A Case Study; People's Palace

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

A Case Study; People's Palace A case Study; People’s Palace A case study of 20th century designs of buildings for ASSEMBLY, PRACTICING POLITICS, EXCHANGING KNOWLEDGE and RECREATION. This work is not intended to fully reconstruct the history and architectural typology of the people’s palace. By first constructing a framework of the changing society in the 20th century, and it’s relation to the shifts in economic and political structures, it presents case-studies of 8 buildings that in their own way illustrate the conflict between ideology, form, representation and function. Specifics of the building’s political itscontext physical and appearance,its architecture related are usedto the to intended construct client. an argument that helps the formation of an idea of what the architect’s intentions means for a structure and All texts are questioning the possibility of architecture to help the formation or representation of a community, in search of a contemporary way to apply this. IndEX 05-06 IntroductIon The necessity of a truly public space The cooperative’s houses as a place of resistance Architecture’s relation to politics and economy Buildings intended to form community 05 - 39 cASE StudIES of the history of the quarry in Heerlen / Heksenberg 09-12 BE Brussels - Victor Horta 13-16 RU Moscow - Konstantin Melnikov 17-20 21-24 FR Clichy - Jean Prouvé 25-28 IT Como - Terragni 29-32 NL Dronten - Frank van Klingeren 33-36 GBSE LondonEslöv - Hans - Cedric Asplund Price 37-40 BR Sao Paolo - Lina Bo Bardi IntroductIon thE EmErgencE of cApItAlism During the industrial revolution society went - through a gradual transformation, in which our accordingnew urban to fabric the new came processes into existence. at hand, The and govern to ment had to reorganize the country and its cities - create more hygienic circumstances for the hous ing of its citizens. At the same time large factory owners were gaining wealth, and became able to construct facilities to improve the life of their workers. The main argument to do this was that a andhappy recreational workforce facilities.was a more Although productive this workforce,helped, thE nEcessity of A truly publIc SpAcE and they provided them with housing, schooling workers, requesting better working conditions and it also released emancipative forces within the The people’s palace might not be considered a - itprimary has taken architectural are nonetheless typology, a story though worth it’s telling. role in organizing as unions. The conflicts between the the history of architecture and the different forms unions and the factory management led to a separa tion between the more radical intellectuals within From the early societies public buildings have the group of workers, against the management that cities.played Whereas a significant in the role early in the days organization the Greek agora, and attempted to keep control over them. This tendency representation of the communities of villages and has kept over time, and still there remains the civil society to trade, discuss politics or relax, the conflict between the capitalist forces that are in Roman forum, Chinese temple were the places for control of the flows of money and therefore power,- against the majority, or workforce. modern conditions of our society have changed For architecture this meant that most develop this completely. The mere fact that space is now ments were aimed at improving the organization completely divided into strict zones of public and - of society, so that it became more efficient equaling licprivate, space. traffic The lack and of dwelling, a space to green express and ourgrey opinion, can more profit. Whether the client was a private party whethermake us doubtpolitical whether or not, we has still shifted have our any expres truly pub- or the government as an institution, the goal of the architect remained to provide the proper space for read for everyone who wants, whether that was the the specific situation. intentionsions from or the not. street to the web, where it is out to thE communist mAnIfesto inequality grew along with it and the search for thE Greek polis alternative’sWith capitalism began. entering This isthe best majority expressed of the in world, the of public life that we know, is also one that helped One of the earliest, and still most known, forms providedmanifesto theorists written byand Karl politicians Marx, which with remainsthe argu - relevant today. His monumental work Das capital aconstruct reference our for contemporary everyone who way talks of about thinking. a truly The as a “theoretical strike at the bourgeoisie”, he Greek polis, with all its different elements, remains ments to construct a new organization. Aimed public life. Apart from providing the space for many constructed a framework which would result in a great thinkers to construct their arguments, the - new political form that we know as communism. societal organization of the polis is also something aThe state main owned intention enterprise. of communism This resulted was toin spreada gigantic all that becomes more relevant today. Being an inde wealth equally, through making the whole economy fallspendent in line settlement, with the fadingwith its of own the welfarecurrency, state laws as generally a totalitarian leader that served as the weand experienced government, it it till provides late. us an alternative that untouchablebureaucratic authority.organization, with party leaders and 05 06 cASE Study mAp 07 08 VOLKSPALEIS BRUSSELSVOLKSPALEIS completion: 1896 by who: Belgische Werklieden Partij for who: Brussel’s workers how many: +/- 10.000 VictorHorta The rise and fall representation of a of a monumental against the power of workersthe