pogatschnig, Italianised as Pagano, vulgar source of income”. Expressing tual commentary on the new town born in Parenzo in 1896, veteran of himself in almost Futurist terms, he planning laws passed during the same the Great War. He revolved around said it must instead be “a work of art, year, setting up the Town Plans, which editing the magazine L’Architettura an expression of life, a manifestation were intended to protect the rural Italiana, whose editor-in-chief Piero of the spirit…”. In fact, architectural and urban environment and the land- Betta conducted a measured debate expression “can quite happily develop scape. According to zoning principles, from 1926 on modern architecture from the technical rationality of the ma- the location of industrial buildings was that Pagano continued in more radi- chinery and human work, which is suf- expected to be kept away from the cal tones in the magazine La casa ficient material for artistic inspiration”, town. The Pagano mill buildings set bella (then become Casabella) and for which “our industrial world is not out to provide an example of industrial Giuseppe Pagano, Interior staircase in the Rivetti Combing Mill at Biella, 1939-42, Photo by Rossetti Studio Domus, of which he was editor-in- yet prepared”. Constructed according town planning, imagined with almost Courtesy of Impresa Ricca Clemente e Figli, Biella chief. Appointed technical director to the precise, rational logic of produc- Futurist enthusiasm as “an aesthetic of the Exposition, his pavilions again tion, the Rivetti Combing Mill is a con- complement to the rural green of revealed a hybrid language: accents crete expression of this in architectural the landscape”. They were rationally learnt from the German masters terms. It is made up of a tall five-storey formed according to an “elementary, have a paternalistic logic. This village dustrialists of the importance of under- the product to the workers’ housing, Behrens and Hoffmann; Déco styl- building, where the production cycle poetic functionality, which determines near the company, with its houses taking rational, well-programmed and from the work-bench to the advertis- isms; already “modern” locutions. is carried out “by gravity”, beginning the logical simplicity of honest, rural organised hierarchically for workers, structured projects which considered ing window display”. This organisation Thus emerged his qualities, which with the first processes at the top, and architecture”. They could be varied to office-workers and managers, and the factory as an “expression of life”. also had to be extended to free time, were quickly perceived by Gualino then working downwards towards the allow for their extension, and also for with meeting places, a church, shop With references back to the exam- and was to be considered as “a social who commissioned him with the ground floor to finish up in the building some projects for the village, planned and boarding school set out to be an ple of Behrens, the architect and the mission”, because “the enthusiasm design of his Office Building in Turin, shed for the combing process; which as a group of workers dwellings of island in the greenery “far away from technical management would have for work depends to a large extent the first Rationalist building in Italy, requires a horizontal work space. The an extensive semi-rural nature”, very the town (…) in peaceful harmony had to follow a programme which was on the aesthetic and hygienic condi- characterised by “laid down win- highest building, stretching along the similar to some other big 19th cen- with the rural landscape”. With such “aesthetically unmistakeable, from tions of the environments in which dows” and “Loosian” lankness. Pa- road, has two wings containing the tury complexes thought by some to a vademecum, Pagano reminded in- the factory to the sales office, from people rest and enjoy themselves”. gano started his career in Biella two years before, working for Gualino’s brother-in-law, the industrialist Guido Giuseppe Pagano, West front and interior of the Rivetti Combing Mill at Biella, 1939-42, Photo by Rossetti Studio, Courtesy of Impresa Ricca Clemente e Figli, Biella Alberto Rivetti, nurturing a trusting relationship with the two entrepre- neurs that was to endure even after he moved to Milan in 1931. He was the curator of a number of settings at the Milan Triennials in 1931, 1933 and 1936 and at the Paris World Exposition in 1937. He was the de- Rationalism signer for the Physics Institute of the University of Rome in 1935 and the Urban Plan of E. 42 with Piacentini; is only of the Green Milan Plan with Albini and Gardella in 1938 and the Main Bulding of the Bocconi University in one part 1938-41. It remains today a politi- cal “Pagano mystery”, especially for his complex transition -the subject of Futurism of great debate among the schol- ars Cesare De Seta and Riccardo Mariani- from extreme Fascism, ag- gressive and “moralistic”, although strongly anti-rhetorical, anti-1900s and anti-piacentinian, to relations with the Resistance, which lead to his arrest and his transfer to Mau- thausen where he died of bronchial pneumonia in 1945. Angiolo Mazzoni, Futurismo, 1933 rationalist laboratory tribute to giuseppe pagano 05

Biella’s Bauhaus

Valeria Garuzzo Biella is the home of little-known followed by two others, reflected Pa- works by Giuseppe Pagano, how- gano’s own background, with roots ever very typical of his entire archi- in the enlightenment structural Ra- tectural output -including his first tionalism. Cesare De Seta highlight- still-eclectic creations, his Rationalist ed how much Pagano had studied phase, and his later organicist Choisy -leading the problems ana- phase- regarding every aspect of lysed by Viollet Le Duc regarding project design. Pagano came here in structures, means economy, and 1925, just after he graduated, to types of construction, thought out as carry out a little work in the house of groups of simple forms, and con- Sandro Maria Rosso the industrialist Guido Alberto Ri- temporary needs- to radical solu- Espressione Morse in giallo,1970 vetti, Gualino’s brother-in-law. Ac- tions. In 1932, Edoardo Persico ex- oil on canvas, 80x60 cm, Rosso cording to Francesco Carpano, he plained in Casabella how Pagano Family Collection, Biella perhaps came here after having had analysed the needs of collegiate been recommended by a contractor, life extremely clearly, by sub-dividing and perhaps also due to his numer- spaces and distinguishing entrances ous university companions from for the boarders, day-boarders and Rational Biella, including Nicola Mosso and external students -with dormitories the Lora Totino brothers. The same for younger students and single alphabets year, at the villa of count Oreste Ri- rooms for older students, as well as vetti, he completed the work of an- collective spaces and services- and other architect by applying a sober by containing all the activities within Maurice Lesna neo-renaissance style, which well a double T-shaped symmetrical plan, demonstrates the model of “archi- which was already been widely tried. It would seem that the Biella tectural honesty” pursued by the ar- Covered by a sloping roof, the area was also fertile in the chitect from Parenzo. According to Boarding School’s brick facade was 1900s for the flowering of a Alberto Bassi and Laura Castagno, broken up by a long line of windows, “poetic rationalism” or a “mu- furnishings designed by Pagano for while the stairwells were character- sical constructivism” or how- the Ski Club’s premises in 1929 were ised by eccentric vertical windows ever you prefer to say it (after an “exemplary operation, which out of line with the general plan. But all the relationship between showed how much his grasp of the Rivetti wanted something more eco- Giuseppe Pagano, Pella Hall at Biella, already Boarding School for the Associazione per l’Incremento dell’Istruzione mathematics and music has design process had matured”. There nomical. So Pagano began to draw Professionale nel Biellese, 1931-35, Photo by Antonio Canevarolo been attested to since ancient were strong, almost Futurist con- up a second design in 1933-34, with times). Two decisive accounts trasts in the colours of the surfaces the hindsight of his experience as a of this fact have been provided of the wooden furniture, with its pure journalist, and from his study of vari- by the works of Sandro Maria geometrical shapes in black and ous publications and reviews. This those who choose and employ “clear coloured polished details in plant for the central hall aimed at Rosso and Leonardo Mosso, sealing-wax red, and the red and time, his inspiration came from the them”. Rivetti wanted a central cov- green and azure majolica” were add- avoiding stale air entering from sur- which can be attached to the yellow of the floor; to balance the Bauhaus building by Gropius. De- ered hall as a focus for the common ed near some of the building win- rounding rooms. At present, the minutes of the collateral cultural simplicity of the furnishings. In 1930 signed for about half the previous areas; in fact, the building is a closed dows. All the fitting components Boarding School is used as offices programme of the XXIII World he was commissioned by Gualino number of residents, each environ- court type building; with the first two were studied in detail: doors and for Biella City Council, including, Congress of Architecture. Ros- and Rivetti to carry out two projects ment was arranged within a “wind- floors for communal and collegiate windows were made from wood and among other services, the UAU Uffi- so, who was born in in for student accommodation in Turin mill” plan, with the dormitories and life, connected by the large, central characterised by a folding top, ex- cio Arredo Urbano (Street Furniture 1918 and died in Biella in 1979, and Biella. Economy, industry, edu- double rooms in two separate wings. atrium; the dormitories and bed- cept for the “iron-framed” staircase Office). Another of Pagano’s works is especially noted as a printer cation and art have always been held The services and staff facilities were rooms were on the top floors. The window. The balustrade for the main in Biella is the Casa Carpano, which of art works, an activity he be- to be basic indivisible aspects of in the other two wings; with all four external walls are of load-bearing staircase was made from hollow is characterised by a distributive gan in 1946 with his wife Maria Biella; as today in the work of such converging at the staircase. He brick, with the inside courtyard sup- iron, with little balls along the hand- system and a constructive load- Teresa in a shop in Biella Piazzo, an institution as the Cittadellarte, wanted the front of the building to ported on reinforced concrete pillars. rail in order to stop boys sliding down bearing masonry system: the plan is which over the years became a created at Biella by Michelangelo have a different appearance, with Some aspects of the building recall astride it. The basement was a L-shaped plan, with a storage reference point at international Pistoletto, which organises residen- plastered facades and a flat roof certain solutions by Dudok, who Pa- equipped with modern services, in- courtyard. The staircase and landing level for research and graphic tial training courses for artists and without any overhanging ledges, gano admired. As at Hilversum, cluding a pressure air-conditioning are laid out diagonally according to editions. His skill in these areas whose aim is also similar to that of also to allow for a possible additional established eclectic practice. The fa- was recognized in 1970 with a Pagano: “to operatively bring art in- storey. The design was completed cade, broken up by regularly ar- teaching appointment (Photo- tervention in every sector of civil so- by an integrated study of the outside ranged windows without any deco- graphics) at the Brera Acade- ciety as a way to responsibly and sports areas. The importance of a ration, is similar to Casa Boasso in my of the Fine Arts in Milan. His profitably contribute towards ad- work’s client was clear to Pagano, That inferiority complex which still weighs down Turin. This was described in 1931 in own artistic works are much dressing the profound social chang- who wrote in Casabella in 1933 that Casabella as being “simple and un- less well-known, so much so es taking place today”. The first de- “it was not only architects who guide industrial architecture must disappear pretentious, as minor architecture that a local paper, L’Eco di Biel- sign for the Biella Boarding School, the direction of architecture, but must be”. The furnishing, now dis- la, defined him as an “ascetic in Giuseppe Pagano, Costruzioni Casabella, 1942 mantled, for Mrs. Carpano’s attic ac- a glass cage” who “only paints commodation, gave Pier Enrico Seira: for himself” when reviewing his “an impression of sober, spartan one-man show in 1968. That comfort. The valuable fittings are same year he began his suite Said offices of the newspaper Popolo carefully sized, with the attractive entitled Espressività Morse, his d’Italia in via Moscova, places Murano glass chandelier designed masterpiece for its revelation of the Duce closely linked to the Duce’s ca- by Pagano, with its cluster of lights, his extraordinary compositional reer and therefore particularly well displayed in a corner of the sit- talent, both architecturally (he “delicate”. In Biella it was the ar- ting room”. The remaining light fit- also had an exhibition at the chitect Federico who was tings were mass-produced: “lights of Zurich Polytechnic) and har- Ciccio Nero given fascist party commissions: the ‘Philinea’ type (…) which do not monically speaking. In fact from a Workmen’s Club, the People’s require any reflecting supports. In then to the end of his life he cre- “I understand architecture”, said Theatre, the Lictorian Tower, and the entrance they were mounted ated a long series of abstract Mussolini, and Paolo Nicoloso has nearby, the House of Fascism at vertically, directly on the wall; in the “musical paintings” which were used his words as a chapter title Chiavazza, a Lighthouse of the bedroom, they replaced the lamp- also developed as graphic in- in Mussolini architetto. Propagan- Empire on Mount Mucrone… shade over the bed-side table, and terpretations of classical and da e paesaggio urbano nell’Italia Designs and constructions of were fixed to the bed’s headboard, avant-garde musical scores as fascista (Einaudi, Turin 2008). It merit making skilful use of mate- and in the dining-room they were well as the electronic scores by starts: “In political terms, in the rials and technique, by a 1900s fixed lengthwise along the wooden Luigi Nono. Rosso was also a first fifty years of the 20th cen- “Rationalist”, descendent of a panelling...”. As often, Pagano used journalist, photographer, ce- tury no country invested as much family that had designed build- green tones for the doors and walls ramicist, jewellery designer, in public architecture as Fascist ings in the area since the 1700s, (as for the doors and ceramic tiles in poetry lover, patron of the arts. Italy”. This was also true in Biella, whose archives are now at Fon- Giuseppe Pagano, Second Design for the Boarding School at Biella, 1931-35 the Boarding School). The maple We have already met Leonardo but of no benefit to Giuseppe Pa- dazione Sella. Maggia’s “Fascist” from Costruzioni Casabella, no.195-198, 1946 wood table in the dining room, with a Mosso, an architect and son of gano, who in the thirties was such buildings are indubitably among shelf in dark pear wood, now re- Nicola Mosso, about ten years a good Fascist that he was com- Biella’s noteworthy 20th century placed by black glass, and the younger than Rosso. He too is missioned to do work in Milan on edifices and explain why Pagano wooden chairs varnished black, with a multi-faceted personage -de- the legendary “lair” in via Paolo gave a magazine article he wrote curved leather seat, were seen by signer, sculptor, teacher, schol- da Cannobio, which became the the title “Mussolini saves Italian Walter Gropius, Bauhaus building at Weimar, Aerial and plan view, 1926 Bassi and Castagno as an “organi- ar, and collector of architecture Scuola di Mistica Fascista (School Architecture” (Casabella, no. 78, cist” turning point in the use of more and applied arts. His interests of Fascist Mystique), and on the June 1934). comfortable and welcoming rounded include relationships with elec- forms. In furnishing the Casa Carpano, tronic music (he has worked “this attention to greater comfort with composers like Enore Zaf- Federico Maggia, Design for the Lictorian Tower at Biella, Detail of the seems evident, where Pagano’s final firi), dance, theatre, visual po- entrance and perspective view, 1938-40, drawing in pencil on paper style comes to light, with his love for etry. The author of “theoretical Maggia Fund, Fondazione Sella, Biella the materials united with expression- alphabets” and “writings-struc- ist type colours, and dissolves the tures”, of top quality “graphic il- rigid Rationalist schema in warmth”. lustrations in black and colours, Gone were the reds and blacks of in the groove of the abstract the Ski Club, now replaced with the sign language tradition from soft “light greens” and clear maple of Bauhaus to Concretism to Op the wall. He wrote in 1936, the same Art” as Marco Rosci wrote. He year as the 6th Triennial: “The homes is the inventor of systems of we live in define our spiritual world, joints and wooden and metal our practical sense of life, and the “variable structures” and for moral worth we give our lives (…). years has been experimenting The level of an individual’s aesthetic with Light Structures, perform- sensitivity, and the technical capacity ing visual scores that activate of a civilisation can be more easily new spaces, on the border be- learnt from an apartment than from tween poetry and technology. an official document”. He applied the same architectural principles of “honesty and morality” to his design Leonardo Mosso, Poesia for the Villa Caraccio, set out on a struttura musica, 1978, serial panoramic site overlooking the city writing-structure, silkscreen and of Biella: “the building, enclosed in gouache on paper, 21x21 cm an almost mountainous park, need- Istituto Alvar Aalto, Pino Torinese ed no facade or other architectural luxuries, but instead had windows with views, and a healthy respect for the trees”. It was divided into func- tional areas: the rooms for domestic staff were on the ground floor near the entrance and kitchen, with the guest rooms in a separate area; the sitting room and dining rooms looked out over the terrace, with the bed- rooms and a study/lounge on the upper floor. In the basement were the technical services and a big meeting place “for merry feasts near the wine-cellar”. building exercises tribute to ettore sottsass june 2008

Bus stop Strategic retreat

Chris Redfern / Sottsass Associati Maurice Lesna

In every corner of the globe, I think Greece were always buried with a shelters in those days were grey and The public urinals remaining in Italy one can safely say that you can find coin underneath their tongue to pay quite depressing and also because today, with their martial air, where some sort of shelter to wait for pub- the ferryman Charon to take them to there are so many decidedly more manufactured in the thirties by the lic transport. Whether it would be Hades. Some historical forms of pub- interesting things for young boys to renowned Sociètà Anonima U. Renzi placed at the side of the driest Afri- lic transport are the stagecoach, trav- do after school, like play football or of Turin and are still in use here and can gravel tracks, on the lakeshore eling a fixed route from inn to inn, and meet girls. As far as I am concerned, there in a few public gardens and in a striking Norwegian landscape, the horse-drawn boat carrying paying what I can tell is that in many cas- along wide avenues. The martial air relaxed under towering cypress passengers, which was a feature of es I was alone due to the fact I was is especially apparent in a model that trees, or distinguished in a big pol- canals from their 17th century ori- an “out-of-towner”, so it became a resembles a sentry box in oxidized ished city streets... the situation does gins. The omnibus, the first organized form of contemplation or meditation, conglomerate which has always had City of Turin Art Office, Design of not change: a person must wait for public transit system within a city, ap- thinking about all kinds of wonderful a certain fascination for me with its pavilion for newspapers, 1879 his chariot to come. In fairness, it is pears to have originated in Nantes, things. It is this type of gesture and highly formal value. The latrine is of a very civilized and peaceful act, to , in 1826 and was then intro- act that played an important decision such high quality that it made me sus- wait by the side of a symbol, a sign or duced to London in July 1829. When in the idea for the urban furniture for pect that it is the unsigned work of a under a structure, protected from the I was very young, public transport Biella, fostered by past memories. In master. To keep the record straight it Building wind and the rain before the coming was the only way of getting around. 1998, for example, I travelled around must be stated that the insinuation of a saviour or companion to take you Waiting at signs or under shelters India with my girlfriend. We spent our about it is said by some to be the furnishings away for a long or short voyage. But for long periods of time became a spare time looking and experiencing work of Giuseppe Pagano (the attri- technology has developed. Mode and natural routine of life. A “downtime”? some of the most beautiful temples bution is Giorgio De Ferrari’s, originat- type of transportation have changed. Maybe yes, maybe not! The true and pieces of architecture on this ing from an oral testimony of Augusto Can we say the same for bus stops is that waiting at a stop offered the earth, obviously I was warmly ad- Cavallari Murat and found in the book Società Anonima U. Renzi, Turin, Urinal and shelters? The answer could be opportunity to live so many different vised to do so by Ettore. We were on Giuseppe Pagano by A. Bassi and 1930s, may be attributed to Giuseppe Elisa Facchin that they probably have changed experiences, depending on where the way to Mysore from Mangalore L. Castagno, Laterza, Bari 1994). Pagano, rare “half size” model in the style very little with respect to them. Con- I was or who I was with. There was and decided to stop off at Belur and Moreover this sublime Renzi urinal of a military sentry box in concrete and Stresa, Lago Maggiore, 24-26 Sep- veyances for public hire are as old as always the primary goal of not wait- Hassan. I have visited many beautiful absolutely must be included among cement tember 1982: the Street Furniture the first ferries, and the earliest public ing at stops for long periods of time, places, seen many beautiful things, the major results of the research on convention takes place. Street fur- transport was water transport, for on if the act of waiting for a bus could but one temple in particular has left the relationship between architecture to perceptual and emotional involve- niture policies by the local authority, land people walked or rode an ani- be avoided, all measures were taken an impression with me. Looking at and sensoriality and more specifi- ment. The sense of smell is perhaps which for the first time in Italy estab- mal. This form of transport is part of to do so. This was due to many is- it, I felt something inside me. Almost cally the smells, scents, body odour the least known and thus the most lish the state of the art and the pros- Greek mythology -corpses in ancient sues, one being the fact that the bus like a power beyond this world, domi- or what have you that have recently innovative of the senses”. And the pects of this old and new discipline. nated by a compelling silence, a per- found an important reference text in petite madeleine in this aromatic fu- The convention is organised by the ception of sensations, so difficult to our country (A. Barbara, A. Perliss, ture, which will revive a restless past City of Turin, which is now right at Sottsass Associati, Urban street furniture structures for the City of Biella, 2008 explain in words. It was the impos- Architetture invisibili. L’esperienza at least for those who are getting on the vanguard in this sector of public Terminus, Support for information panel, Bus shelter, brickwork, metal, glass, bee- ing temple of Halebeedu, which was dei luoghi attraverso gli odori, Skira, a bit, will be one of the surviving and design. It is not just an occasion for chwood display, lighting fixtures, Courtesy of UAU Ufficio Arredo Urbano, City of Biella constructed over a span of one hun- Milano 2006). In the synopsis of this rare Renzi “pagans”. This is because theoretical bavardage: Enzo Biffi Gen- dred and ninety years and remained interesting volume it says that “the re- as the poet says, ‘The rose in bloom tili presents the results of the work incomplete. The material used for newed interest in odours originates in / was never so lovely / as when in carried out from 1978, based on a the temple is steatite, also known as the idea that the future will have ever the swollen urinal / at dawn loved the study of the historical colours of the soap stone, which is soft and easy to less exciting room formally but with- sleepless sentinel” (Sandro Penna, city and a Systematic survey of the carve when taken out from the earth out a doubt much more dedicated Una strana gioia di vivere, 1949-55). street furniture elements, headed by but gets harder over prolonged expo- Giovanni Brino and Umberto Bertagna sure to the atmosphere. But the most and others. New works projects for impressive aspect of the temple was Turin are illustrated, such as those as- its visual weight -the visual lightness signed to Achille Castiglioni and Ettore of the wall heaviness- its overhang- Just observe: Sottsass. It is important to understand ing roofs and the detailed carved today how that “aesthetic regulatory supporting columns. The deity of the today’s architecture has no smell plan” maintained that, in some way, temple is Shiva in the name of Hoy- “reaction is revolution”. As Biffi Gentili saleshwara who is worshipped in the Gonçalo Byrne, D, 2008 points out in the convention, it is im- temple’s two shrines even now. There portant to take inspiration on the one are stories of the Mahabharata and hand from Maurilia, the city of memo- many mythological stories carved on ries, and on the other from Fedora, the outer wall. But it was the overall the city of desire, and the quotation impression and feeling of contempla- from Calvino in Le città invisibili (The tion and meditation that we wanted invisible cities) heightens the cultural to try and maintain in the concept tension in attempting to provoke a and design for the “waiting” struc- short circuit between the past and the tures and supports for information for future. It is exactly that which we are the city of Biella. The concept was to striving to achieve in these pages: re- maintain a simple, light but power- membering from one side these and ful architecture based on a symbolic other illustrious “precedents” from roof supported by and enriched with Piedmont, and from another indicat- columns coated with natural mate- ing current developments in Biella. rial modules, the ceramics, typical Ettore Sottsass, then, with the just es- handmade works archetypical for tablished Sottsass Associati, had de- both East and West. Such columns signed a poly-functional kiosk -which are formed from the harmonic rep- could have been a pavilion for news- etition of a single circular brick from papers, a fruit or flower stand, a tram a type of “cotto”, the columns then stop, a bar or a urinal- and an adver- become the main presence and ex- tising board or column, small pieces istence to which all the elements are of architecture in cement that paid connected, like the glass windows, homage to the 1900s Piedmont tra- maps, seating and side panelling in dition of “Rationalism”. Many of these painted steel. The physical and aes- pieces, which were slightly “adulterat- thetical visual and solid identity of the ed”, were then installed. Then the me- shelters is maintained throughout tallic snares of the multinationals took the other urban structures for Biella, preference in Turin. Biella intends to such as the large and small supports revive the Sottsass design in a newer for information and advertisements. version with even greater physical and The small support for information is aesthetic solidity, using brickwork. As based on two simple columns and an far as the Colour Plan is concerned, let overhanging roof which has a seat- us remember that its value was recog- ing base for people to sit and shelter nised in Stresa by international experts from the rain. The larger support also such as Tom Porter and Jean Philippe has a seating base but is character- Lenclos (who in that same year pub- ized by its large information surface lished their books Colour Outside, which is weighted proportionally to The Architectural Press, London 1982 the base. The colours and materials Carlotta Petracci, Rienzi, 2008, photo taken near a public urinal by Renzi 1930s and Les couleurs de la France. Mai- represent a combination which have corso Massimo d’ in front of Valentino Park in Turin sons et paysages, Éditions du Moni- been chosen according to the genius teur, Paris 1982). Lenclos writes that loci of the city, to fit in with the old we are dealing with a phenomenon and new parts of Biella, and will have of “clairvoyance”. Already after the iconic references which can be rec- publication in 1980 of Colore e Città ognised for transport purposes but To the fresh urinal at the station by Brino and Rosso, appeared the not overwhelm the cityscape and the Hoepli volume Colore-luce, applicazi- local architecture. Neither the func- I descended from the fervent hill... one, basic design by Jorrit Tornquist, tional iconography will disturb its so who was also active in Turin, a living much traditional habitat… Sandro Penna, Appendice alle poesie, 1927-38 example of the “latest avant-garde”. However the Light Plan by Castiglioni and Cavaglià was never carried out; Biella is going to re-animate it in a dif- ferent way. Finally Biella can state that Urban rogates. I am reminded of the artificial lelepipeds Socrates by Jordi Garcés “the decoration is reborn”, with the marble of Rima in the Valsesia of the and Enric Sòria, past winners of the arrival of “historical” figures such as seating Walser, a “secret” recipe that from the FAD award in Architecture as well as Manuel Cargaleiro, as well as young 1830s provided the opportunity to sell that of the City of Barcellona for the designers that appear to share the this “adulterated” product through- renovation of the Picasso Museum, same intention expressed by Paolo out Europe. It was used to decorate which according to the critics is char- Portoghesi in Stresa: “it is necessary churches, villas, and buildings in the acterized by “secreto y elegancia”. to liberate oneself from the spirits that East and North as far away as Russia Another analogy is the clever “urban seek… to not consider decoration”. and Scandinavia and in the South and seating” Sit by Diego Fortunato, an Juan Abelló Juanpere West as far as the Maghreb and even Italian émigré. His origins are visible here in . Even in the thirties this in the “Italian comedy” spirit of his Sottsass Associati, Design of I see that the inhabitants of Biella offence was still being committed. As projects which seduce with a languid, multi-functional kiosk for Turin, 1980-81 want to restore material dignity a “true expert” in the field I well know soft appearance but when you sit or to several elements of urban fur- that the Renzi company’s “latrines” lie down you realize how hard it is. nishings considering them to be (mentioned above) were in artificial building artefacts similar to the stone (fake Breno stone and false case described above of the granite with marble granulate and structures designed by Sottsass cement at times coloured with oxide Associati and their brick details. paste). And I have learned, and am Well done. However aesthetics pleased with the retaliation, that now always has to be weighed against it is Biella that is importing benches economics and not all construc- from the Escofet company in Catalo- Seat from the Sit range in the belvedere tion materials, stones for exam- nia, where I am writing from. Escofet in corso Carducci at Biella, 2008 ple, are affordable today. The worked for Gaudí and its benches are soft acid trated and waterproofed cast Piedmontese well know this and in cement disguised as granite like the stone, Diego Fortunato for Escofet 1886 in the past they often used sur- “philosophical”, super-serious paral- SA, Barcelona, Photo by Antonio Canevarolo building exercises tribute to ettore sottsass 07

The subalpine rainbow

“Yellow Turin seems to have become conclusion in 1983, followed by the of the past” with regards to colours. a kind of stigmata for the metropo- “standardisation” and emigration of In fact, a “protocol” had been estab- lis. In reality, however, through fog its forbearers. Giovanni Brino has lished and applied indiscriminately and crises, the yellow fades into subsequently designed colouring all over to historical buildings and grey and the colour withers into and street furniture projects of his- settings, which had derived from greyness. An image that reflects torical and modern areas in other lo- the research carried out by Brino a frame of mind, as Turin today is, cations throughout the Piedmont, as in Turin as well as his subsequent in too many respects, a shapeless well as , Veneto, Liguria, academic activities over the years, city, amorphous, devoid of reference Abruzzi, Lazio, Calabria, Sardinia, even though the debt owed has Colore e città. Il piano del points, almost without personality, as France and Switzerland. He has also not always been declared. And yet colore di Torino 1800-1850 though it cowers from recognition, a become a consultant for the City of we never thought of transferring cover of the volume by Giovanni city that welcomes crisis as a mask Marseille for the restoration of the historical chromatic ranges, both Brino and Franco Rosso and refuses to translate its passions facades, and the Ministry of French “natural” and “discreet” due to the Assessorato alla Edilizia del and contradictions into landmarks”. Culture for the restorations of Villa characteristics of the materials, to di Torino and Idea This is an old piece from Ezio Mauro, Medici in Rome. He has received two new buildings and to “marginal” ar- Editions, Turin 1980 currently the editor-in-chief of a awards in the Farbe-Design Interna- eas. The ton sur ton of the suburbs large Italian newspaper -la Repub- tional competition in Stuttgart (one therefore becomes a “dishonest dis- blica- capturing the context in which in 1984 for the Turin Colour Plan and simulation”. In the meanwhile, Brino the new Colour City Plan was devel- the other in 1987 for the restoration and Tornquist, at the time, in Turin oped (E. Mauro, “Ridiamo a Torino of the Artists’ Walk in Albissola Ma- went through the theme by review- i suoi 22 colori”, in La Gazzetta del rina). In 1997 he was awarded the ing the lesson of Bruno Taut -with Popolo, 23 December 1978). The Prize of the City of Padua as project his “battle for colour” in Magdeburg Paint it Plan was promoted by myself and leader in the competition for the col- and the workers district of Berlin. managed by Giovanni Brino, lecturer our plan of the city. Jorrit Tornquist Taut had already become a strong Turin at the local Polytechnic, who com- in turn has started an operational reference point under Fascism, both memorates it better than any else Grand Tour with extraordinary re- for architects like Enrico A. Griffini in the article to the side. Allow me, sults, the most striking of which is and critics like Edoardo Persico, as then, just a few words to underline the chromatic project carried out his architectural work was seen “as Giovanni Brino, Synthetic plate from the Turin Colour Plan, 1978, photo-engraving that that Plan, both “reactionary” and on the ASM Brescia waste to en- the opposition of the lower classes coloured with pastels, 29,7x42 cm Giovanni Brino “revolutionary”, aimed at intervening ergy plant in 1997-98, an unforget- to bourgeois taste” (E. Persico, “Gli in both the dignified city centre and table landmark for anyone travelling architetti italiani”, in L’Italia letter- The Turin Colour Plan, pro- the suburbs of a subalpine capital along the Milan-Venice motorway. aria, 6 August 1933). Other auctori- Nicola Mosso, Design for Casa Cervo at Biella, Perspective view, Tab. no. 44, 1933 moted in 1978 by the then afflicted with a sad monochromy As for my achievements, my most tates of “modern” colour schemes drawing in pastels and gouache on paper, 49,5x57 cm, Nicola Mosso Collection Town Councillor for Building, (for this latter aspect, I also commis- recent return to the scene of the for buildings can also be found in at Istituto Alvar Aalto, Pino Torinese, Photo by Studioelle Enzo Biffi Gentili, and directed sioned the services of my Austrian crime is here in Piedmont, in Biella. the period between the two world by the writer, was the first re- friend the artist Jorrit Tornquist). The Appointed in 2006-07 as a consult- wars, in Biella itself. Documentary corded example in the world experimental and “heroic” phase of ant for street furniture, I have found evidence, never more persuasively of reconstructing the historical the Plan we nurtured reached its myself “in the ring with the shadow produced until now, is contained colours of a city from precise in the article A Futurist turning by documentation found in the Leonardo Mosso on page 2. How- archives and other icono- ever the first draft of the project for graphic and literary sources. the Casa Cervo by Nicola Mosso at Documents proving the exist- Chi vale Biella is not the only rediscovery of ence of a colour plan drawn a “constructive” function of colour up between 1800 and 1850 vola in the Italian architecture of the thir- by the Consiglio degli Edili ties. Let us re-read, for example, (Building Council) -the body what Giuseppe Pagano wrote about in charge of the city’s urban a masterly work of the time: “The planning- were in fact discov- Elica colour element -an element that is ered in the City of Turin’s His- to architecture what orchestration is torical Archive. This plan not A bus stop sign in Biella has been to music- has returned here to claim only established the colours placed at the edge of a lawn on its rightful place and true value. For of the main streets, charac- which a memorial to the Italian a long time now, its use had been terised by repetitive facades, Air Force stands. The majority forgotten, biased and neglected, so but also of secondary streets, of the bus passengers, students much so that today its resurgence and of single facades, ac- at a nearby school, queue in all causes the very same amazement cording to precise architec- weather conditions, trampling as something unexpected or en- tural and environmental crite- the grass. And what about put- countered for the first time” (G. ria. The colours prescribed in ting a couple of benches there? Pagano, “I benefici dell’architettura the plan’s “palette”: including The choice not to originates in the moderna (A proposito di una nuova Molassa yellow, Nanchino setting. The Biellese memorial, a costruzione a Como)”, in La casa (Nanking yellow), Persichi- bit late, is a quote from the one to bella, no. 27, March 1930). This is no (Peach blossom), Foglia Francesco Baracca, a World War the Novocomum by Giuseppe Ter- morta (Dead leave) etc. really I flying ace, for the square in Lugo ragni, another high-rise complex in imitated stone and brick ma- di Romagna, created by the great Como, characterised by the clear terials. These colours were re- Fascist sculptor from Faenza, Do- hazelnut colour of the various verti- produced and codified in the menico Rambelli. It was begun in cal sections, the orange of the hori- courtyard wall of the City Hall, 1927 and finally installed in 1936. zontal levels of the slabs, overhangs, Nino Cerruti, Model of colouring for “Gromo Cridis” primary school at Biella according to the management Duke Amedeo of Aosta, the hero balconies and recesses, the azure of 2007, rendering by Alberto Rainero, Courtesy of UAU Ufficio Arredo Urbano, City of Biella criteria of the new industrial of Amba Alagi, was present at the the iron balustrade, finished in a pol- culture, taken over from the inauguration ceremony. He too ymateric polychromy, later effacée Savoy military. Subsequent re- was a war pilot noted for sorties in the fifties with a vulgar overcoat search has demonstrated that in Africa that won him the silver of stone checkers... In the light of the 19th century colour plan medal of military valour and in fact, these references, the first building had planted roots in the Turin the Biellese square is named for re-colouring projects for Biella were Baroque. This was envisaged him. Tout se tient and so Airline, decided, starting from the “Gromo by its founder Vittorio Amedeo a finned aluminium stool is cho- Cridis” school which was entrusted II as a multi-mass media (ac- sen. The footstool has a honey- to a renowned fashion designer, cording to the brilliant theory combed internal structure made Nino Cerruti. This was not, how- of Jeoffrey Symcox), in which by the hundred-year-old German ever, a “trendy” appointment. It was architecture, town planning, firm Runge and is dedicated to the a choice consistent with both the colour, light and even music pioneers of flight. It is marketed background in scientific research were integrated to become the with the slogan: “Crazy pilots love into colours and the background Theatrum Sabaudiae, a place to sit on it”. In truth this rhetorical- in textile art, whose main exponent of religious, military and politi- ironic project is one of those cas- in the 1800s was Michel-Eugène cal demonstrations promoted es in which “the literal or almost Chevreul, chemist and managing di- from the Sun King emulator. literal quotation vanishes in the rector of Manufacture des Gobelins, The colours of Baroque Turin, creation of new poetry”, accord- inventor of “simultaneous contrasts” evoked by the iconography of ing to Giorgio Barberi Squarotti. for dying textiles, whose research the period, were however lim- became fundamental -also thanks ited by wars and plagues to Giovanni Masoero, Monument to to its practical translation in the the main environments of the the Italian Airforce in piazza Repertoire Chromatique of his pupil court; such as piazza Castel- Amedeo d’Aosta at Biella, “Biella’s Charles Lacouture- for the history Aldo Vannacci, Aldo Macaluso, Mario Mencarelli, Lamarmora Stadium perspective lo, piazza San Carlo, via and Land to her Flying Sons”,1967 of the contemporary art tout court. view 1935, drawing in pencil and charcoal on paper, Courtesy of Technical Office, City of Biella piazza Palazzo di Città, piazza Associazione Nazionale Arma Cerruti proposed two solutions for d’Italia, etc. The 19th century Aeronautica, Photo by breaking from the greyish “concrete colour plan adopted the col- Antonio Canevarolo building box” of the school: the ours of the Baroque epoch as first showed fascinating similarities its own, and extended them, Runge Design, Airline, steel bench in to the palette of Taut; the second, with suitable variations, to the form of an aeroplane wing for the covered here, and the one that was other environments that had bus-stop at the Italian Airforce adopted, with the palette of Nicola been decorated in the mean- Monument at Biella Mosso in the Casa Cervo. Let us time, such as via Po, or cre- turn now to Como of Terragni, the ated ex novo, such as piazza town that was to see a House of Vittorio, piazza Gran Madre, Fascism, by the same architect, that piazza Carlo Felice, piazza the BBPR regarded as the apex and Statuto etc. The 1978 Col- signature work of a quest for new our Plan, which is still in force relationships between ethics and thirty years after its birth, has aesthetics in one of their splendid re-established the historical historical review of “artistic forms” colours of Turin’s main streets (Banfi, Belgiojoso, Peressutti and and squares, as can be veri- Rogers, Stile, supplement to Domus Enzo Biffi Gentili and City of Biella Street Furniture Office, Model of colouring for fied by walking from piazza no. 108, December 1936). The first the Pozzo-Lamarmora Stadium at Biella, 2008, rendering by Alberto Rainero Castello through piazza San project for the Biella Stadium was Courtesy of UAU Ufficio Arredo Urbano, City of Biella Carlo to Porta Nuova; along also of the “Fascist” style, currently via Po to piazza Vittorio Vene- under restoration. In the original de- to; along via Garibaldi to piazza sign, shown to the side, there are, in Statuto, and through via and fact, leafs hinting at abstract lictor’s piazza Palazzo di Città, and via fasces, all traces of which vanished Milano, towards piazza della but that were restored by us, demo- Repubblica. At the same time, cratically, drawing instructions once the Plan has led to the con- again from the inexhaustible Futurist servationist restoration of all urn on the aesthetic and “musical” the historic facades, including use of the “Tricolour” (one of illustri- those in the Art Nouveau and ous founders of the movement was Modern Movement styles, to also involved, Giacomo Balla, born safeguard the connecting fab- himself in Piedmont, in Turin, a bio- ric of this multi-coloured 19th graphical fact that has been forgotten century Baroque city. by many: even Balla, therefore, sup- ports us in saying that Biella is bella). illumination exercises tribute to achille castiglioni june 2008