institutions. movement 09 Victor Horta Konstantin Melnikov Jean Prouvé Frank van Klingeren Cedric Price Gunnar Asplund Giacomo Terragni Lina Bo Bardi 1899 Brussels 1927 Moscow 1939 Clichy 1968 Dronten 1974 London 1947 Eslöv 1938 Como 1984 Sao Paolo Victor Horta Konstantin Melnikov Jean Prouvé Frank van Klingeren Cedric Price Gunnar Asplund Giacomo Terragni Lina Bo Bardi 1899 Brussels 1927 Moscow 1939 Clichy 1968 Dronten 1974 London 1947 Eslöv 1938 Como 1984 Sao Paolo Victor Horta Konstantin Melnikov Jean Prouvé Frank van Klingeren Cedric Price Gunnar Asplund Giacomo Terragni Lina Bo Bardi 1899 Brussels 1927 Moscow 1939 Clichy 1968 Dronten 1974 London 1947 Eslöv 1938 Como 1984 Sao Paolo Victor Horta Konstantin Melnikov Jean Prouvé Frank van Klingeren Cedric Price Gunnar Asplund Giacomo Terragni Lina Bo Bardi 1899 Brussels 1927 Moscow 1939 Clichy 1968 Dronten 1974 London 1947 Eslöv 1938 Como 1984 Sao Paolo Victor Horta Konstantin Melnikov Jean Prouvé Frank van Klingeren Cedric Price Gunnar Asplund Giacomo Terragni Lina Bo Bardi 1899 Brussels 1927 Moscow 1939 Clichy 1968 Dronten 1974 London 1947 Eslöv 1938 Como 1984 Sao Paolo Victor Horta Konstantin Melnikov Jean Prouvé Frank van Klingeren Cedric Price Gunnar Asplund Giacomo Terragni Lina Bo Bardi 1899 Brussels 1927 Moscow 1939 Clichy 1968 Dronten 1974 London 1947 Eslöv 1938 Como 1984 Sao Paolo VOLKSPALEIS BRUSSELSVOLKSPALEIS completion: 1896 by who: Belgische Werklieden Partij for who: Brussel’s workers how many: +/- 10.000 main entrance leading to the central hall with café divised in two ways of entering. hierarchy? accesible from all sides, no hierarchy main entrance leading through corridors, two side entrances large open structure, accesible from all sides two main entrances, various sidedoors main entrance with small doors on square main entrance leading through corridors, two side entrances main entrance leading to the central hall with café divised in two ways of entering. hierarchy? accesible from all sides, no hierarchy main entrance leading through corridors, two side entrances large open structure, accesible from all sides two main entrances, various sidedoors main entrance with small doors on square main entrance leading through corridors, two side entrances main entrance leading to the central hall with café divised in two ways of entering. hierarchy? accesible from all sides, no hierarchy main entrance leading through corridors, two side entrances large open structure, accesible from all sides two main entrances, various sidedoors main entrance with small doors on square main entrance leading through corridors, two side entrances VictorHorta main entrance leading to the central hall with café divised in two ways of entering. hierarchy? accesible from all sides, no hierarchy main entrance leading through corridors, two side entrances large open structure, accesible from all sides two main entrances, various sidedoors main entrance with small doors on square main entrance leading through corridors, two side entrances main entrance leading to the central hall with café divised in two ways of entering. hierarchy? accesible from all sides, no hierarchy main entrance leading through corridors, two side entrances large open structure, accesible from all sides two main entrances, various sidedoors main entrance with small doors on square main entrance leading through corridors, two side entrances main entrance leading to the central hall with café divised in two ways of entering. hierarchy? accesible from all sides, no hierarchy main entrance leading through corridors, two side entrances large open structure, accesible from all sides two main entrances, various sidedoors main entrance with small doors on square main entrance leading through corridors, two side entrances multiple theatre/concert halls, accesible from all sides, no hierarchy main entrance
Recommended publications
  • Giuseppe Terragni, Mario Radice and the Casa Del Fascio
    history Building, furniture design and the decorative arts collaborate to embody Fascist political values and mass identity in an icon of modern architecture. Furnishing the Fascist interior: Giuseppe Terragni, Mario Radice and the Casa del Fascio David Rifkind ‘The struggles, conquests, and responsibility for victory the scales of furniture and urbanism – and by contributed a mystical beauty to the humble collaborating artists, for whom constructs and headquarters, where enthusiasm for the Duce and the installations utilising photomontage acted as heroic blood sacrificed by the enlisted were often the modernist interpretations of the traditional media greatest source of comfort and the most poetic of fresco, bas-relief and mosaic. Furnishings – “furnishing”.’1 including furniture, installations and plastic arts – played an integral role in fostering three recurrent The political values of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist themes throughout Terragni’s project: establishing regime resonated throughout the architecture and the symbolic presence of the Duce; representing the furnishings of Giuseppe Terragni’s Casa del Fascio political values of the Party through the use of (1932-36) in Como [1].2 Every physical detail and materials and formal relationships; and spatial relationship in this building is invested with constructing a uniquely Fascist identity, stressing political symbolism. The building represents an national (rather than regional) allegiances and example of interwar modernism in which emphasising the formation and exploitation of a architecture and furnishings were considered as an mass identity for the public. This essay considers how integral whole, both by the architect – whose these three themes are physically manifested in the architecture operated in a middle register between building’s most important interior spaces.