Illuminating signs

One wonders if Achille Castiglioni ght, and indeed even theatrical and racteristics of Biella and its conurba- had in mind some fascinating hi- spectacular (...). We lean towards tion. And indeed it might be called a storical precedent, and recalled the engineering, Futurism towards litera- work of “public applied art”, for it is a dream of our greatest historic avant- ture...” (P.M. Bardi, “A Proposito del sort of rectified ready-made but one garde movement, when he was dra- Manifesto dell’architettura aerea”, that, again taking from the teachings wing up the guidelines for the City in Quadrante no. 9, 1933). A man of Castiglioni, is “aestheticised” and Lighting Plan for Turin (see the story of letters by training, I have a legiti- not “anaesthetised”, as would be in to the side, written by Archi-Group mate concern, and I must therefore the case of the ultimate “anartist”, Ufficio Progetti Smarriti). In 1933, the try to explain the reasoning behind Marcel Duchamp, or again, as one Futurists Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, my preliminary work on drafting the of the rare examples in Italy of urban Angiolo Mazzoni and Mino Somen- Light Plan for Biella. This is a city that and territorial graphics. But there is zi drafted their Manifesto of Aerial -mea culpa- was unknown to me, more, for we read that Castiglioni Architecture. It is much less known and that, before staying there, I got and Cavaglià’s Plan also referred to than the one on Aero painting, which to know by using an instrument that the “colour of the light” and to the had appeared in the Gazzetta del is fundamental for every tourist, and “efficiency of the technology”, and Federico Maggia, Design for erection of Popolo of Turin on 22 September indeed for every professional: a map. now, just over twenty years later, this the Empire Lighthouse on Mount 1929 in an article entitled Prospet- Well, in that little map I immediately ambition has found new and reliable Mucrone, Perspective view, 1936 tive di volo. In the 1933 manifesto noticed the central symbol of a Fu- solutions, such as in the use of LEDs. drawing in pencil on paper, Maggia Fund they prophesied that “the single city nicular Railway and those, radiating To ensure energy savings, ease of Fondazione Sella, Biella built along continuous lines will show out, of some belvederes. These were maintenance, and durability, Philips the sky its parallelism of deep blue the first places I went to visit. With a Color Kinetics iColor Accent strip gold orange air-roads and dazzling strange, alienating effect, the signifi- lights will therefore be inserted into aero-channels...”. Achille may well cance of these focal points in the city the risers of the steps going up the Light plan have been aware of the manifesto, was actually far greater in the carto- cable railway track. These are based for according to Vittorio Gregotti, he graphic representation than in reality, on the spectacular colour-changing Light plane and his brother Pier Giacomo had a and indeed they were hard to find technology of RGB LED diodes. So, “relish for quotation”. Indeed, to give -and, especially at night, hardly per- even though our “sacred staircase” an emblematic example, “no Italian ceptible or even enjoyable when I re- will almost always appear in “cele- Archi Group U.P.S. object has managed more than the ached them. I was thus attracted by stial” light, it will also be able to pro- Sanluca armchair of 1960 to capture the idea of a reverse process- “ren- vide special effects for exceptional “My dream is nourished by aban- with such wisdom the Futurist expe- dering” the virtual world in the real by events. To conclude, here we find donment / and regret. I do not love rience, and that of Boccioni in par- means of lighting, and thus putting ourselves entering the critical area roses / I have not picked myself. ticular, in such an unusual manner. into practice at least one of Casti- of what is termed “urban design”, a I do not love things / that might No one has managed to make such glioni’s original intuitions. But at the discipline that, after its exciting de- have been / but were not... I see a clear link between the specific na- same time, I tried to avoid criticisms but, has become rather disreputable houses...”. These early 20th centu- ture of his own cultural roots and an like that of Pier Maria Bardi against in the eyes of many. When it focuses ry lines are taken from Cocotte by approach of absolute modernity.” the Futurist manifesto, in which he on public lighting, it is often accused the Piedmontese poet Guido Goz- And this was always an approach claimed that “allegory is imposed of tending towards mere decoration zano, which are a fitting epigraph that “tended towards the grasping upon functionality”. Even though, for or even towards the carnivalesque. to this article, written some years of a fantastical image” (V. Gregotti, Il example, some might consider as an This is a real risk, which needs to ago by a group of Turin architects disegno del prodotto industriale. Ita- “allegory” my first project, which was be monitored, but also accepted. and republished here for its topica- lia 1860-1980, Electa, Milan 1982). for the 19th century cable car railway Because, even though I have never lity. (L.P.) This intermittent avant-garde-style that connects “Biella Piano”, the lo- adhered to “post-modernism”, I find “Those who arrive by plane in Turin at memory had Futurist, but also Da- wer part of the city, to “Biella Piaz- that, in this often trivial world, the night enjoy a unique sight: the colours daist echoes, even though they were zo”, the upper part. This was drawn hypothesis put forward by Robert Funicular Railway and belvedere in corso Carducci shown on the map of Biella of the lights portray the city like a vast ironically extolled and aesthetically up with the ’s Street Venturi, one of post-modernism’s hi- original taken from Guida Michelin, Edizioni per viaggiare, 2004 and extended work of Land Art. A enhanced, as I attempted to show Furniture Office (UAU) and involved ghest exponents and theoreticians, long, broad, radiant sign stretches in my book La sindrome di Leonardo. picking out in light blue the metal is very convincing: “it is perhaps between the plain and hills. Like a Artedesign in Italia 1940-1975 (Alle- inspection steps between the rails from the everyday landscape, vulgar gigantic cobweb, the great white ave- mandi, Turin 1995). And yet these up and down the hill. It is true that and disdained, that we can draw nues, with their ‘cold’ light, stand out echoes should not make us consi- a “stairway of light” might symbo- the complex and contradictory or- against the ‘warm’ yellow colours of der as “irrational” Castiglioni’s gene- lise any sort of Ascension, in any der that is valid for our architecture the residential areas, while the colou- ral approach, and that of Achille in civilisation, ranging from the Judaic- as an urbanistic whole”. In the opi- Colour is born wherever light continues to red lights are those of artists’ works particular, to the Light Plan of Turin, Christian Jacob’s Ladder in Genesis nion of Manolo De Giorgi, Venturi dotted around in the various squares which was studied together with 28, 11 ff, to the Freemason’s mystic was “alone, or solitary, in culturally desperately resist the ruling darkness and on the Mole Antonelliana. Since Gianfranco Cavaglià. But this is what Ladder of Kadosch, from the 30th tackling the dilemma of the aesthe- 1982, the innovative general lighting happened when the aforementioned Degree of the Ancient and Accepted tics of public spaces”. And today so project, which was the work of the ar- Futurist manifesto was assessed: Scottish Rite of Masonry (I find this many of us say that the question of chitects Achille Castiglioni and Gian- “With the Manifesto of Aerial Archi- allusion to the Great Architect of the “taste” is agonising... Simon Vestdijnk franco Cavaglià, has been a hallmark tecture, Marinetti made a clear break Universe inevitable when faced with of a change in the look and life of between the Futurist ideal and the the celebration of a world Congress night-time Turin for the public admi- architecture that was so important of colleagues...). Even so, our stai- nistration and the people alike. Once for him, be it referred to as rational rway of light was not designed so the plane lands, the traveller is gui- or functional... Our architecture... is much as a symbol but as an iconic Urban photo writings ded by the system of coloured lights strongly bound to the principle that all and indicant sign. It is part of a new and is led safely to the city centre. aesthetic expression derives directly urban image and communication, During the day, he or she is guided from the practical necessities that and a highly visible landmark -and by the support poles along the ave- give rise to it... But Futurism starts one that can be seen not just from nues, which are coloured according out from the opposite standpoint: an aeroplane- as a result of the very to the direction. Night-wandering its first thought is a decorative thou- special and dynamic orographic cha- tourists can roam the city safely on Worrying about good taste: I’ve al- scoletti, Imparare a scrivere. Volume by Enrico Marforio for Ghisamestieri, the sidewalks which, unlike in other ready confronted this problem on 2, Vannini, Gussago 2005). So, we with multi-coloured decorative lights. cities, are lit even more brightly than Enzo Biffi Gentili and City of Biella Street Furniture Office, Simulation of lighting other occasions (Provare gusto, began to put “downward strokes” in By so choosing “bright colours”, the the avenues (‘cars already have hea- project with use of LED column along the route of the Funicular Railway at Biella, 2008 in the book Antiaestetica, Edizioni the rungs of the Funicular Railways’s vexed question of “taste” was again dlamps’, as Ettore Sottsasss pointed rendering by Alberto Rainero, Courtesy of UAU Ufficio Arredo Urbano, City of Biella La Bautta, Matera 2001). I made a fire-escape, and to insert other- ver raised: one can minimise it by adopt- out). The late Achille Castiglioni was friendly criticism of the author, Franco tical characters in the elements of ing as far as possible an objective one of the most brilliant creators of Garofolo, for reconstructing an iden- street furniture alongside Biella’s bel- “impersonal” criterion. In this way, lighting but, as Cavaglià points out, tikit of the person of taste, who must vederes: on the viale del Carso, we Red, Green, and Blue: the “primary” ‘Castiglioni’s method was unforgiving’ be “full of discretion”, merely because, put posts by Jean-Michel Wilmotte for colours of our electronic era, shine in so Turin started out from scratch and according to Garofolo, good taste is iGuzzini; on corso Carducci, and poles the Biella night. redesigned its lighting, in the sense “inexpressive”, “measured”, “moder- that it chose the colour of light, since ate”, and refuses “bright colours”, the subject is light and not the ligh- high tones and strong lights. In other ting unit. The result was that the city words, good taste would be elegantia; Enzo Biffi Gentili and City of Biella Street Furniture Office, Plan for piling with now has rational and coordinating il- but certainly only a handicapped type decorative lights in primary RGB colours for the belvedere in corso Carducci at lumination, which has also made the of elegance under such restrictions. Biella, 2007, posts Arona by Enrico Marforio for Ghisamestieri, below Photo by Antonio most of its historic systems, placing As was too often the case in Turin, it Mantovan for Il Biellese, bottom Photo by Antonio Canevarolo the colour of light and the efficiency was certainly discrete and silent: the of technology at the heart of a plan elegance of the madamin: the young created for those who visit the city lady in her beige and grey twin-set, at and those who live in it every day. Ac- most posing elegantly in her ton-sur- cording to Enzo Biffi Gentili, who at ton style under the abat-jours lamps the time was the Deputy Mayor and of her sitting-room. But this was not the Councillor of the City of Turin who the kind of woman who liked to fre- promoted the project, together with quent a person such as Carlo Mollino: the Street Furniture and Colour Plans, he preferred a more scantily-clad this lighting project, which was tied to kind of woman. I’m touching now the electricity company budget, ‘was on what is relevant in this context to to be an immense plan, and a massi- the culture of the project -and think- ve intervention by the administration’, ing beyond Mollino to such important but one that could not or would not “excessive” subalpine architecture as metabolise its ‘systematic comple- that of Paolo Soleri and Toni Cordero. xity’, and it was not implemented”. We have to recognise that their singu- (from “Fantaguida di Torino. Ufficio Pro- lar, splendid taste blossomed in that getti Smarriti”, in Torinosette, supple- vague terrain, very difficult for many ment to La Stampa, 18 February 2005). to explore, that exists between good and bad taste. But the same Garofalo ended up admitting that “a science of taste is impossible, since only ex- amples of taste exist” (for instance, in plain words that scarcely do us jus- Achille Castiglioni, Gianfranco Cavaglià tice, we may say that “Not everyone Design for general lighting of the City of likes peppermint” as the Mayor of Tu- Turin, 1981, rendering aerial night-time view rin, Sergio Chiamparino, said to justify some of his disputed changes to the urban furniture). To return to Biella, I have already begun on the same page to develop the subject of certain public lighting projects, envisaged as exercises in reading and re-writing characteristic phrases, which stretch from the Funicular Railway to the bel- vedere: urban streetsign photo-writ- ings. In my opinion, this illuminated handwriting had to begin at the same elementary, traditional learning stage as is set out in educational training manuals for handwriting; that is, from “acquiring the ability to trace down- ward strokes and fine lines” (C. Pa- illumination exercises tribute to achille castiglioni 09

Light pencil Light saber

Undesign It’s no mystery that architecture also Another Turin architect and artist, of colours and lights, as also happens a luminous ray about a metre in nourishes itself on “quotes” and “bor- coming from Biella -who we have al- in other sectors that the BAU project length. In the first episodes of the rowing”, nor that its close connection ready met in these pages- is Leonar- has been involved in, could seem ar- saga, after encountering technical with visions of the future, amplified by do Mosso, with whom Biffi Gentili is bitrary and provocative, but in reality it problems with the film equipment be- futuristic and high tech currents, are on familiar terms and of whom has has been almost forced on us by the ing used at the time, it was decided often, in their pop and visionary ver- written many articles, one of which need to escape from that comforting to use the same RGB colours men- sions, knowingly taken from science says: “Since 1990 he has created and rather slavish vogue for lumière tioned above -red, green and blue- fiction. The city of Biella’s lighting Light Structures in two versions: met- d’ambiance, even when lit by “stylish” for the coloured lights of these weap- projects, created from the concept of al structures with square sections… lamp-posts, unfortunately used and ons. Laser swords are one of the Enzo Biffi Gentili, consultant for the and structures from plastic tubes with abused for the sake of evoking an at- emblematic symbols of George Lu- local Street Furniture Office, can in- a circular section, containing neon as mosphere of once upon a time, cas’s masterpiece, and are in turn, spire many associations with the im- well. The joints and wiring of these drenched in nostalgia, but justified at basic complex elements of that store agerie of science fiction, above all for structures with luminous hearts, have heart by no more than a recherche du of science fiction knowledge referred those installations which can be con- made spatial multi-directional devel- temps perdu, owing more to Madame to at the beginning of this article, ac- sidered as applied public art, even if opments possible, with stable instal- Bovary than to Proust. The colours tually in relation to the project’s cul- they have often been created from lations arranged vertically in columns, selected derive from the rigorous use ture. They are a legacy it should be mass-produced lighting units. Proba- etc., or open, almost dancing, highly of the RGB colour code. For those remembered, of popular culture, in- bly, the Turin origins of MIAAO’s artis- capable of transforming to adapt unfamiliar with this work, The RGB cluding the “sword and cape” genres tic director have inspired his predilec- themselves to every spatial condi- code sub-divides colours obtainable of adventure stories so dear to the tions for what he has described as tions. Their distribution of energy and from light beams into the three pri- old literature of entertainment. This urban identification “photo-writings”. light, in different colours, from deep mary colours: red, green and blue. know-how, even if popular, is so ba- Nevertheless it would be superficial turquoise to banana yellow, from These create white through additive sic that it has been the fount of inspi- and mistaken to assume that the Luci salmon pink to traffic light yellow, in synthesis or when mixed by being su- ration for one of the greatest expo- d’artista (Artists’ Lights) or the numer- this way become the construction perimposed. A basic colour system nents of contemporary architecture ous neon environments from Mario materials and the framework of an in- for today’s society, this latter being today: Rem Koolhaas. His dedication Merz have influenced him much. The tegrated system which is very varied the mother, and also the slave, of a to it, is an extreme form of quotation, probable or certain sources are more and flexible”. By way of illustration, we myriad parallel realities made up of close to the boundaries of “plagia- “disciplinary”. From the theoretical are reproducing a Light Structure by virtual images reproduced digitally. In rism” (on this subject, please refer to and applied research points of view, a Mosso (1996), where the fluorescent fact, it’s the basis of the colours re- the article Celestial spheres on page “card indexing” of neon advertising light seems to have been prescribed produced on the screens of televi- 3 of this publication). It must be said, signs, promoted by himself, inspired by the RGB code. We’d also like to sions and monitors. Concerning the to underline the coherence between by an influential text, little-known in remind you of the lighting installation specific project illustrated in this arti- the projects, that the relation be- Italy -such as that of Rudi Stern’s Let by the same artist, set up in the city cle: the arrangement of luminous tween the “cosmos” and Biella un- There Be Neon (Harry N. Abrams, centre car park in piazza Vittorio, Tu- posts indicating the entrance to the derlined by the BAU project, is not New York 1979)- goes back, indeed, rin, which has “upped the norms” of garden paths in via Carso, next to exhausted by these kind of futuristic to the times of the street furniture sur- quality for Luci d’artista. These artists’ Biella’s Railway Station, these lighting Excaliburs planted in the ground. An- vey carried out at the beginning of the lights should decorate the city by col- systems for the “communication other important installation will be the eighties. It’s even easier to recognise ouring and interrupting its architec- trenches” in public areas use neon as one to redecorate piazza del Monte, Biffi Gentili’s “authorities” when we ture, enriching it with new intelligent a fluorescent light source. Housed in in a part of the Historical Centre that look at his activities as exhibition cu- information. But without wishing to slots in extruded aluminium cylindrical is a little “run down”. This will be rator, because he often refers to them. subtract from the aesthetic appeal of cases, and protected by sheets of equipped with play equipment for For example, regarding the use of some of these artworks in them- polycarbonate, they create blades of children, and transformed into UFO light by his former partner in exhibition selves, they appear more “wander- light, which in our case appear multi- Place, with a “space-base” erected in design, the late Turin architect Toni ing” than “vague”, because of the coloured because of the red, green the centre. All our insistence on di- Cordero, he wrote: “Cordero uses frequent decisions by the city authori- and blue coloured filters which have rect or indirect illusions to spaces in ‘vulgar’ materials and industrial tech- ties to move them around different been inserted. If we now return to the the stars, has been justified. The rela- nologies. His competitive talent, ready streets Xmas after Xmas. This has “lateral visual thought” dear to us, in- tion between the culture of the to accept the risk of challenging the compromised one of the distinctive clined to seeking out homographies, project, and images from science fic- shadows of the great architects of the characteristics of site-specific instal- the first thing that occurs to us when tion, is actually the main theme of the past that hang over us, such as An- lations; that they should be to be cus- looking at these lights (which, for your Afterville project we have designed, tonelli, Juvarra and Guarini, is ex- tomised for a precise, given space. information, were designed by the which has been approved by the pressed in an unusual approach to Biella’s “photo-writings” are “perma- French architect and designer Jean- Foundation of Turin and Province Or- the theme of distributing energy and nent installations” however, which are Michel Wilmotte and produced by der of Architects, of which this jour- lighting technique through re-assem- not ephemeral, but have a well-de- iGuzzini: the two people responsible, nal is to a certain extent the official bling varied equipment”. This re-as- fined function. Their “job” is to indi- among other things, for one of the organ. The project has also been sembly is made up of transformers, cate and celebrate those areas of in- projects to illuminate the Louvre in translated into a cycle of related cul- wiring allowed to be left in view, dis- terest in the city that are otherwise Paris), is something much farther than tural manifestations for the XXIII UIA cotheque projectors, flashing emer- difficult to identify, and also to give Biella in space and time, and much World Congress of Architecure to be gency lights, and even neon; to cre- “instructions for use” for strategic ar- nearer to the collective imagination held in Turin from 29 June to 3 July ate complex, extreme assemblages. eas of the cityscape, such as pano- fed by the “mass culture” of the cine- 2008. But we’re also architects, rath- These are also adopted for exhibi- ramic views or gardens. They radiate ma. Similar types of “science fiction” er than merely science fiction cultists, tions of sacred art, such as the exhi- out from the historic city centre, and references have already been pro- therefore we want to conclude, as bitions in the Dioce cycle at San Filip- are updated as the area’s “identity posed with negative intent by the pre- we must, in a much more profes- po Neri, the seat of MIAAO in Turin. documents”. The choice of the range dictably conservative claque of critics sional way. The lighting devices for who follow nearly all innovative initia- paths in public areas designed by Leonardo Mosso, Light Structure, 1996, plexiglas, stainless steel, neon light transformer tives. We shouldn’t be surprised, be- Jean-Michel Wilmotte for iGuzzini are variable configuration installation, Photo by the artist cause we share the opinion of our old not called Light Sabers, but Light expert aesthologist Gillo Dorfles: Pencils. The title of this “training ro- “once again I have to repeat what mance” for the BAU Biella Arredo Ur- has been happening for at least fifty bano (Biella Street Furniture) project, years: that the public always wants deals therefore with luminous pen- Enzo Biffi Gentili and City of Biella Street Furniture Office, Plan for lighting with what they’re already familiar with…” cils: instruments for writing. They are decorative lights in primary RGB colours for the gardens in via Carso at Biella, 2008 (G. Dorfles, Conformisti, Donzelli, absolutely relevant therefore to the lighting fixturesPencil by Jean-Michel Wilmotte for iGuzzini, Photo by Marco Comba Rome 1997). An obvious association aim of learning by means of the basic for Il Biellese shared by “pastists” and “Futurists” tracing of points, lines, downward alike, aroused by the sight of strokes, to create an urban calligra- Darth Vader with Light Saber, promotional image for the filmStar Wars Episode III Wilmotte’s illuminated posts, are the phy which represents a very persua- Revenge of the Sith, 2005 laser swords, the Light Sabers: the sive theoretical suggestion. Translat- weapons used in the Star Wars saga ed into practice, as in the example of by the combatants from the two fac- the via Carso project, we’re re-found- tions in conflict for the future of hu- ing a discipline, which was once cel- man society. These consisted of a ebrated in Turin and everywhere; but hilt, with a blade in the form of a now is slandered, sometimes with beam of energy, which appears to be good reasons.

Colour can become mortally emotional

Roman Opalka

Mandala that carefully respects the constraints -the wife of the heresiarch Fra Dolci- condemned to death. The last was of the project, the environmental con- no, head of the pauperist movement Dolcino, who was tortured and left to Margherita text, and the history of the surroun- of the Apostolic Brethren- was burnt die in agony at Vercelli. He thus had dings. This made it different from at the stake close by the Ponte della time to see his companion being bur- Public Art -which is the ultimate fron- Maddalena, on the first day of June nt to death. And we are told that the tier of a “pure” art, and which thus 1307. Unable to resist the coaxing beauty of Margherita, so dazzling as attempts to attenuate its pathological words of the charismatic Dolcino, to appear witchlike, shone brighter autism- and made it willing to act as and possibly even more attracted by even than the flames. Seven hundred though on probation, rather than un- his call for a society in which men and years later, in October 2007, a mul- der licence. So let us take a look at women would be treated equally, the ticoloured luminous circle consisting an operation in the Biella area which beautiful Margherita had unhesitatin- of porphyry-like blocks was lit, partly Elisa Facchin has taken the genius loci into close gly abandoned her native Trentino to recall that fire. The red, green, and consideration: the installation of a lu- to follow Dolcino on his wanderings, blue Porfido blocks, designed by Pier Among the objectives of the first minous glass circle on the Ponte della preaching in the valleys of Vercelli and Filippo Ferrari for Fratelli Martini, are Policy Guidelines for the Street Maddalena -the bridge that crosses later on Monte Ribello, in what is now made of non-slip tempered glass. As Furniture of Biella, which were the Cervo river in Biella. In formal the province of Biella. Here, however, rough as the skin of witches. presented to the public in April terms, its “punctuation” is theoretical- he and his followers were shunned 2007, the expression “public ly and chromatically consistent with by the local inhabitants and forced applied art” often appears. This the “exercises in luminous calligra- into isolation, living a life of privations partly takes from the concept of phy” that characterise the initial, ele- and pursued by the unrelenting an- Enzo Biffi Gentili and City of Biella Street Art Public which, as the late Vera mentary stage of experimentation of ger of, and excommunication by the Furniture Office, Plan for lighting with Comoli Mandracci wrote, referred our new “urban script”. On the other . During Easter week in 1307, decorative lights in primary RGB colours in 19th century France to street hand, the circular luminous ductus the people of Biella were roused to for the Maddalena bridge at Biella, 2007 furniture. As the scholar tells us, provides an opportunity to evoke the battle by the promise of plenary indul- Porfido lighting fixtures by Pier Filippo it was then extended to include spirit, or “spectre”, of the place. Histo- gence, and they tracked them down Ferrari for Fratelli Martini, Photo by the applied arts as a discipline ry tells us that Margherita Boninsegna and killed them. All the survivors were Antonio Canevarolo decoration exercises tribute to carlo ravizza june 2008

A mosaic swimming pool

Luisa Perlo At the end of the fifties, the “very in- Milan-born engineer Carlo Ravizza dustrious population” of Biella -at the in 1956, with unusual “open-mind- foothills of the - “was, for the first edness in the choice of materials”, Nino Cerruti, Proposal for new flag time, faced with the issue of swim- it was hailed as “one of the grand- green background for zebra crossing on ming and of being able to use indoor est sports complexes in Italy”. “The public land at Biella, 2007, rendering by and outdoor pools all year round”. central feature of this public building Bellissimo, Courtesy of UAU Ufficio Arredo Thanks to the initiative of Guido Al- is precisely that it does not look like Urbano, City of Biella berto Rivetti, a sports and mountain one” writes Ravizza in 1959; “both lover and a champion of a notion in the choice of materials and in the of patronage which today has only abundance of colours, every effort very few heirs, the Rivetti Municipal was made to create a welcoming at- Swimming Pool opened in Biella in mosphere, where each detail reveals Recent 1958. A modern sports complex, it a personal touch”. “As you walk in, was donated to the city by the well- the large wood-panelled wall, with weaves known wool manufacturer -who in its arrangement of appliques, im- the twenties had also brought to mediately dispels any sense of cold- Biella Giuseppe Pagano- as a me- ness from what was once called ‘the morial to his son Massimo, who had baths’; bright colours and huge win- died in a car crash. Designed by dows, running all the way down to the ground and creating a visual con- Biella has been a city of art and the Carlo Ravizza, Details of mosaic nection between the green outdoors textile industry for centuries. It would decorations from the Rivetti Swimming and the indoor pool, contribute to be strange, after so many declara- Pool at Biella 1956-58, Photo by dispelling any impression of cold or tions of love, of intent of respect for Antonio Canevarolo mere functionality”. To this day, de- the genius loci, not to derive some spite the fact that the original overall design results. In the previous pag- balance was compromised by a re- es, we have already mentioned some cent extension, it is still possible to colouring work on a primary school admire the sophisticated decorative by Nino Cerruti, a très cultivé styl- solutions chosen by the designer. ist whose aristocratic family factory There are at least ten different mo- dates back to the 1800s, the century saic and ceramic facing systems in Manuel Cargaleiro, Majolica and mosaic decoration with visual-writing composition for the facade of the Rivetti Swimming Pool in which the chromatological theo- place, using a variety of colours; the at Biella 2008, rendering by Alberto Rainero, Courtesy of UAU Ufficio Arredo Urbano, City of Biella ries of Chevreul were affirmed, which external changing rooms are deco- blossomed from the textile arts. How- rated with polychrome majolica frag- ever, the new “urban stylist” work of ments inlayed in the cement mortar, of public art. Born in Ragusa and busier- giving up once and far all the Cerruti is not solely limited to one while unique pieces include the en- a pupil of Marino Marini at the ISIA highly-criticized “easel painting” in building, it is spread throughout Biel- trance door die-cast aluminium han- Institute in Monza, Cappello is at favour of that integration of the arts, la, not quite like a “leopard’s spots” dles. The diving board, in reinforced the climax of his success: the Ven- architecture and design which in Mi- -it is other Italian stylists that indulge concrete, is a fully-fledged abstract ice Biennale will soon reserve him a lan, once again, was to bear its most Of all the arts in this type of vulgar livery- but more sculpture, to which water reflection personal hall and in 1959 he will take renowned fruits (just think of the co- like “Zebra’s stripes”. This, in the effects impart a dynamic rotation. part to Documenta 2 in Kassel, the operation between Spatialist Gianni sense that the zebra crossings of city With its free-form pools and jutting most important art show of post-war Dova and Marco Zanuso). Soon, this applied to architecture will be progressively repainted with a diving board, the Rivetti Swimming Europe. Everywhere, as well as chlo- avant-garde spirit will live again in flag green background colour, chosen Pool can be compared to a similar rine, you can breathe in that typically the Rivetti Swimming Pool, through by Cerruti to also simulate a virtual plant built in Monza by Giulio Mino- 20th century atmosphere of “syn- an intervention on the facade of the mosaic is the one extension of the urban green areas. letti (who also designed the interiors thesis of the arts”, which was then contemporary extension (which was Thus, now we would be able to say of ships Andrea Doria and Leonardo -in that same Milan where Ravizza unfortunately built to those standards to the people of Biella: “Cet été, osez Da Vinci). If Minoletti commissions worked- enjoying its best years, un- of “mere functionality” which Ravizza that best reveals le chic des rayures” (This summer, Antonia Tomasini and Antonia Campi der the thrust of the Concrete Art so disliked) to be carried out by Por- dare the stylishness of the stripes). to create, at the bottom of the swim- Movement. In 1955, with an exhibi- tuguese artist Manuel Cargaleiro. This expression refers to a Parisian ming pool, an “inhabitable” ceramic tion titled Experiments in the Syn- The master of contemporary azulejo, its ‘temperature’... fashion advertisement, but is also mosaic sculpture, which is surpris- thesis of the Arts, at the Galleria del who did the ceramic facing of the the incipit of a highly sophisticated ingly reminiscent of later creations Fiore, the Concrete Art Movement Champs-Elysées-Clemenceau sta- essay by Michel Pastoureau (L’étoffe by Niki de Saint Phalle, Ravizza is announced its merger with French tion of the Paris Metro, will return con- du Diable. Une histoire des rayures in no way inferior and for the aerial group Espace -connected, through sistency and dignity to the complex et des tissus rayés, Seuil, Paris 1991) poolside sculpture he chooses the its founder, André Bloc, to magazine designed by the engineer of his same in which all types of “stripe” under- organic-dynamic language of Carmelo L’architecture d’aujourd’hui, created age, and on that occasion Biella will Maurice Culot, Printemps de la line constitutional ambiguity through Cappello, a forerunner and promoter and directed by him, and to Le Cor- celebrate their shared 81st birthday. mosaïque, 1992 the coexistence of “debasing” and “liberating” symbolic values (and am- biguity, as we well know, is the main characteristic of pure or applied art, of the Cerruti stripes and those of Dedans dehors Director’s chair Daniel Buren, who is also now active in Biella, commissioned by the Fon- dazione , another aristocratic factory). In the synopsis of the book by Pastoureau, we also read that an analysis of the “stripes” in the cloth Alberto Bassi allows us to ponder “plus largement sur l’origine, le statut et le fonction- Biella is a leading city in the pro- in far away or nearby places; without which then equipped the armies all nement des codes visuels au sein duction of clothing fabric, there- taking up a lot of space, and can then over the world, more or less to colo- d’un société donnée” (more widely fore the BAU project promotes the be folded up and put away until the nize it. The anglo-saxon production on the origin, the status and the use research and production of fabrics next time. Objects with functional and design culture was always fore- of visual codes at the heart of a given also for outdoor furniture; for ex- uses, often born out of economic most in this case, with its ingenious society). That which we are endeav- ample for the furniture of dehors: necessity, folding furniture com- mechanical solutions to close and ouring to do is not only to think of a a self-evident truth. As a type of municates ephemeral and transient conceal the mechanisms and their “designer” city but also a “graffiti” city, seating, the “director’s chair” has impressions of the fleeting moment. artifices. Besides, it is known, espe- meaning the experimentation set up been chosen, treated here by a This is why their materials, solutions cially the English have been in the in the “territorial and urban graphic” leading specialist like Alberto Bas- and finish is often less important than forefront of patenting a formidable specifications sector, so rarely visited si, the author of Design anonimo in the complete answer they furnish to a mixture of functionalism, mechanical in our country. This is naturally ap- Italia, Electa, Milano 2007. (L.P.) limited, temporary need -being both artifice, aesthetics and comfort in the plied, on the one hand, to fabrics -for Opening, closing, re-opening, re- necessary and serviceable. In the big furniture design, as well as indulging dehors, clothing and buildings- and folding, and putting away quickly. family of folding objects, seats were themselves with precious essences also, on the other, to other formats Folding furnishings were created for among the first in design history, and shining brass. Then, when mass- of greater material substance, such these functions: they’re useful be- as well as having the longest useful produced at bargain prices, these as tiling and mosaics. The first work cause space is sometimes scarce, or lives. To begin with there were the items became even simpler and more of this type that is being carried out because they need to be kept at hand 19th century military campaign chairs cheaply finished, as in the case of is that of another big master, Manuel camp chairs. Here, wooden compo- Cargaleiro on the Rivetti Swimming nents are joined to cheap materials Pool, whose new majolica and mo- for seating and back-rests; especially saic vestment will also represent a fabric, which, among other advantag- demonstration of poetic composition es, could give dignity to interiors, as talent in urban lettering. The lettering well as be suitable for open air uses. in a city could in fact become a “navi- These were indeed the first chairs to gation tool” for visitors and stimulate be without rigid materials for the seat a “sense of belonging” in the citizens, and backrest, provided instead with as maintained in an important histori- light, thin and de-structured substi- cal account of these types of inter- tutes that were also soft and both vention (P. Baines, C. Dixon, Signs: ergonomic and economic. Canvas Lettering in the Environment, Logos, seats appeared, on both warships Michel Bouquillon, La Regista, 2007, seat in nylon and batilane, rendering of design 2004). This is a thesis that, and cruise-ships, alongside the deck Serralunga, Biella with the help of AIAP, the Italian As- chairs that would have bright futures sociation planning for visual commu- as the irreplaceable furnishing for to the left nication, and with the competition for sea-bathing on beaches as yet un- Jan Dranger, Down-up, 1984 steel seat painted with epoxy resin powder and cotton young graphic studios, we would like crowded by the mass tourism then fabric Joint srl, Milano, Photo by Bitetto and Chimenti to prove. being born. In this ample history, with thousands of tributary streams that cannot be explored in this brief note, the director’s chair, or the seat for Carlo Ravizza, Detail of ceramic inserts the film director, is worthy of note. Its of the legs, the metal connections, George Goldwin from Chicago, Illinois on external walls of the changing reputation coram populi was naturally folding arms even, and the different in 1927, which introduced reclinable rooms from the Rivetti Swimming Pool due to its success in the more or less height of the models. But there is the armrests; and the horizontal closure of at Biella 1956-58, Photo by Hollywood-style world of cinema, and fabric above all, which after a certain the Collapsible Chair by G.T. Grondin Antonio Canevarolo to its acceptance by leading directors period, whether used for the back- of Colinsville in Connecticut in 1930. as well as by common actors. This rests or seats, was designed to be This is a “definitive” type and form of was helped, among other things, by detachable, not only allowing its finish seating, which is highly suggestive, the existence in the USA of a leading to be varied, but also for the user to and has inspired many important ar- manufacturer like Telescope, which wash and clean it. The director’s chair chitects and designers to accept the began production in 1903. If this is substantially a collective effort: the challenge of redesigning it, with vary- company could not boast the original work of different authors and of the ing results. From time to time, these designs, it made a substantial contri- subsequent improvements made to projects have made it more valuable, bution to their commercial success. it, which have harvested a rich crop of and updated its material -the “non- The history of the origins, and the patents, beginning in 1883, with the fabric fabric” for example- and every development of the design, produc- Folding camp Chair of Sylvanus C. solution. We’ll personally continue to tion and consumption of director’s Hopkins of Boston, Massachusetts: be intrigued by the simple efficiency chairs therefore intersects with the stripped down to the essentials, of the folding archetype, with its metal more general history of folding chairs. without arm-rests. Then there were joints in view, which can be shown Some peculiarities of these can be numerous 20th century examples, off in grey-green canvas, or, in ex- identified, such as the X-structure including the Folding Armchair by cess, in marine stripes. Less is more. decoration exercises tribute to carlo ravizza 11