    [Show full text]
  • Material Legacies: Italian Modernism and the Postwar History of Case Del Fascio
    Modern Italy, 2019 Vol. 24, No. 2, 159–177, doi:10.1017/mit.2019.10 Material Legacies: Italian modernism and the postwar history of case del fascio Lucy M. Maulsby* School of Architecture, Northeastern University, Boston, USA (Received 23 October 2018; final version accepted 13 February 2019) In recent decades, architectural historians, preservationists, and the general public have shown a growing interest in Fascist-era buildings. Many of the most high-profile examples are those associated with the monumental excesses of the regime. However, new attention has also been focused on more modest buildings that are significant examples of interwar Italian modernism or Rationalism, including former party head- quarters (case del fascio). Taking as primary examples works by Giuseppe Terragni, the architect most often associated with Rationalism, as well by Luigi Carlo Danieri and Luigi Vietti, whose interwar contributions to Italian modernism have been less often the focus of scholarly attention, this article traces the postwar histories of case del fascio with the aim of better understanding the ways in which architecture and politics intersect and some of the consequences of this for the contemporary Italian architectural landscape. Keywords: modern architecture; Italy; Fascism; difficult histories; adaptive reuse; architecture and politics. Introduction Throughout the ventennio, 1922–1943, the Fascist regime engaged in and financed a vast range of public projects in its efforts to make a new Italy. These projects included the construction of new infrastructure in order to connect a population bound by local rather than national traditions, grand public buildings to support government operations, capacious and ordered public spaces for rallies and other mass events, and a host of more modest buildings to accommodate the numerous para- state agencies established to transform communities.
    [Show full text]
  • Ratiocinium in the Architectural Practice of Giuseppe Terragni Arian
    Ratiocinium in the Architectural Practice of Giuseppe Terragni & its role in the relationship between architecture and the city during the modern movements in Italy Arian Korkuti Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Architecture and Design Research Steven R. Thompson Paul F. Emmons Committee Co-Chairs Mark E. Schneider Marc J. Neveu William U. Galloway III 07/31/2020 Blacksburg, Virginia Keywords: logos, type, rational, spirit, form copyright © 2020 arian korkuti Ratiocinium in the Architectural Practice of Giuseppe Terragni & its role in the relationship between architecture and the city during the modern movements in Italy Arian Korkuti ABSTRACT The architectural practice of Giuseppe Terragni (1904 - 1943) takes place during the twentieth century modern social movements, as architecture and urban form follow a major shift in the political conditions, in Italy and beyond. This dissertation is a demonstration of the quest for the rational in the architectural practice of Giuseppe Terragni. Furthermore, it sorts out the role of Terragni’s practice in the dichotomous relationships between city and architecture as well as state and project. Initially, it is the obligation of this dissertation to address questions of principles, in order to build a plenum1 for the relationship between the city and architecture. It traces movements 1 Assembled, staged grounding from where the building erects. through translatio and transformatio of architectural impression, in form and type, and its meta2 in concinnitas,3 in terms of legacy, legitimacy,4 and the rational5 in idea.