Ornament renaissance

“Each of his works, clad with either Soleri, who is still living and work- -reconstructed critically in research old or newly-made enamel, is a pre- ing in the United States. Regarding carried out by writers working with cious jewel radiating light from its Mollino, you need only to think of the Luisa Perlo and Francesca Com- heart. Technical knowledge and cre- Lutrario Dancing Hall dated 1959, isso (EccentriCity. Arti applicate a ativity adorn his work in a spontane- where its imposing corridor lead- Torino 1945-1968, Fondazione per ous gesture of happiness. I’m sure ing to the dance-floor sparkles with il Libro, la Musica e la Cultura and many artefacts celebrated today reflections from a variety of deco- MIAAO, Turin 2003). But to return will be covered by dust tomorrow, rative Vietri-style riggiòle arranged to ceramics today, at the gates to or will be considered irrelevant, or in a sumptuous mural work, in free Biella, in Vergnasco, are two impor- destroyed completely by time. Not pieces. Paolo Portoghesi highlights tant industrial companies: Ceramica so the works of Manuel Cargaleiro”. how important was the project from Vogue and Gabbianelli, which col- Enzo Biffi Gentili and Bellissimo, STRIKE! These are auspicious words for the Lutrario in order to understand the laborates in the intervention of the 2006, cast stone, iron, glass, 3M light Rivetti Swimming Pool in Biella the relation of Mollino with the tradi- Rivetti Swimming Pool. These “aes- pipe system, 3M fiber light, injectors, work great Portuguese architect Alvaro tion, to make it running again, thus thetic factories” are fundamental for of applied public art created for the Siza said to enhance the figure of granting as allowed to build “by frag- Italian ceramic design history, and Franco Center at piazza Marmolada in the painter and ceramicist Manuel ments”. Mollino himself, who was also for the present vogue for “new Turin, Photo by Ernani Orcorte Cargaleiro (see the article here by also a Professor of Decoration at Tu- ornamentation”. They also draw on Luisa Perlo). Born in 1927, and con- rin Polytechnic’s Architecture Facul- the work of skilled graphic artists verted to Abstract Art during the fif- ty, stated he wanted publicly reverse such as Gabbianelli, which produc- ties while he was gradually stylising the Loos’ diktat on ornamentation es the Stellina line, by Italo Lupi. Its the ornamental elements of his work, as a crime since 1949, claiming that “brightly coloured” Astratto line was Cargaleiro was almost immediately “decoration -a gesture which is use- designed by Mario Piazza, the previ- recognised at a European level as less in the most precise meaning of ous President of AIAP, the Italian As- Graphic a champion of ceramic decoration the term- is among the most delight- sociation planning for visual commu- for architecture. Awarded with the ful signs of man’s gradual alienation Decoration for mosaic floor tiles, from Catalogo Pavimenti, sample album from the nication. AIAP’s present President, erections Diploma of Honour in 1955, at the from the animal world; a sign of civi- Luigi Cattaneo Company, Vercelli 1924 Beppe Chia, is the author of the age of 28, by Geneva’s International lisation”. (C. Mollino, “Utopia e am- article below, and helped us a great Academy of Ceramics, he has car- bientazione I-II”, in Domus nos. 237 deal in affirming that “decoration has ried out innumerable works in Por- and 238, 1949). Regarding Soleri, been reborn”. Even if printed char- Carlo Branzaglia tugal, France, and Italy. As regards his Italian masterpiece, the Solimene acters are used, as in Cargaleiro’s Italy, at the end of the nineties in Vi- factory, built in 1954-56 at Vietri sul tury: Giuseppe Devers. Born in Turin the 19th century to at least the twen- masterly urban décor to reface the It was once known as “archigraphi- etri sul Mare, a town on the Amalfi Mare, is an incredible “architecture in 1823, and already considered in ties. These new “artistic industries” Colégio Militar-Luz station on the cs”, a term that referred to graphic Coast with an ancient tradition of ce- with backbone for the repetitive pro- France, after his transfer there, as a were devoted to the production of Lisbon underground; and now, with operations that entered the world of ramics, which dedicated a museum duction of the clay vase” (A.I. Lima, “modern Luca della Robbia” at the various types of wall and floor tiles, a “calligrafic” approach this time, in architecture. In a proliferation of si- to him, he relaunched the tradition Soleri. Architettura come ecologia age of thirty, Devers was able to of- including marble grain decorative the writing on the “ceramic temple” gns, billboards, and wall posters, but of riggiòle -as local inhabitants are umana, Jaca Book, Milan 2000). The fer, as Prosper Merimée claimed, tiles for floors, with extremely - var of Rivetti Swimming Pool. Textile also metropolitan writings and various used to call tiles. To those who may factory, whose facade is clad in a “precious resources and potent ied multicoloured decorative motifs, arts above all are the imprinting on forms of Street Art, it is a process that want to know how the architectural flickering texture of terracotta discs, decorative motifs for our architects” made of simple concrete, Portland Biella’s identity: some solutions by is hard to define precisely today, part- ceramic works of a Portuguese, in- has a characteristic interior design, (Moniteur Universel, 8 July 1853). cement and flakes of natural - mar young graphics studios invited by ly because it is not only the institutio- spired by Vietri’s traditions, are rel- with a muscular floor arrangement Then, after returning to Italy in 1871, ble. Similar products were made in the city to suggest textile external nal practice of archigraphics that lies evant to Piedmont’s territory and of “samples” of riggiòle assembled he took up the first teaching post in Turin, at the factory of Pietro Ros- decorations are therefore published at the heart of a very contemporary design culture, the answer is “quite in a patchwork. Soleri is still produc- ceramics at Turin’s Albertina Acade- setti, and at the Luigi Cattaneo com- in these pages as an iconographic passion for graphic design on an en- a bit”. Among the most important ing ceramics today in Arcosanti, his my of the Fine Arts, under the rubric pany in the Vercelli province, which add. Among these, the examining vironmental scale. The rapid spread ceramic decorations in “Vietri-style” “ideal city” in Arizona. Few people of “Industrial Painting”. Apart from then included Biella. Their “Venetian commission, presided over by Beppe of billboards, sometimes as large as during the post bellum second half know that Piedmont is the homeland ceramics, various other new “artis- mosaics” popularised the taste for Chia, has decided to award Mauro buildings, has undoubtedly had some of the 20th century, are those of of the first “applied artist” to relaunch tic industries” were being created “popular” mosaic wall decoration, Bubbico’s system of Baufont icons, influence on the level of -commer two internationally renowned Turin “architectural ceramics” as a craft at in Piedmont, and began to flourish which would enjoy an extraordinary which has shown it can generate cial communication. But it is equally architects: Carlo Mollino and Paolo an international level in the 19th cen- between the period from the end of new architectural climax in the fifties infinite textile textures for the city… doubtful that it was mainly tag writing, with its love of scripts -Graffiti Art, in monetary terms- and then the more Decoration for tiles in simple cement, from the catalogue Disegni per pavimenti recent spawn of street artists working sample album from the Rossetti Pietro Company, Turin 1890 on mural paintings, pasted photoco- pies or stickers, which reshaped the boundaries of graphic design on the large scale. As Robert Venturi and Las Vegas show, we must not forget commercial signs; the ancient prac- tice of wall decoration, an unbroken tradition that is always capable of re- newing itself; and the explosion of the trade-fair phenomenon in the nineties, with its exhibit design taken to ever more spectacular dimensions. Last- ly, one final consideration can do no harm: the proliferation of “functional” signage itself acquires aesthetic and environmental value. In terms of pro- blems -and design has always been a matter of problem-solving- it is preci- sely the encounter between signage and the need to characterise internal or external spaces that provides the most effective examples of this redi- Urban textures scovery of huge dimensions. This can be seen in some of the earliest works, such as those by Paula Scher/Pen- tagram New York (Bloomberg), the Beppe Chia German Büro Uebele (Osnabrück AIAP President University) and Moniteurs (BMW He- adquarters), the French Ruedi Baur Our country has an extraordinary identity systems? AIAP has been themes that require the knowledge (Cinémathèque Française), and the environmental, architectural and researching this field for years (as of different human sciences and Japanese Masayoshi Kodaira (Fu- artistic heritage that is upheld by a can be seen in “SocialDesignZine” design specialities, of bureaucratic kutake House). Whether they use structured visual identity system that and “Progetto Grafico”) and offers logic, the mastering of various di- painting, wood, or LEDs, large-scale identifies it and suggests reading the public administrations advice mensional scales, the adoption of works characterise spaces, following and practical courses, making it a on how to interface with project a variety of material and immaterial the logic of an identity expanded to shared community experience. This designers. The BAU project is a formats, the prevision of extremely an architectural dimension in order is a demand that has only arisen re- case in which it has been possible variable execution times? The usual to amplify the perceptive impact on cently. Monuments and landscapes to discuss and construct a course choice made by public bodies is Designs for fabrics for urban textile applications worked out as part of the the observer, and to define places, have had a lone voice for centuries: that lives up to the expectations of that of entrusting projects that re- BAU Biella Arredo Urbano project, 2008, proposed by Architects, Mauro Bubbico levels, and directions; in other words, we can but wonder if the plaque, the citizens and the work of the de- quire diverse know-how to a sin- Studio Grafico, Bellissimo (top from left), Mauro Bubbico Studio Grafico (above) branding the spaces and directing the the caption and the tourist logo are signers. Let’s see how. First issue: gle resource. We, however, have Diversi Associati (below) flows of their use. Since design, with not simply palliatives of degradation the list of design elements for the selected five “young” studios each graphics leading the way, has always and fast consumerism. Many cities construction of the visual identity of with experience in tackling certain dealt with identity, we find that archi- have to come to terms with chaos, a city is too long. Therefore, “only” areas; all sent to gain direct experi- tectural intervention does no more information redundancy and deser- seven issues/places that are of par- ence of the reading of the places, to than propagate the visual codes of tion. These are the challenges to ticular significance to Biella have come into the city, to eat and sleep its patron, whether public or private. which a visual identity system must been identified: the BAU logo, the there and to participate in guided This means that this sector has also respond, offering precise informa- street toponymy, the tourist signs, tours and to gather information. An- been one that has required a cano- tion as its goal, extolling the pecu- the archigraphics of the library en- other question: can a city recognise nical concept of corporate identity to liarities of the locations, articulating trance, placing Piedmont poetry in itself in a “closed” visual identity be overcome and more flexible guide- on different times and scales. But situ in corso Carducci, the design system, equipped with a rigid appli- lines to be adopted, as we can see what methods should the public of outdoor fabrics, the Skate Park. cation manual? Is an urban and cul- in Biella. Otherwise, the application administration employ to invite de- Another question: what design cul- tural complex equivalent to a shop of a large-scale identity would run signers to construct complex visual ture can tackle such asymmetric where each artefact is coordinated? the risk of rather disturbing rhetoric. Are there other tools for managing a large sign production machine? Diversi Associati, Proposal for use of fabric for dehors designed as part of the The commission presided over by BAU Biella Arredo Urbano project, 2008 myself in Biella has found itself up against these doubts. Each design- Architekturburo D3, Kathrin Gruber and er has designed his system like a Richard Veneri, Plaus Station, 2006 semantic unit composed of seven archigraphics on painted steel sheet interlinked subsystems, however in- 240x1300 cm, Photo by dividual solutions were imposed on Robert Fleischanderl each of these systems for originality and/or applicability. These excel- lences were rewarded, abandoning the idea of a “single visual thought”. And as such the Biella è Bella logo, I’m the lovely flower of the tapestry the street toponymy, the tourist signs and institutional elements that endure the tests of time have been I’m going back, and I’ll never give up assigned to Diversi Associati; the “poetic” and signage archigraph- ics and the design of outdoor fab- rics to Studio Bubbico; and finally the Skate Park has been awarded to the Meat collective. Biella has opened an avenue, it is now good, as well as bella… Christian Morgenstern, Galgenlieder, 1905 architectural laboratory tribute to filippo juvarra june 2008

The temple of the lost opportunities

Paolo Portoghesi Architecture, like human beings, may and the eye’s movement. The effect who confined himself to offering his enjoy a happy destiny that allows on the observer inside the building philological wisdom and international them to make the best use of those is prolonged, making it continually fame. In August 1844, the Bishop of opportunities that come their way. Or clearer and more understandable; at Biella appointed Canina, a member of they may suffer the sad fate of being the same time allowing a sort of geo- the Roman court of Maria Cristina of thwarted by obstacle and changes metrical recomposition. At present, Savoy, the benefactress of the Sanc- when favourable opportunities arise; when de-constructivism is in fashion, tuary. The architect went immediately leading to an absurd waste of their Guarini’s method can be understood to visit it, and on returning to Rome, bold creative energies. Take Guarini, as its contrary. His uneasiness can had a meticulous model made; now Juvarra, Gallo, Vittone, and Antonelli, also be seen in the dark tones and conserved in the Sanctuary, which Anonymous, Oropa Sanctuary and the architects involved at the Sanctu- dramatic contrasts expressed here in was subjected to the judgement of Sacred Mountain, late 1700s ary of Oropa at least from the begin- a less ephemeral or clamorous way, Pio IX, and displayed in Rome in one pen and sepia ink drawing on paper ning of the 17th century. Finally built with an inverse process that does of the rooms of the Galleria Borghese. watercolours, 70,5x49,4 cm, Maggia Fund according to the hundred year old de- not refuse, but reaches an Aristote- Of the 15,000 liras it had cost to cre- Fondazione Sella, Biella sign of Galletti, the Sanctuary could lian catharsis. After Guarini’s failure, ate it, only 10,000 liras were refund- be defined as a temple of lost oppor- Filippo Juvarra in 1725 introduced ed later by the queen, Cristina. The tunities. Among Guarini’s designs for into the building complex what is construction began without delay in centrally planned buildings, his design perhaps the most precious jewel that 1848, but the following year, on 23 for the Oropa Sanctuary is the only remains of his work: the Porta Regia March 1849, the celebrated defeat of octagonal one; which developed the which forms, from the background of the Piedmontese at Novara caused idea of overlapping “pagoda-style” the lower courtyard, more of an ac- the king, Carlo Alberto, to abdicate. A house horizontal layers -five in this case- to tual facade than a door. In the con- The times were not therefore propi- the point of paradox. This is an ex- text of the pre-existing first order of tious for such ambitious works, and of the ample of the consistency of Guarini’s columns, introduced with their verti- only in 1877 was there talk again of method, which aimed to form a uni- cal drafting, and the oriflammes out- a new church. The idea of reviving Madonna tary spatial organism, by means of lined against the vault of the sky, its Canina’s project was refused by a a composition process consisting of chiaroscuro of great intensity and commission including Camillo Boito first separating its parts from each elegance recalls aspects of the mys- and the count Carlo Ceppi. In the Elisa Facchin other, as if they were self-sufficient; terious “El Chasne” temple at Petra, meantime, Alessandro Antonelli had then recomposing them by means of sculpted in the fantastic pink stone appeared on the scene, at first with a Just a quarter of an hour’s drive from a perspective effect, with the help of of the area. Gallo and Vittone were project showing the negative aspects the centre of Biella, in the deep, short a flow of light whose reflections unite, less fortunate than the maestro from of Canina’s design. Antonelli’s project Oropa valley, between the valleys car- cross, intersect and overlap the differ- Messina, and have left no significant had been “thought out to instruct a ved out by the rivers Cervo and Elvo, ent layers. In epistemological terms, sign of the period they spent work- student, and then developed for his stands the Marian Sanctuary of Oro- it could be said that Guarini wanted ing in the Sanctuary. Both worked own study and enjoyment”. He then pa. At a height of 1200 metres, it is to simultaneously affirm the holistic on the steps in front of the Porta participated in a sort of competition the most important in the Alps, and it principle by which the totality is more Regia; leaving us designs for works in 1876 that ended by reviving the is home to a Black Virgin. Today, pil- than the mere sum of its parts, and that were not carried out: Gallo, for by-now century old project of Galletti, grims arriving at Oropa are greeted by the reductionist principle that sees the South facade, and Vittone, for the but even the genial Antonelli had not a majestic complex of monumental nothing more in the whole than the reconstruction of the church on the done his best. The horizontal devel- buildings arranged on three terraces sum of its parts added together. In his axis of the complex of buildings. If opment of the building was interest- dominated by the Basilica Nuova. But works that were actually built, like St. the building design by Vittone shown ing, with two bell-towers behind its the home of the Madonna d’Oropa Lorenzo and the Chapel for the Holy in tables 79 and 80 of the Istruzioni arcaded wings, and the cruciform has not always been so imposing, Shroud, this method of constructing diverse... recalls Guarini’s conception plan was very clear. However, its ex- for the sanctuary we see today is the the form appears obvious, but seems of an evaginative circular presbytery, cessively conventional proportions outcome of over 1500 years of archi- led astray when interpreting the en- it can on the whole be distinguished negated that upwards flight which tectural additions and alterations. The gravings of the treatise in which the from Guarini’s concepts when it re- trasfigures the slender structures of first part of this house of Mary was a self-sufficiency of the parts produces jects its metamorphic spatiality in St. Gaudenzio and the Mole, aton- spacious sacellum that, according to a paratactical and confused assem- favour of a form recalling certain ing for the mechanical nature of their tradition, was built by Saint Eusebius. blage. In reality, Guarini’s composi- aspects of Santa Maria della Salute composition. The surreal interpreta- Appointed Bishop of Vercelli in 345, he tional operations: rotating and trans- Church in Venice; and prefiguring the tion of Carlo Mollino perfectly suited (attributed to), Facade of the Church of the Madonna Ss.ma d’Oropa had it made to contain one of the three forming the geometrical matrices from clear, compact spatiality of Rivarolo this type of rigid, creaky harmony. “His late 1600s, pen and sepia ink drawing on paper, watercolours, 67,3x41cm, Maggia Fund effigies of the Virgin he had recovered one layer to another, and alternating Parish Church in the area. architecture makes us imagine a seri- Fondazione Sella, Biella, Photo by photographic laboratory of the State Archives, Turin during his exile in . Legend expanded and compressed areas, Therefore the Oropa project was an ous gentleman, severely dressed, im- Courtesy of Ugo Quarello has it that the wooden statue, whose should not be understood as uncon- example of Vittone’s “resistance” mobile and staid, but false and hollow face and hands are painted black, was nected stratagems aimed to enrich to the Neoclassicism which domi- within; bearing mysterious gifts, who sculpted by Saint Luke, though scho- the image, or as overlapping kaleido- nated the European scene by then. has climbed to the edge of a very high lars attribute it to a later date. The first scopic figures, but as parts of a musi- Instead he was led to renounce the cave to contemplate far away, the documentary evidence of Oropo refers cal process. This process is not held more clamorous aspects of Baroque void… The sight does not move his to the enlargement of the house of the together in the memory, allowing the spatial research, and to re-affirm the calm and terribly impassive face to a The last phases of the Baroque development Black Virgin in the 13th century. This notes to be combined in succession; line of Baroque classicism that had smile. There’s something unclear -first was when the church of Santa Maria but in a process of visual interpreta- been practised without useless re- of all, how did that gentleman get up are the true inheritance of the epoch was built, by hermits of the priory of tion locating adjacent spatial cover- cantations by Bernini and Longhena, there? Something is suspicious, inas- that name, next to Saint Eusebius’s ings and overlaps in a unique image and then by Juvarra and Piermarini. much his clothes are hardly suitable we are growing out of votive chapel. The new church was as in which light is the real construction From Bernardo Vittone, the poet of for such acrobatic speculations, but long and as wide as the nave of the material. The variations of a theme load-bearing space and “longed-for his attitude is so absolute that his ex- Basilica Antica, which was built over it which occur over time in music, here light, we pass on to Luigi Canina: tremely personal situation is almost in the 17th century by appointement of occur in the single instant of vision the archaeologist without passion admissibly legitimate”. Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture, 1941 the and some aristo- cratic families of Biella. Even though it Filippo Juvarra, Setting for the Second Coronation of the simulacrum of the had just been built, plans were already Alessandro Antonelli, New Basilica for Oropa Sanctuary, Perspective and cutaway views, 1876, black ink drawing on paper Madonna, 1720, brown ink drawing on paper, 109x68 cm, detail, Museo dei Tesori di Oropa being made to enlarge it in the second watercolours, 59,9x 86,7 cm, inv. fl/5721, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin, Courtesy of Fondazione Torino Musei Courtesy of Riserva Naturale Speciale del , Photo by Alfiero Staffolani half of the century. The most presti- gious of these designs was one made by Guarino Guarini in 1680. Even so, until the 19th century, construction work mainly concentrated on buildings to house the pilgrims. Pietro Arduzzi designed huge cloisters around the basilica, Filippo Juvarra completed the monumental Porta Regia on the Sou- thern side, Francesco Gallo built ano- ther two courtyards with accommoda- tion below the first terrace, and Bernardo Vittone and later Pietro Giuseppe Bel- tramo completed the monumental flight of steps. It was only in 1877 that the site once again became the focus of long-awaited and disputed works: plans from the previous two centuries created by illustrious architects such as Luigi Canna and Alessandro Anto- nelli, as well as Guarini, were dusted off and in the end a design made in 1774 by Ignazio Amedeo Galletti was chosen by the commission, and a new basilica was built above the Sanctuary. This church was consecrated in 1960.

Filippo Juvarra, Drawing of plan and perspective views for the completion of the Porta Regia at Oropa Sanctuary 1700s, pen and ink drawing on paper Joyful such thoughts when in November his degree thesis on this little known watercolour, 65,1x44,8 cm, Ris. 59.20, c. 6 1931 he signed an ambitious Futurist episode, people liked the diorama’s Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali mystery architectural plan for Oropa: the Pavil- “naïve realism”, and it was crowned Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria of Turin ion of Sacred Art with adjacent open- with success. But what had hap- No Unauthorised Reproduction air theatre. According to the docu- pened to the avant-garde dream? It ments in his archives, the project, like would guarantee Mosso, who went Luisa Perlo the Cossato Railway Station built at on to design valuable examples of fu- the same time, can be traced to En- nerary architecture in Oropa, a place “When it was learnt that through gineer Italo Migliau, who as Director in the prestigious carnet des refusés Germano Caselli’s initiative it had of the Biella-Oropa Electric Railways, of the Sacred Mountain, alongside il- been decided to create a sort of financed the first -and only- of the lustrious predecessors like Guarino sculpted diorama illustrating the three sacred representations called Guarini and Alessandro Antonelli. fifteen mysteries of the , for by the editor of Il Biellese. Those with an adjacent open-air theatre, involved in creating the “Jouful Mys- in the living forest of Oropa”, wrote teries” were Mosso himself, architect Emilio Zanzi in Torino’s Gazzetta of the five stations (devoted to Jesus’ del Popolo on 3 July 1932, “many childhood), as well as landscape plan- admirers of the Sacred Mountain ners Teonesto Deabate and Massimo feared that the best of apologetic Quaglino, and the sculptors Roberto intentions might pave the way to Terracini, Gerolamo Pavesi and Anto- Nicola Mosso, Pavilion of Sacred Art a manifestation that was sure to nio Zucconi, who made the painted and open air Theatre at Oropa, Main be edifying but would also be in gesso figures. It was a confrontation perspective and axonometric view of questionable taste”. There was with the past marked by a good dose ceilings,1931, drawings in pencil on paper no reason for Nicola Mosso, al- of stylistic caution, except in Mosso’s 56x56 cm each, details, Nicola Mosso ready subsumed as a torchbearer “freer” Rationalist ticket office. Ac- Collection, at Istituto Alvar Aalto of modernity, to be troubled by cording to Luca Spanu, who wrote Pino Torinese architectural laboratory tribute to filippo juvarra

Guarini expertise Canina contested

Ugo Quarello Liana Pastorin The architect Guarino Guarini (Modena Here in Turin we are still wondering the chair left vacant by Bonsignore 1624-Milan 1683) was a multifaceted if the skyscraper Renzo Piano was at the (...) because man: priest, theologian, scientist, math- commissioned to design should be for interest I would greatly compro- ematician, artist and mystic; culturally taller than the Mole Antonelliana, the mise myself in having less than what complex and restless. His designs for symbol of the city. Soon to be erect- I can obtain working here; for honour the church of Oropa are the ultimate, ed, the building was commissioned I would still be compromised passing perhaps final expression of his typical by a bank. But even Alessandro An- from being a master of architecture architectural structuring which is high- tonelli, the architect of the day for sev- in the principal countries of Europe, lighted in his verticality, the composition eral intangible Mole, had quite a few who are pleased to have me as their which he geometrically based on a key- problems with his contemporaries consultant, to a teacher of young Tu- number, in his use of light and shadow as getting them to accept the construc- rin students”. Canina also stood in construction materials, tension towards tive exhibitionism of his works. The Antonelli’s way professionally, block- transcendence. Eight is the key number archives are an inexhaustible supply ing his proposals for the in on which the design of the Church of of information and intentions on ar- Casale Monferrato. The controversy Oropa was developed, as well as that chitectural disputes which reveal the between the two included almost of the twin structure of the church of continual correspondence between every design and it did not die down St. Lorenzo in Turin and the unfinished architects and politicians, administra- over time. A design for an exercise cupola of St. Anne La Royale in Paris. tors, colleagues, friends, and family; by the young Canina, who proposed Paolo Portoghesi offers an eloquent rivers of ink consumed to reinforce knocking down the Cathedral of Tu- description of the geometry of Oropa: the importance of the innovative value rin to make way for a new cathedral “The octagonal central outline proposes of projects, to ask for support or con- double the size of the San Giovanni Alessandro Antonelli, Oropa Sanctuary new modulations in a more stretched firmation, to denigrate a colleague, Cathedral, was scathingly criticized Plan of the Basilica, 1876, black ink out development of the flat and conical hoping or openly suggesting oneself by Antonelli ten years after the fact. drawing on paper, watercolours surfaces. The cupola is conceived with in his stead. There is no need to be Differently from Canina, Antonelli, who 83,8x58,5 cm, inv. fl/5720, Galleria Civica some similarities to the Chapel of the surprised by this. Today we basi- for his part proposed knocking down d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin Holy Shroud, from the overlapping of cally see the same complaints being Palazzo Madama, left an important Courtesy of Fondazione Torino Musei three octagonal prisms, the corners of aired, only with more modern tools legacy -the Mole. It is a work that each are supported on the mid point of -emails, text messages, newspaper provides a response to every town’s the sides of the prism below”. The work interviews, appeals to professional demand for a symbol to identify with was entrusted to the Theatine priest, as associations, filing of complaints. That and which “raises the profile of Turin”. we can deduce from the ordinati of the healthy batch of letters is nonetheless Thank goodness. “administration council” of the Sanctu- valuable material which helps us to ary on the 18 May 1680. However it understand the importance of the de- was not considered appropriate for the bate over time and perhaps to discov- Alessandro Antonelli, New Basilica for the Oropa Sanctuary, Plan of the Canina and church and the project was abandoned er some curious hidden detail, some Antonelli designs, 1876, black ink drawing on paper, watercolours, 59,6x87 cm after only two years. The Guarini designs tasty morsel of gossip in affairs like inv. fl/5719, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin -plans, elevation and section drawings- the “duels” of Canina and Antonelli, Courtesy of Fondazione Torino Musei remained in the archives of the Sanctu- rivals at Oropa. Who was Luigi Cani- ary until they were sent by the Beltramo na? He was born in Casale Monfer- architects (father and son), “diligent sur- rato and graduated from university in veyors of the Sanctuary”, to the architect Turin in 1814 and soon after moved to Gaspare Maggia and were inserted, in Rome where he became an architect the first half of the 1800s, in the family ar- of Casa Borghese; he was involved chives. The archives were then donated in the enlargement and renovation of to the Sella Foundation in 1987 by the the Villa gardens and the remodelling engineer Federico Maggia. During the of the Palazzo. He was also admired Guarini Symposium in 2006, Lodovico as an archeologist, historian, theore- Sella, president of the Foundation, au- tician of architecture and restoration, thorised their temporary transfer to the professor, engraver, organizer of ar- State Archives of Turin on my request, tistic culture, important state admin- in order to compare and reunite them istrator, member of all the Academies with the few photographs and many of Europe, and much decorated by awards kept there. Let us return to chivalrous orders. Canina’s work was 1680 however, date of the inscription of essentially designed architecture. As the elevation-section by Gio Abbiati, six Augusto Sistri wrote, his designs were years after in the posthumous work Dis- Guarino Guarini (attributed to), Plan of the Church of the Madonna Ss.ma d’Oropa, late “academic projects that can be con- segni d’Architettura civile et ecclesiastica 1600s, pen and sepia ink drawing on paper, watercolours, 41,3x26,2 cm, Maggia Fund sidered the intermediary link between (Civil and ecclesiastical Architectural De- Fondazione Sella, Biella, Photo photographic laboratory of the State Archives, Turin architectural doctrine and operative signs), commissioned by the Turin Thea- Courtesy of Ugo Quarello concreteness; important because tine brothers of Guarini to the printer D. they refer to the period when Canina’s Paulino, amid the “rami” (copper plates) allegiance to being an architect was carried out by various engravers under total” (A. Sistri, “Classicismo e classi- the direction of the author: was it the Guarini, Antonelli… cismi nei progetti accademici di Luigi Sacra may be moved more by some hand of Guarini that drafted the original Canina”, in Luigi Canina architetto e figures in cheap terracotta by design? I share the view with Daria De bullets fired into the sky against formalism teorico del classicismo, Guerini e As- minima d’Errico at the Sacred Mountain, Bernardi that it was Guarini himself, or sociati, Milano 1995). Among his in- than by Juvarra’s bombastic Por- one of his collaborators, who asked for numerable studies there is one that ta Regia at the Sanctuary. And the engraving of the plates. The plans Guido Canella, Fantasia, 1961 stands out -a round church of about also, passing to the 20th century have the characteristics of a prepara- 75 metres with a pair of free-standing Father Giuseppe Goi d.O. one may admire religious articles tory design and there are two inscrip- it refer to the building to be erected or to Turin. The comparative assessment, ac- columns in the centre holding up a produced for internal trade, like tions “Pianta della Chiesa della Mad. the rami and printing? The most persua- cording to the Ottolenghi graphonomic cupola of the same diametre as the the indecently eccentric works SS.m D’Oropa ne’ Monti di Biella da sive response for me is that this is the method, has refuted the hypothesis that Pantheon’s. “It appears to be a vi- This page is decorated like the of the designer Ambrogio Pozzi. farsi” (Plan of the Church of Mad. SS.m first indication of the hand of the Mas- the note may be the hand of the Guarini, sionary edifice, Piranesian, but the previous one with architectural We’re not Zappatist priests. Here of Oropa in the Mountains of Biella, to be ter himself, dictated to a collaborator for but has demonstrated that the two in- young architect was possibly not design sketches, linked to a ma- in Turin at San Filippo Neri, de- carried out and) and “Scala di Trabuchi executing the subsequent drawings due scriptions on the plan are of the same able to completely control his rough jor art; and coded with the ac- signed by Juvarra, we preserve di piemonte” (Trabuchi Scale of Pied- to the fact that, in those years, he was hand. A compilation of the lettering of draft. The columns were over thirty curate drawing of a smith, con- the Altar Cloth, masterpiece by mont). The elevation, mutilo to the right, very busy in the completion of the cu- Guarini is also being carried out, form- metres high and the doors, due to demned to the minor arts. From Piffetti; but our last purchase represents the front view of the building; pola of St. Lorenzo and in the drafting ing part of the typical “cresciana” 1600s the rejection of the contrasts of scale the architect to the locksmith? for MIAAO is a 1971 etching by it shows characteristics of greater defi- of the treatise Caelestis mathematicae. graphics, a work from the calligraphist of architecture terrible à la Boullée, Yes, but without any judgement David Gilhooly, the Californian nition and bears a single inscription in If the notes on the Oropa drawings are Massimo Polello, in the hope that, along should have been ten metres wide on our part of its greater or lesser Funk artist, dedicated to a large calligraphy “Scala Trabuchi”. In the 1686 not made by the hand of Guarini, they with the graphic expertise of Cristofori, and twenty metres high”. Rereading value. This is why at Oropa, one boar -devotedly. edition, the elevation is half elevation are also not by that of Bernardo Vittone, it may prove useful for scholars. My hy- the works of Canina it seems that his and half section. The elevation part is in responsible for reorganising the Guarini pothesis, founded on these analyses, is intention was to render the mass of accordance with the Sella Foundation writings, as the engravings used by him that the Master would have drawn the erudition on ancient architecture more Pietro Giorgio Durasco, The emblem of Oropa mounted above the Nuova design, except for the closure cupolino for Architettura civile in 1737 are those plan by hand and given the task of ex- cohesive. The epilogue to this attempt Porta 1729, sepia ink drawing on paper, watercolours, 51,1x33,1 cm, detail (the design that depicts the section and of Abbiati. I have involved an expert in tracting the elevation and section from was the unfeasible Oropa project. It Maggia Fund, Fondazione Sella, Biella interior view of the church did not reach graphic assessment, Margherita Cristo- the plan to one of his three close anony- was the 1840s and the most effer- the Foundation). What, at this point, fori, who has analysed the different auto- mous collaborators -already identified vescent debates in Europe were, as is does the note “to be carried out” mean? graphic letters by Guarini that are kept and named X, Y and Z by the scholar well known, about styles and Canina, Why was this written and by whom? Did in the State Archives of Modena and Augusta Lange- under his direction. a contemporary of Antonelli’s, took part in these debates dealing with sacred architecture. The Sanctuary Bernardo Vittone, Plan of the Church of Oropa to be constructed at the centre of the Sant’Anna Pavilion, 1750, drawing in pencil of Oropa near Biella was the perfect on paper, 46,6x56,6 cm, Maggia Fund, Fondazione Sella, Biella playground for these discussions; it is a building which many architects in different eras have tackled, with alter- nating luck. Canina was appointed to carry out the project by the widowed Queen Maria Cristina in 1845. How- ever, the work begun in 1848 soon came to a halt due to defects in the design found after building had begun and because the queen decided to put more money into the restoration of Altacomba. Canina and Antonelli did not get on well and had little con- tact with each other. They were con- sidered among the outstanding ex- ponents of local architectural culture and in fact kept an eye on each other, ready to take advantage of one an- other’s failures, which is what Antonelli did when he proposed his own plans for the in place of Canina’s right after Canina’s death in 1856. But even Antonelli had no luck at Oropa and in 1877, in a type of de- sign contest of the time; he saw the architect Ignazio Amedeo Galletti’s design chosen over his. Canina was probably considered rather conceited by his Turin colleagues, a thing that happened to many professionals who reached certain renown. A student of Talucchi’s and Bonsignore’s, in 1843 he turned down the chair in architec- ture at Turin which had been held by Bonsignore saying, “Neither for rea- sons of interest nor of health would it be good for me to choose to take ceramic laboratory tribute to giovanni d’errico june 2008