    [Show full text]
  • In Fascist Italy
    fascism 7 (2018) 45-79 brill.com/fasc Futures Made Present: Architecture, Monument, and the Battle for the ‘Third Way’ in Fascist Italy Aristotle Kallis Keele University [email protected] Abstract During the late 1920s and 1930s, a group of Italian modernist architects, known as ‘ra- tionalists’, launched an ambitious bid for convincing Mussolini that their brand of ar- chitectural modernism was best suited to become the official art of the Fascist state (arte di stato). They produced buildings of exceptional quality and now iconic status in the annals of international architecture, as well as an even more impressive register of ideas, designs, plans, and proposals that have been recognized as visionary works. Yet, by the end of the 1930s, it was the official monumental stile littorio – classical and monumental yet abstracted and stripped-down, infused with modern and traditional ideas, pluralist and ‘willing to seek a third way between opposite sides in disputes’, the style curated so masterfully by Marcello Piacentini – that set the tone of the Fascist state’s official architectural representation. These two contrasted architectural pro- grammes, however, shared much more than what was claimed at the time and has been assumed since. They represented programmatically, ideologically, and aestheti- cally different expressions of the same profound desire to materialize in space and eternity the Fascist ‘Third Way’ future avant la lettre. In both cases, architecture (and urban planning as the scalable articulation of architecture on an urban, regional, and national territorial level) became the ‘total’ media used to signify and not just express, to shape and not just reproduce or simulate, to actively give before passively receiv- ing meaning.
    [Show full text]
  • Architecture and the Novel Under the Italian Fascist Regime
    Architecture and the Novel under the Italian Fascist Regime Francesca Billiani Laura Pennacchietti Architecture and the Novel under the Italian Fascist Regime Francesca Billiani • Laura Pennacchietti Architecture and the Novel under the Italian Fascist Regime Francesca Billiani Laura Pennacchietti School of Arts, Languages and Cultures School of Arts, Languages and Cultures University of Manchester University of Manchester Manchester, UK Manchester, UK ISBN 978-3-030-19427-7 ISBN 978-3-030-19428-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19428-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019. This book is an open access publication. Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
    [Show full text]
  • Misprision of Precedent: Design As Creative Misreading
    DAVID RIFKIND Misprision of Precedent Florida International University Design as Creative Misreading Literary critic Harold Bloom’s concept of misprision, although difficult to translate into architectural terms, offers valuable insights into one way that architects critically engage with other designers’ works through a process of creative misreading. Bloom stakes out a theory that governs both criticism and production. Misprision offers critics and historians another tool with which to explain the influence of one architect on another. The concept’s pedagogical value includes a broadened understanding of the roles that precedent studies play in the design studio. Prelude and how do we understand the process that joins The Anxiety of Influence deals chiefly with the the critical appreciation of the former to the design ways ‘‘strong poets […] clear an imaginative space We dwell with satisfaction upon the poet’s of the latter? How does a work of architecture effect for themselves’’ by creatively misreading the work difference from his predecessors, especially his changes to projects that precede it? We need to of their predecessors.5 Bloom introduces six tropes immediate predecessors; we endeavor to find adapt our as-yet insufficient vocabulary of (which he terms revisionary ratios) through which something that can be isolated in order to be precedent and analysis to account for a process best poets wrestle with precedent.6 Misprision emerges enjoyed. Whereas if we approach a poet described by literary theorist Harold Bloom with the as the most important revisionary ratio, and is without this prejudice we shall often find that term misprision. understood as a poetic misreading of source not only the best, but the most individual parts material akin to the swerve of atoms described by of his work may be those in which the dead Argument Lucretius with the term clinamen.