Naughty poses

some more: as you know, one of the at the Otis Institute, California, where first to deal with the ceramic statuary he taught in the fifties). In Italy, in the Alberto Pozzallo/Studio Kha, Little at Sacred Mountains was Giovanni sixties and seventies, figurative art Treasure of Oropa, 2008, photo of the Testori, who wrote about “bad smells was intolerable; it was necessary to store of mutilated, stolen and recovered from Valsesia” concerning Varallo. wait for the eighties, and above all, for terracotta pieces coming from the Chapels Look up the word funk, originally from the nineties, before an anthropomor- of the Coronation and of the Nativity of Mary jazz, in Wikipedia: “in Afro-American phic ceramic sculpture re-emerged Courtesy of Riserva Naturale Speciale del slang means generally a bad smell, in our country too. These works were Sacro Monte di Oropa such as that coming from the body characterised by a sophisticated the- in a state of excitation”, and a sort of matic and technical affectation. Some expressionism in art which is “dirty” of our “ceramicists” managed like The grand and “attractive” at the same time. For this to be included, individually, in the Testori, 16th and 17th century clay so-called “major arts”: for example: ceramics figures became bodies. Gaudenzio Bertozzi and Casoni, who exhibited Ferrari and d’Errico intensified that at Sperone. And “respectable artists” theater carnality by adorning statues with real like Luigi Ontani managed to produce hair and beards. Even today the expo- outstanding innovatory works in the nents of the Californian school, such majolica tradition at Faenza. So now, Elisa Facchin as Arthur Gonzalez, attach human and Bertozzi and Casoni, with their cel- animal hair and skin to their terracotta ebrated Madonna, in Scegli il Para- First a house, then the life of the Ma- figures, some of which are religious, diso, and Luigi Ontani, with his St. Alberto Mingotti, La mano sul cuore donna. The Oropa Sanctuary, covered and are both sacred and execrable. Sebastians and St. Bernards, and 2001, enamelled and painted terracotta from the architectural point of view in In addition, Testori believed in the Livio Scarpella with his Shrines; 68x57x30 cm, Courtesy of Il Polittico the two previous pages, is in fact an- “scandalous” function of the sacred. can all be considered as bearers of Rome, Photo by Giorgio Liverani nexed onto the Sacred Mountain, built According to Garth Clark, one of the the tradition, whether transfigured between 1620 and 1720 and divided leading critics of ceramics, Arneson or “disfigured”, of sacred statuary, into twelve chapels populated with aimed at “sacralising” the object, even as at Sacred Mountains? You see? polychrome terracotta statues depict- when it was connected to intimate And not only these: think of the Ora- ing the story of the life of Maria. The bodily functions... This is suggestive, cles by Paolo Maione, or of Faenza, of two extraordinary complexes were I agree; and a little disgusting. The Nero and of certain works by Alberto registered as a UNESCO World Herit- decision of keeping aloof from the Mingotti, like his candid vermilion bust age Site in 2003 along with other Pied- “deodorised”, “entertaining” design of a bleeding heart: a kind of ex voto mont and Lombardy Sanctuaries and dished up by the last generations religious object (I’m devoting a wall at Sacred Mountains. Creators of the in- of “dandies” is evident. But even MIAAO’s Higher Gallery to such con- animate “sacred representations” and concerning art, you seem to me to temporary religious objects with those the statues of the Chapels were artists share a certain love for the “degen- from Oropa, but always mixing the such as the d’Errico brothers, Pietro erations” typical of Testori, and you languages. In this way, I’ll put some Giuseppe and Carlo Francesco Aure- support West Coast Funk, even if Baroque paintings next to a cyclist’s gio, ‘the Galliari’. Enzo Biffi Gentili, in it’s rude, against Pop Art’s slick and jersey that poor Pantani donated to The continuous these Afterville pages and with the ex- better known works. Certainly. By the the Oropa Sanctuary, which they hibition held at MIAAO in combination way, remember that Arbasino included keep and exhibit). How will all this with the XXIII UIA World Congress of Testori among the “grandchildren of be judged in what is now the Capi- lurch between Architecture in Turin 2008, entitled The Gadda” as a writer; although the lat- tal of Architecture, but also of Arte Grand Ceramics Theater, has made a ter’s private life was cautious and with- Povera in the past? It’ll probably be particular eccentric hommage to the out excesses. Yet even Carlo Emilio judged as “grotesque”, but I won’t be affectation and and sculpture of Gadda, when invited to a night-club offended. As you know, I called one of Giovanni d’Errico, the ultimate “mould- Giampaolo Bertozzi and Stefano Dal Monte Casoni, Scegli il Paradiso, 1997 in Rome -according to an anecdote in my exhibitions in the past Viaggio at- er” of fictile figures, among those who majolica, 196x190x85 cm, Photo by Bernardo Ricci Arbasino’s L’ingegnere in blu- began traverso la ceramica grottesca (A trip triviality... took part, together with various mas- to ask hesitatingly, with his typical re- through grotesque ceramics), and I’d ter painters, in erecting the mystical serve, trembling and fears, about the already made references to Funk Art scenography of the Chapels of Oropa The Grand Ceramics Theater ex- World Design Capital events. There’s suitability or not of the place. Among in the catalogue. The Grand Ceramics Sacred Mountain. Scenography is the hibition put on by MIAAO, marks a big difference between the harsh, other questions, he asked “Will there Theater also develops my reflection on most appropriate term in this case: a your big comeback, together with original objects on display and the nar- be any of those coarse saxophonists an important tendency in the contem- great Italian art critic, unfortunately no Luisa Perlo, as a curator of exhi- cissism and déjà vu which dominates playing?”. When the reply was affirma- porary applied arts. Look at the “mon- longer with us, Giovanni Testori, enti- bitions of the ceramic arts. Some most similar exhibitions here south of tive he had no more doubts and said sters” by Clayton Bailey shown at the tled one of his fundamental studies on controversies will probably arise, the Alps. Luckily, we’ve been support- “Let’s go in then”. He was one of ours. exhibition. It’s no coincidence that The the art of the Sacred Mountains Il gran as it already happened in the past: ed by the organisers of the XXIII World Excuse me, which “ours”? I accept Grand Ceramics Theater is promoted teatro montano (The grand mountain I remember the erotic and local one Congress of Architecture, who I’d like the fact that many of the Califor- by the City of Biella, since the Sacred theatre) (Feltrinelli, Milan 1965), which, I was involved in after some igno- to thank. Presumably they have recog- nians, beginning with the late great Mountain at Oropa is in its territory, and according to Enzo Biffi Gentili, is the ble ceramic works were shown in nised one of our presiding geniuses, Robert Arneson, the head of the the Church of St. Sebastian is among Enrico Alpi, Podestà of Faenza inspiration for The Grand Ceramics an exhibition; and a national po- Giovanni d’Errico, a moulder and an school, are programmatically “inde- its most important monuments: deco- Il barocco e la sua influenza sulle Theater. In his text Giovanni Testori litical one, which arose after you architect who was great at Varallo. To cent”. But the Italians who you’ve rated by extraordinary grotesques. On arti minori ed in ispecie sulla writes that Giovanni d’Errico’s sculp- showed an earthenware head of tell you the truth, I noticed your ir- invited to The Grand Ceramics the whole, everything is carrying on. ceramica, 1929 ture is a “true carnal scandal or carnal Mussolini at the Alta temperatura ritating approach -putting Baroque Theater seem “refined” by contrast. Best of luck... shame”, it is the product of a “visceral and Alta gradazione exhibitions religious ceramic statues next to Yes, but they’re very “equivocal”. Think encumbrance”, it presents itself as a at Castellamonte, in Piedmont, in the most ambiguous contempo- about the virtuoso, hyper-real, true-to- Paolo Schmidlin, Ecce agnus, 2006, polychrome terracotta, 54x67x60 cm “plebeian intrusiveness”, accentuated 2004-05. But that was a little pro- rary American and Italian artworks. appearance “hyper-aesthetic” of Paolo Courtesy of Marena Rooms Gallery, Turin, Photo by Tommaso Mattina and softened by a “grim, wild irony: vincial town. Now, three years later What “guiding thought” links the Schmidlin, the champion of a kind of an irony that borders on mockery, but in Turin, an international capital of Oropa valley and California; or ter- “ceramics incarnation”, certainly more also very close to mercy”. Therefore, design culture, will you manage racotta works in the Sacred Moun- refined and aristocratic than the “ple- “the plasticator’s rage” of Errico mani- another provocation? Perhaps. The tain Chapels, with Funk Art ceram- beian” aggression of many Americans, fests itself with “mountain, animal-like, first provocation is “disciplinary”: it is ics? Though this arrangement may but it however “repels” even when earthy and even tribal violence” and an exhibition of the applied arts, which not seem judicious, and in my opinion the subject represented is not repel- “he renders everything traitorous, ex- are still neglected as usual despite so it was stimulated by a series of dis- lent by nature. Besides, a connection treme and animal-like with his hands”. much investment in the Turin, 2008 turbing associations. Let’s try to stir up between his ceramics sculpture and Then times will change: after d’Errico, that at Sacred Mountains has already other sculptors softened that plastic been suggested by a very “sensitive” fury and, according to Testori, Varallo, Luigi Ontani, Pilato Pelato dei Pelati, 1996 Paolo Maione, Lumacone, 1996 critic like Edward Lucie-Smith. But Oropa and other Sacred Mountains majolica, Ø 70 cm, carried out by polychorme earthenware, crystalline glaze there’s still a difference between passed from the “sacred drama” to Bottega Gatti, Faenza 50x45x32 cm, Courtesy of Sperone those American artists and these the “lithurgic ball”. Impressive and Courtesy of Davide Servadei Westwater, New York, Photo by Gianni Carini Italians... This regards two different very up to date. However, aside from stages in the history of art and ceram- the “literary” interpretation of Testori ics. The Californians, with Arneson, -which endorsed, according to Barbara were the first to promote an “outra- Zandrino, the transformation of the ar- geous” neo-figurative school, which is tistic work into a verbal work and art still active today; and at the same time, critique into the novel- also another to get recognised as “artists”. In fact, illustrious scholar, Lionello Venturi, in at the first exhibition of Funk Art held his chapter dedicated to the Sacred in the atmosphere of the first Berke- Mountains in his history of art entitled ley sit-in in 1967 (a horrible or tremen- Arte popolaresca in Piemonte e in dous year according to your taste); the Lombardia, can lead, although from a exhibition curator Peter Selz invited different point of view, to consider the several ceramicists. Such a rare occa- work of d’Errico as a prophetic antici- sion was unheard of in Europe (even pation of some of the results of con- if not in America: Peter Voulkos, an temporary ceramic sculpture. A daring “abstract expressionist ceramicist”, yet persuasive thesis that by Biffi Gen- had already been included in contem- tili, if we examine the artefacts of the porary art museums, with his students new Italian “figurative” school -even the deadly Madonna by Bertozzi e Casoni can be considered, in turn, as a Black Virgin- and that of the Ameri- can school, whose leader was Robert Ciau in Il tempio ceramico, Musumeci, “touching” and supportive effect on Arneson (and here the old expression Aosta 1997). The Pitociu, a modern the observer, even though the sphere “popular art” by Venturi is not used in pitociu lar familiaris, represents popular art of influence of the Pitociu itself seems a diminutive sense, but almost pre- and craftsmanship from a tradition more connected to magical, hetero- dictive of Pop or Funk declinations). from the 1800s and protects the doxical practices. And then the ap- houses where it is kept. An emblem pearance of the Pitociu, a caricature Elisa Facchin of the little people and the image which is a far cry from the “earthy”, meaning continuity and change as “tribal” violence that, according to Robert Arneson, Portrait at 62 Years There was a time in Castella- skilfully researched by Fritz Saxl of the Testori, charged the d’Errico stat- 1992 bronze, edizion 2/3, 183x60x60 cm monte, in the Canavese Piedmont Warburg Institute of London and the ues. At best, its aggressiveness is detail, Courtesy of Brian Gross Fine Art which borders the Biella province, University of Reading, it assumes an more akin to the exaggerated, hulla- San Francisco, Photo by M. Lee Fatherree when the Pitociu swarmed above apotropaic and conciliatory function baloo and therefore exorcist type of © Robert Arneson by SIAE 2008 the roof tiles. A few remain today: much akin to masks and totems, with the comics: because of this, a great terracotta idols of the benevo- specific connotations of the symbolic enthusiast of comics, among other lent sneer, half a metre tall, and a and caricature depiction typical of a things, Pablo Echaurren, has com- “grotesque talisman that adorns fairy-tale and fantasy tradition, pre- posed a type of Pitociu Pochade for the roofs of the house or the gar- maturely comical and Funk. The Pito- the MIAAO, humorous but also, as den... a superstitious guardian ciu can also be registered figuratively the title refers to a Christmas crib, whose grimace and mouths are as a “Gnome” in the fantasy genre, once again, spiritual... entrusted with the task of exor- and placed alongside the statues of cising evil spirits... or to reclaim the Sacred Mountain of Oropa on the goodwill from the underworld in virtual stage that we have set up in Pablo Echaurren, Presepe p-Artigiano which the forces of good and evil these pages, it does not seem out of 2005, red earth and third-firing gold are in conflict representing un- place. In fact, in examining the func- carried out by Sandra Baruzzi and Brenno known destinies and paths” (P.P. tions, both the Pitociu and the Sacred Pesci, Castellamonte, Courtesy of SSAA Benedetto, “Ceramica fiabesca”, Mountain’s Saints must have had a Turin, Photo by Francesco Radino ceramic laboratory tribute to giovanni d’errico 15

Californian funk

Luisa Perlo In the fifties and sixties in California, the fifties, it described the assem- mate ceramic”. Funk artists did not extraordinary seismic phenomena blages of a group of artists linked to accept the world as it is, as did the took place in the terracotta world, the Beat movement -Bruce Conner aseptic Pop artists, or the European where pottery was emancipated among them- gathered around the Nouveaux Realistes. Funk is charac- from its “minority” status by Peter Six Gallery of Wally Hedrick. Funk terised by a relation with the object Voulkos. His revolutionary plastic Art revealed itself as an anti-author- which is not merely one of sampling. research, in the words of Richard itarian and anti-cultural movement Among the diverse materials used in Marshall, liberated a “generation of (after all they were in the homeland this respect, ceramics alloy the high- artists from restrictions and tradi- of student revolt and the Summer est coefficient of invention -including tions imposed by ceramic history of Love). It reacted against the self- linguistic invention- in antithesis to and technique”. He maybe freed centredness of abstract expression- the anti-form and Minimalist devel- more than one generation. If his ism, encouraged in situ by the au- opments taking place on the East presence at Otis Art Institute in Los thoritative teachings of Mark Rothko Coast. New York was light years Angeles, “signaled the beginning of and of Clyfford Still. It celebrated the away, with its galleries, reviews and an upheaval in contemporary ce- most unpleasant and grotesque as- parties. Few exhibitions were organ- ramics”, his transfer to Berkeley, in pects of day to day objects. Harold ised in San Francisco, and artists’ 1959, made San Francisco Bay the Paris, in the pages of Art in America works were shown in studios to col- epicentre of a renewal to make ce- in March 1967 summed up its phi- leagues and rare collectors. What ramics the distinctive language of an losophy as: “It’s a groove to stick the system did not do, schools did entire artistic scene. From his arrival your finger down your throat and -at last once. Davis University was Robert Arneson, I Have My Eyes onwards, San Francisco began to see what comes up”. Despite the the authentic cultural broth for Funk. on Me Endlessly, 1992, bronze have a notable fascination for young stink, it was a Professor Emeritus, At the beginning of the sixties, it was edition 1/3, 203x30x30 cm ceramicists, faced in North Califor- Peter Selz, at the great eponymous mainly a school of agricultural sci- Estate of Robert Arneson nia with a consolidated tradition of exhibition at the Art Museum of the ences with an ambitious art depart- Courtesy of George Adams studio pottery. One of these was University of Berkeley, who conse- ment. Arneson came here in 1962 Gallery, New York, and Brian the thirty-year old Robert Arneson, crated it soon afterwards, tracing its with the responsibility to start up the Gross Fine Art, San Francisco the future leader of Funk Art. Funk, Dada and Surrealist roots. Funk Art ceramics program. Other exponents a widely used term, defines a type is commonly described as: sensual, of Funk were teaching there, like Wil- of rhythmic, improvised, rude but irrational, organic, visceral, or irrev- liam T. Wiley, Roy DeForest and the authentic jazz. Literally meaning a erent; and its prerogative: sense of sculptor Manuel Neri (who in 1955 bad smell, the word assumes sex- humour, vulgarity, absurdity, or irony. organised the first reading of the Lisa Reinertson, Mother and Newborn, 2005, terracotta, 79x53x18 cm Uncle ual connotations in Afro-American The work Funk John, in 1963, was outrageous Howl by Allen Ginsberg, Courtesy of John Natsoulas Center for the Arts, Davis slang, defining the piquant, seduc- idiomatic: inspired by a cup of wa- at the Six Gallery). Bruce Nauman, funk tive scent of the aroused body. In ter, defined by Arneson as “the ulti- one of the first students of the grad- uate program of art - with Arneson and Wiley as teachers- described the campus like this: “They had some old World War II barracks and Luisa Perlo they gave you, like, a bedroom in the barracks or something, and some- If Pop Art is cool, Robert Ar- body else painted in the kitchen. Oh… how the senses become drunk neson is hot. Born in Benicia, They were big rooms, and it was re- California, in 1930, he was ally nice… It wasn’t at all like a more on themselves! a student of the famous ce- organized school. (…) So you did ramicist Antonio Prieto, at have the encouragement of being Mills College, Oakland who in school”. The epicentre of the ce- had already taught Peter ramics department was Temporary Voulkos: the first American Building 9, a metal building which BBPR, Stile, 1936 “to take Picasso’s ceram- was torrid in summer and freez- ics seriously” according to ing in winter. Arneson’s studio was Neal Benezra. The promoter always open, and students could of a plastic revival enriched come and go. David Gilhooly was by abstract expressionism, among them, and immediately en- The he was a crucial influence in rolled as an assistant. “Working 16 persuading Arneson to give hours or more a day in TB-9” wrote converted up his “conventional” work the artist’s wife, Camille Chang, “the and way of life. A ceramicist group hardly knew that the rest of batrachian by chance, and a heretic by the art world existed at all”. Arneson vocation, Arneson immedi- transmitted the idea of a ceramic Father Giuseppe Goi d.O. ately showed his impatience art liberated from the strait-jacket with disciplinary restrictions. Margaret Keelan, House, 2006 Claudia Cohen, The Flaming Heart of of disciplinary purism, without re- Having been charged to write a and religion…”. All this applies No Deposit, No Return, dated terracotta, stanniferous enamel the Suburbs, 2002, polychrome terracotta nouncing completely his functional few lines on a curious aspect of specifically to the work of Gil- 1961, was a bottle made on 58x17x17 cm, detail and mixed media, 82x32,5x29 cm, detail role. In one of his frequent chal- the work of a leader of the Funk hooly, who has already created a lathe, sealed with a cheeky Photo by Scott McCue lenges to “cup making” Gilhooly cre- movement: David Gilhooly, and an extraordinary Frog World. I beer bottle top. “I was going ated his first frogs, which would give not being well-versed in this also read that, according to the to be an artist. I wasn’t going Arthur Gonzalez, Sin Eater, 1992, ceramic, cowhide, wood, slate, oil paint, rope, metal shape to his Frog World. Funk, and subject, I resorted to a “basic” critic Suzanne Foley, his froggy to be a potter” he would say 66x44x24 cm, Private Collection, New York that which followed it after the end instrument: the Contemporary ceramic universe “is virtually a twenty years later. The scato- of the sixties, when it had exhausted Art Dictionary by Martina Cor- parallel to that of man, and has logical sculpture Funk John, its potential to break with the past, gnati and Francesco Poli (Fel- had some surprisingly parallel was more a reflection on the formed a unicum in art in America, trinelli, Milan 1994). There, to religions…”. For several years, specific nature of pottery, and probably in the world. In the fol- begin with, under the heading Gilhooly, having abandoned rather than just a provocation. lowing decade, Arneson’s turn to Funk Art, I note that this is “a the frog kingdom in 1996, now This first “toilet” by Arneson, “Statuary” remained grotesque, but disagreeable art, characterised demonstrates, in works carried which generated significant was dense with illusions to the clas- by the elaboration of very free out with skilful mastery on paper effects and controversy, is a sical tradition. It was a vehicle for his works, along with ironic, kitsch (Portfolio of Christ, 2003) and symbol of his teaching at Dav- obsession for self-portrait, and for elements, and materials such in formally sophisticated, gilded is University. It was obscene, his ironic homage to colleagues and as ceramics, imitation leather, assemblages, that the theme of like other works that followed, masters -including Picasso and Ba- plastic and objects from eve- religion has become dominant, as well as a genial analysis con. It would be decisive in defining, ryday life. It also refers to sex and “crucial” for him. Not bad. of “Western Civilisation”. Ar- in this university outpost, the direc- neson would produce more tion of the figurative wave of ceramic Funk icons: the toaster, the research in the Bay area at that time typewriter with fingers instead and afterwards. Its antipodes rep- of keys, the brick. In 1971, resented in The Grand Ceramics Smorgi-Bob, the Cook was Theater are on display at MIAAO, in- David Gilhooly, L.O.G. Lamb of God, 2000, plexiglas and found objects the first work which turned cluding the world of solemn dolls by 127x89x11 cm his sarcasm against himself: the Canadian Marharet Keelan, and portrayed as the cook at an the bizarre Demon Gargoyle by the excessive banquet. It was the “crackpot” Clayton Bailey. Before first of a longlarge size series, settling in California, in 1968, Bayley including “sexualised” busts had been the organiser at Vermil- on pedestals, and self-por- ion, South Dakota, of the Funk Art traits with distorted features Festival. Then his motto was “think portraying ironically the history ugly”. Although at the beginning of western sculpture. He was he dismissed the “ripped and torn” consecrated in the mid-sixties, forms recalling Voulkos, the exhibi- when the Post-modern sensi- tion of Funk John at the Alan Stone tiveness recognised his great- Gallery in New York persuaded him ness. Other conflicts, and the to reveal his authentic personality. diagnosis of a tumour, led him The results were the multi-coloured to a darker existential vision in urinals and chamber-pots, like the works based on political and Small Breasted Nitepot of 1965, environmental themes, until with breasts “that titillate and frus- his death in 1992. Tony Natsoulas, Cajun Cardinal Kilchrist, 2002, earthenware, slab built, 102x122x48 cm trate the user, causing erotic stimu- lation”. When Roy DeForest coined the term Nut Art to define an art made up of “phantasmagoric ideas and fantasies”, the natural evolution Joe Mariscal, Joker, 1985 of Funk, Bailey was its “worthy” rep- terra sigillata, slip, 53x51x53 cm resentative. In 1969 Bailey founded the “Psychoceramic” church, whose objective was to spread “crackpot ideas”, as well as to occasionally cel- ebrate weddings: the further devel- opments of which can only be imag- ined... Those artists continuing what can be considered as a tradition by now, are ex-Davis students such as Tony Natsoulas, the author of “larger than life” ceramic torsos in camp style, the monumental Lisa Reinert- son, Arthur Gonzalez, devoted to the Baroque and the Pinocchio of Collodi, and the “outsiders” Claudia Cohen, with her “magic realism”, Joe Mariscal, who has united references to his original Mexican culture to the language of Funk, and the younger Edith Garcia, inclined to experiment with artistic varieties of promiscuity... the end june 2008