    [Show full text]
  • Misprision of Precedent: Design As Creative Misreading
    510 WHERE DO YOU STAND Misprision of Precedent: Design as Creative Misreading DAVID RIFKIND Florida International University PRELUDE We dwell with satisfaction upon the poet’s difference from his predecessors, especially his immediate predecessors; we endeavour to find something that can be isolated in order to be enjoyed. Whereas if we approach a poet without this prejudice we shall often find that not only the best, but the most indi- vidual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously.1 The striking compositional affinity between two photographs, taken in different decades, continents and political contexts, of two buildings that differ dramatically in size, program, site and materiality, presents a conundrum for any conventional under- Figure 1 - Peter Eisenman, House II, Hardwick, VT, 1969, standing of the relationship between a work of ar- as published in Five Architects (1972), and Giuseppe Ter- chitecture and its precedents (Figure 1). It is not ragni, Casa del Fascio, Como, 1932-36, as published in surprising that Peter Eisenman represented House Quadrante 35 (1936). II, a two-story house he designed for a couple in ARGUMENT Vermont in 1969, in a self-conscious homage to the work of Giuseppe Terragni, whose work the Ameri- Architects and historians engage architectural his- can architect studied at great length in a doctoral tory differently. Yet while historians frequently dis- dissertation completed six years earlier.2 Yet what cuss historiographic methodologies
    [Show full text]
  • Pietro Maria Bardi, Quadrante, and the Architecture of Fascist Italy
    MODERNIDADE LATINA Os Italianos e os Centros do Modernismo Latino-americano Pietro Maria Bardi, Quadrante, and the Architecture of Fascist Italy David Rifkind dedicated to Roberto Segre The short-lived cultural journal Quadrante transformed the practice of architec- ture in fascist Italy. Over the course of three years (1933-36), the magazine agitated for an “architecture of the state” that would represent the values and aspirations of the fascist regime, and in so doing it changed the language with which architects and their clientele addressed the built environment. The journal sponsored the most detailed discussion of what should constitute a suitably “fascist architecture.” Quadrante rallied supporters and organized the most prominent practitioners and benefactors of Italian Rationalism into a coherent movement that advanced the cause of specific currents of modern architecture in interwar Italy.1 My research investigates the relationship between modern architecture and fascist political practices in Italy during Benito Mussolini’s regime (1922-43). Rationalism, the Italian variant of the modern movement in architecture, was at once pluralistic and authoritarian, cosmopolitan and nationalistic, politically progressive and yet fully committed to the political program of Fascism. An exam- ination of Quadrante in its social context helps explain the relationships between the political content of an architecture that promoted itself as the appropriate expression of Fascist policies, the cultural aspirations of an architecture that drew on contemporary developments in literature and the arts, and the inter- national function of a journal that promoted Italian modernism to the rest of Europe while simultaneously exposing Italy to key developments across the Alps.
    [Show full text]
  • How Does the Aesthetic of Fascist Architecture Reflect the Nature Of
    Page | 20 How does the aesthetic of Fascist architecture reflect the nature of fascist political ideology in Italy during the years of Benito Mussolini’s regime from 1922-1943? NATHAN FALLON MHIS321 Twentieth Century Europe “ConsistenCy is not a CharacteristiC of either Italian politiCs or Italian arChiteCture.”1 Unlike other fasCist regimes suCh as the Nazi regime, Italian FasCism never offiCially endorsed a partiCular style of arChiteCtural design. Rather, under Benito Mussolini a range of different buildings were commissioned with no Coherent stylistiC preferenCe. However, despite the apparent lack of offiCial definition, Italian FasCist arChiteCture was in no way devoid of politiCal meaning.2 Through examining a range of examples of Italian state sponsored arChiteCture, it will be argued that the apparent inCoherenCy of FasCist arChiteCture is refleCtive of the plural nature of the ideology of the movement. The aesthetiC of FasCist state sponsored arChiteCture embodied and refleCted the dual vision of its politiCal ideology, with its arChiteCtural program being simultaneously an attempt to reinforce its status as the revolutionary and dynamiC progressive party of the future, manifest in the use of a modernist aesthetiC, whilst also equating FasCism with the power and prestige of the anCient Roman Empire, primarily exampled in the use of a ClassiCist aesthetiC. HenCe, it will beCome Clear that although never endorsing or developing any Coherent poliCy in regard to the arts, the plurality of FasCist ideology and tension between Conservative and progressive visions that the party embodied, was Clearly eChoed within the sphere of design and arChiteCtural expression. Political ideology of Italian Fascism In order to examine the politiCal rhetoriC within the arChiteCtural aesthetiC of the fasCist 1 Dennis P.