Modes and Mods Skate space A Vespa way of life Elisa Facchin Antonio Pusceddu

For a Mod (from modernist or mod- “Skate and destroy” sang The Fac- square metres space-age Skate ern jazz fan in fifties Britain) it is all a tion, a hardcore punk rock band that Park: divided into unified quarter matter of details. Sober, sharp and was born in the heart of the Califor- pipes, enclosing a street area made stylish, he captures the best of con- nian skate scene in the early eigties. up of bank to bank, wall rides, laid out temporary fashion and adds a per- While it was legitimate to be young at 360° lines on either side. Entirely Graphic picture from the catalogue sonal touch, in a continuous, almost and angry then, it was also possible built in concrete, with a quartz finish, Funk Art, edited by Peter Selz, University obsessive, search for the perfect look for skaters not to be always, some- the curves have been hand-finished Art Museum, University of California with a “difference”. Against standardi- how anti. Perhaps today it’s more with steel coping and rails to allow Berkeley 1967 sation “rage and style”. Starting with alternative to be indisciplined while all kinds of tricks. The unique nature clothes. The first mods drew inspira- seeking dialogue with institutions of this Skate Park, which is already tion from the American Ivy League too. It works like that in Biella, where excellent from the technical point of Bugella look and the stylism of certain cut- the inauguration of the biggest pub- view, will be confirmed by an innova- ting-edge French, Italian and English lic open-air Skate Park in Piedmont tive decorative project. With the aim pivella labels (such as Fred Perry, today is the first result of this type of youth of constructively channelling typically based in Biella): loafers or brogues for politics. In fact, this project is the re- artistic youth impulses, from graffiti to shoes, slim-fit flat-front trousers -just sult of a participatory design model tag writing to Street Art, it is proposed long enough to cover the socks- but- that has involved, in their roles as to have the Skate Park decorated by ton-down shirts, polo shirts, pencil- future beneficiaries: skateboarders, the youth who will use it, under the Doriano Raise thin ties, “trendy, three-button, single- roller-skaters and bmxers, besides supervision of graphic designers ex- breasted” (as quoted in the Alba cata- the Parks and Gardens Council perienced in the area. The first pro- continuing from the first page logue, 1957) short suit jackets, pro- Department. Their precise sugges- posal has come from Meat Collettivo tion of a number of prestigious names, tected by parkas. Details were then tions, based on their own dreams Grafico: with a horizontal system of including Gae Aulenti, who drew up added and adjusted to taste, from and needs, have been fundamental signs made up of arrows, stripes, the General Town Plan, Nino Cerruti, the cuffs to the jacket splits, to the to invest the available resources as and coloured hyper-tracks, bring- our own designer, in charge of the Col- bottom of the trousers. Everything, best as possible. The result is a 2000 ing typical urban signs into the Park. our Plan; Carlo Ravizza and Manuel though, had to be slim-cut, fitted, al- Cargaleiro who, fifty years after its con- most squeezed. A waist like a wasp. struction, are now completing the dec- And a wasp, or a Vespa, as a way of Meat Collettivo Grafico, Archigraphics for the Skate Park worked out as part of the oration of the Rivetti Swimming Pool. life. Indeed, the Mods personalised BAU Biella Arredo Urbano project, 2008 “Old boys” who are all approximately their Italian scooters -trendy but also eighty years old, immensely bright and relatively cheap and long-lasting- with in touch with today’s cultural trends. the same obsessive care as they did On another occasion, in the last issue their looks. Perhaps as a counter- of Afterville, while discussing Biella’s point to the powerful bikes ridden by design identity, I named others who are Lyle Rowell, Mutoid Waste Company, Sketch of the Monument to the Vespa their Rockers rivals, they took it as far also to be regarded as our fathers, but at Biella, 2008 as it would go, adding countless wing who, alas, are now no more: illustrious mirrors and decorative lights, chrome ancestors including Futurist architect decorations and various fixtures and Nicola Mosso and Rationalist architect fittings, to make each Vespa a unique Giuseppe Pagano, commemorated in custom-made vehicle, apart from this magazine. The most recent devel- the standardisation of mass produc- opments of the BAU project, however, The heat is rising / The past is calling tion. The Mods as “metropolitan ar- regard the young and the very young, tisans”, ante-litteram tuners, artists both as professionals and users. One of assembly. And, indeed, when a example is that of Diversi Associati, the decision is made, in Biella, to erect a twenty-something visual designers who The Who, Quadrophenia, 1973 monument as a testimony to the little- have created the distinctive elements known fact that it was there, in the of our new city graphics. But there is post-war years, that the Piaggio plant more. Partly as a mark of homage to The Turin Mod band Statuto, 1991, Photo by Fabio Nosotti which made the Vespa prototype was “youth subcultures”, we are erecting based, there really was no doubt -at a Monument to the Vespa -the legen- least for us lovers of applied art, pub- dary scooter which, as only few know, lic or private- that it had to be some- was born in Biella- in cooperation body who had dedicated his entire life with the Mutoid Waste Company and and art to the assembly of mechanical iconic mod brand Fred Perry (which components. And a choice was made owns manufacturing facilities on our to entrust the task to Lyle Rowell of territory). For our teenagers we have the Mutoid Waste Company, who de- built a Skate Park which is one of the signed a mechanical hand, sticking largest in Europe. And for our children, out of the ground and holding one of we have transformed piazza del Monte the first Vespa models, tuned by fa- in a galactic “theme square”, drawing mous Turin-based “curious artisans” from that investigation into the relations Michele Guaschino and Germàn Im- between design culture and science- pache. As a highlight, to celebrate XXIII UIA World Congress of fiction imagery which is also behind the the erection of the Monument, in Afterville editorial project. In a nutshell, September 2008, there will also be a Architecture Torino 2008 Bugella pivella is the inspiring princi- concert by Italian mod band Statuto. ple of a project combining futurism Nothing is by chance: it’s all a mat- Presidente del Congresso Riccardo Bedrone, Relatore generale Leopoldo Freyrie, with futurity, for Biella to be truly bella. ter of details, even in design culture. Amministratore Luigi Cotzia, Consiglio di coordinamento: Gaetan Siew, Raffaele Siri- ca, Franco Campia, Simone Cola, Sergio Conti, Louise Cox, Martin Drahovsky, Jordi Farrando, Giorgio Gallesio, Giorgio Giani, Donald J. Hackl, Giancarlo Ius, Mario Via- no. Comitato scientifico: Relatore generale Leopoldo Freyrie, Ernesto Alva, Pio Baldi, Achille Bonito Oliva, Alessandro Cecchi Paone, Odile Decq, Michele De Lucchi, Ida number 3 ACTORS and AUTHORS tor, whose present organization Gianelli, Rodney Harber, Stefania Ippoliti, Van Straten, George Kunihiro, Tarek Naga, chart is as follows: Graziano Suha Özkan, Carlo Hernandez Pezzi, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Francesco Profumo, BAU+MIAAO Juan Abelló Juanpere Patergnani: Head Manager; Raf- Joseph Rykwert, Vladimir Slapeta, German Suárez Betancourt, Jennifer Taylor, Mario new projects and urban Alessandro Antonelli faella Penna: Technical Officer; Virano. Comitato finanziario: Luigi Cotzia, Giuseppe Antonio Zizzi, Donald J. Hackl. identity researches Archi-Group U.P.S. Antonio Pusceddu: Technical In- Organizzazione: Istituto di Cultura Architettonica (I.C.Ar) Torino 2008 srl. Staff opera- Architects structor; Cristina Rizzo: Technical tivo: Mario Caruso General Manager, Michele Iannantuoni Administrative Manager, editor-in-chief Robert Arneson Instructor; and Alberto Rainero: Laura Rizzi Coordination of activities in Torino (OAT), Raffaella Lecchi Scientific Com- Enzo Biffi Gentili Alberto Bassi external collaborator for render- mittee Secretriat, Luca Molinari Scientific advisor, Pier Benato Relations with Italian associate editor Clayton Bailey ing. The Urban Colour Plan has Orders, Vincenzo Puglielli Relations with UIA sections and Workig Programmes, Pier- Pier Paolo Benedetto Riccardo Bedrone been drawn up by Alberto Cec- luigi Mutti Press Agent, Liana Pastorin Public/Media relation - Collateral events (OAT), editor Bellissimo ca, Technical Officer. As Doriano Administrative Manager Collateral events (OAT) Eleonora Gerbotto, Corine Veysselier Luisa Perlo Bertozzi & Casoni Raise was also appointed to Public Relation, Laura Rodeschini (RODEX) General organization - Relations with the editorial staff Elisabetta Bovina chair the Culture Council Depart- Business Sponsors, Elisabetta Mariotti Legal advisor, Roberta Asciolla Logistics and Elisa Facchin Carlo Branzaglia ment in 2008, Patrizia Bellar- Fair, Antonella Feltrin Web - Structure and contents, Rosanna Bonelli Communication Liana Pastorin/FOAT Giovanni Brino done, the Head Manager of the Plan, Francesco Agnese GMA Radio - Technical Manager, Maria Vittoria Capitannuc- translations Mauro Bubbico Culture and Education Sector is ci GMA Radio - contents and interviews, Chiara Ingrosso GMA Radio - contents and Progettoqualità2000 Luigi Canina also collaborating with the Street interviews, Olympia Kazi GMA Radio - contents and interviews, Marco Folke Testa Joyce Evans Manuel Cargaleiro Furniture Office. Rinaldo Chiola, GMA Radio - Technical support, Simona Castagnotti Web designer. Susan Finnel Laura Castagno Clayton Bailey, Fire Breathing the Councillor for Technological Simon Turner Nino Cerruti Demon Gargoyle, 1998, gres Innovation, Demographic Servic- art direction Beppe Chia porcelain, glass, copper, electric light es, Education, Sport, and Youth Consiglio Nazionale degli Architetti PPC Undesign Claudia Cohen 46x38x25 cm Policies; and Alberto Zola, Coun- electronic layout Diversi Associati cillor for Cooperation for Devel- Presidente Raffaele Sirica, Vicepresidente Vicario Massimo Gallione, Vicepre- Paolo Anselmetti Pier Giorgio Durasco opment, Participation, Transport, sidente Luigi Cotzia, Vicepresidente Gianfranco Pizzolato, Consigliere Segre- Pablo Echaurren University and Tourism; are also tario Luigi Marziano Mirizzi, Tesoriere Giuseppe Antonio Zizzi. Consiglieri: Mat- THE GRAND CERAMICS Edith Garcia contributing to help in these as- teo Capuani, Simone Cola, Pasquale Felicetti, Miranda , Leopoldo Emilio THEATER. BAU+MIAAO Valeria Garuzzo BAUUAU pects of the BAU project. This Freyrie, Nevio Parmeggiani, Domenico Podestà, Pietro Ranucci, Marco Belloni. exhibition David Gilhooly apparently bureacratic list of scientific committee Padre Giuseppe Goi d.O. tabula gratulatoria functions is really by way of giving president Arthur Gonzalez thanks. Further particular thanks Ordine degli Architetti PPC di Torino Paolo Portoghesi Guarino Guarini are due to the representatives of members Filippo Juvarra the Riserva Naturale Speciale del Presidente Riccardo Bedrone, Vicepresidente Sergio Cavallo, Segretario Feli- Riccardo Bedrone Margaret Keelan The BAU Biella Arredo Urbano Sacro Monte di Oropa, includ- ce De Luca, Tesoriere Adriano Sozza. Consiglieri: Roberto Albano, Domenico Enzo Biffi Gentili Maurice Lesna (Biella Street Furniture) project ing Doriano Raise, its Chairman, Bagliani, Giuseppe Brunetti, Mario Carducci, Mariuccia Cena, Franco Ferrero, Giovanni Brino Arrigo Lora Totino was officially launched by the City and Oliviero Girardi, its Director. Franco Francone, Giorgio Giani, Elisabetta Mazzola, Gennaro Napoli, Stefania Laura Castagno Federico Maggia Council’s resolution no. 570, on 5 Besides thanks are due to the Vola. Direzione Laura Rizzi. Staff: Arianna Brusca, Alda Cavagnero, Sandra Ca- Leonardo Mosso Paolo Maione December 2006. This appointed Piedmont Region for its impor- vallini, Antonella Feltrin, Eleonora Gerbotto, Fabio Giulivi, Milena Lasaponara. curators Joe Mariscal Enzo Biffi Gentili as the consult- tant cultural support by making Enzo Biffi Gentili Meat Collettivo Grafico ant for the planning of Biella’s available precious art works from Luisa Perlo Alberto Mingotti street furniture. The Street Fur- the Oropa Chapels and Sanctu- Fondazione dell’Ordine degli Architetti PPC di Torino organization Leonardo Mosso niture Office (UAU Ufficio Arredo ary for the exhibition The Grand Elisa Facchin Nicola Mosso Urbano) was subsequently set Ceramics Theater. BAU+MIAAO; Presidente Carlo Novarino, Vicepresidente Fabio Diena, (membro di diritto all’OAT) Mirella Ferrera Tony Natsoulas up by the Town Planning, Street as well as for its material support. Riccardo Bedrone. Consiglieri: Maria Rosa Cena, Franco Francone, Marcello La Federica Grosso Ciccio Nero Furniture, Parks and Gardens The Oropa complex is in the area Rosa, Carlo Novarino, Claudio Papotti, Ivano Pomero, Giuseppe Portolese, Claudio graphic design Luigi Ontani Council Department, (which now of Biella City Council, and is listed Tomasini. Staff: Maddalena Bertone, Chiara Boero, Raffaella Bucci, Giulia Di Gregorio. Bellissimo Giuseppe Pagano includes Culture), chaired by by UNESCO as a World Heritage exhibition design Paolo Portoghesi Doriano Raise. UAU is included of Humanity Site. So we must Studio Kha Antonio Pusceddu as one of the responsibilities carry on caring for, enhancing Ugo Quarello of the Local Area, Environment and publicising this Heritage of Carlo Ravizza and Sports Programme Sec- ours, as we’ve begun to do. MIAAO Chris Redfern Museo Internazionale Lisa Reinertson delle Arti Applicate Oggi Sandro Maria Rosso via Maria Vittoria 5, 10123 Torino Lyle Rowell is a project created and edited for FOAT T 0039 011 0702350 | 0702351 Paolo Schmidlin by Michele Bortolami and Tommaso Delmastro from Undesign F 0039 011 0702352 Ettore Sottsass together with Fabrizio Accatino and Massimo Teghille [email protected]; [email protected] Sottsass Associati incubated by Commissione OAT Visione Creativa Bernardo Vittone