    [Show full text]
  • Form and Regime on Thework of Giuseppe Terragni
    FORM AND REGIME ON THE WORK OF GIUSEPPE TERRAGNI AND RICHARD MElER MICHAEL STANTON The Institute for Advanced Architectural Studies, University of Minnesota Venice Program This paperwill associate the similarworks of Richard Como's Asilo Sant'Elia or Casa del Fascio, with their Meier and Giuseppe Terragni, looking at several recent militantly disengaged rhetorical elements and projects of the former and following the comprehensive compositional caprices could easily be seen as the smaller exhibition of the latter's work at the Milan Triennale last institutional work of the same hands that shaped the year. They are paired on formal/ideological grounds, grander Barcelona building or the Canal complex in Paris. finding a similar disengagement from the tough issues This connectionmay seem farfetched. Alate 20th century that accompanied the regimes they served, making a post-modernist corporate-institutional couturier designer connection that may have been obscured by revisionist and a fanatical early 20th-century Fascist-Rationalist critiques and apparent doctrinal inconsistencies. produci~lga product so close as to dissolve the lines I recently spent a month working in the newly- between their practices and eras. Furthermore, this does completed Museum of Contemporarykt in Barcelona by not appear to be the result of imitation or perhaps even Mr. Meier's office. The Museum's antiseptic demeanor, of conscious inspiration. Mr. Meier has been identified as gorgeous linguistic reduction and pristine isolation are a follower of Le Corbusier more than of any Italian. Those indeed striking in that gritty and fluid city. But when I he leaves for Mr. Eisenman. visited the empty building another interpretation became The reason for the marked similarity of compositional evident.
    [Show full text]
  • Rationalism, Classicism, Nation a I Ism: Myth and Monument in the Third Rome
    Rationalism, Classicism, Nation a I ism: Myth and Monument in the Third Rome by Martin Thomas Troy ship between Ideology and architecture tool of national policy. However In Is encountered. Can there be a true spite of Mussolini's personal friendship Fascist architecture, whereby the with the Futurist Marinettl. and his ad· ideals of Fascism are truly expressed mitted enthusiasm for a modern Slow, incessant, inexorable, is the by architectural form? If this Is so, then aesthetic, Futurism presented a basic advance of Fascism. Fascism con· lt follows that Ideology can be a unresolved contradiction to the main structs In a Roman way, stone generator of form. The other extfeme body of nationalistic Fascist theory upon stone, Its ideal and material position on this question Is that ar· Revolutionary and destructive anti· buildings, which like the Roman chltectural form, used in the service of traditionalism ran counter to ones, will defy time. 1 an Ideology, Is merely a 'facade' behind Mussollnr s obsession with a return to Ben/to Mussolini, 1923 which Ideology can lurk, Its true secrets the 'Roman Tradition'. To Mussolini. hidden behind a screen of heroic Rome was " ... the eternal city that has gestures and monumental myths. given two civilizations to the world and ussollnl's 'March on Rome' In will yet give a third."• 1922 signalled the final over· I. Futurism and the Italian Tradition Mthrow of the old order In Italy and At this time, In the early 1920's, there the rise to power of the Fascists. The We w/11 sing the stirring of great was developing a flourishing Classicist symbolic manifestations of this 'March crowds..
    [Show full text]
  • Download File
    The Responsibilities of the Architect: Mass Production and Modernism in the Work of Marco Zanuso 1936-1972 Shantel Blakely Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2011 © 2011 Shantel Blakely All rights reserved ABSTRACT The Responsibilities of the Architect: Mass Production and Modernism in the Work of Marco Zanuso 1936-1972 Shantel Blakely The topic of this dissertation is the significance of industrial design in the work of architect Marco Zanuso (1916-2001), who lived and practiced in Milan, Italy. As a leading architect, as well as a pioneer in industrial design in the early postwar period, Zanuso was a key protagonist in the relationship of postwar Italian architecture culture to industrialization and capitalism. He is therefore an indicative figure with respect to the broader shift from Modernism to Postmodernism in architecture. Whereas previous studies of Zanuso have addressed either his architecture or his industrial design, this study traces the mutual influence of these practices in Zanuso's early work. The four chapters examine a selection of his projects to reconstruct their relationships to concurrent discourses in Italian art, architecture, and industry. In addition, the chapters show how these projects can be understood as conceptual and practical benchmarks along the way to the eventual realization of a continuum of design from small to large scale, and especially an architecture in which the serial nature of mass production would be explicit. The first chapter, whose topic is Zanuso's relationship to Italian modern architecture between the two World Wars, relates his embrace of mass-production around 1946, in essays on prefabricated architecture, to his student work in the 1930s and to his first projects during Reconstruction, emphasizing the influence of the Gruppo 7, Giuseppe Pagano, and Ernesto Nathan Rogers.
    [Show full text]