Oral history interview with Pietro Belluschi, 1983 August 22-September 4 Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a tape-recorded interview with Pietro Belluschi on August 22 & 23 and September 4, 1983. The interview took place in Portland, Oregon, and was conducted by Meredith L. Clausen for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution as part of the Northwest Oral History Project. Interview MEREDITH L. CLAUSEN: Mr. Belluschi, you were born in Ancona, Italy, 1899? PIETRO BELLUSCHI: Yes. 1899, last week [referring to his birthday--Ed.]. August 18, so that's [84 years old--Ed.]. MEREDITH L. CLAUSEN: What sort of town was it? PIETRO BELLUSCHI: An average size town on the Adriatic Sea. But the roots of my family are in Lombardy near the Lake of Como. Looking back in history, what we have of it, there are records of a lady by the name of Teresa Lucini born in 1750 who was the mother of my great-grandfather. From that point, every person has been identified including my great-grandfather, my grandfather, and of course my father. Before that there are records of the Belluschi family, and there is a Belluscho, a little town between Milan and Bergamo, where the family lived for many centuries. Also there was a Belluschi bishop in 9th century. There is a gap of about 150 years or so between records. My father was employed by a private railroad company called the Adriatica. He was in charge of acquiring land to build the railroad. My great-grandfather happened to be the first man that got killed in a railroad accident, in the 1830s when the railroad was just being invented. Later my grandfather, my father, and my uncle were all employed by the same railroad company. The headquarters of the company at the end of the last century were in Ancona where I was born. MEREDITH L. CLAUSEN: About how large is it? PIETRO BELLUSCHI: Well, it's about I'd say 100,000, maybe 120,000. Ten or twelve years ago I was asked to design a new university campus in Ancona, so I had a chance to visit. I went to see the apartment where I was born, the room where I was born. At that time, you didn't go to the hospital, you just had the babies at home. MEREDITH L. CLAUSEN: And how long was it that you were there? PIETRO BELLUSCHI: I was born there in 1899, and left in the fall of 1905. And from that year on I was in Rome with exception of three years, when I lived in Bologna, between 1911 and 1913. MEREDITH L. CLAUSEN: And what took you to Bologna? PIETRO BELLUSCHI: My father had been transferred there by the railroad company when it was purchased by the state, so I lived in Bologna and went to school there before going back to Rome. Then there was the first World War, in which I was involved for three years. So my having been born in Ancona is sort of a fluke, as my forefathers had all lived in Lombardy, which was the land conquered by the Longobard over a thousand years ago. I don't know exactly where they came from originally, perhaps from Germany. To this day Lombards are somewhat different from other Italians. Milan is a very lively city, almost like an American city; there's a great deal of activity and people are very efficient and hard working-- quite different from the Florentines, or the Romans. In Italy, they're very conscious of the province where you come from, because over the centuries each developed a unity of language and character and blood, which provided the characteristics of that particular region. In Milan, they were entrepreneurs, business people, and money lenders. MEREDITH L. CLAUSEN: When you think of your childhood experiences, do you remember most fondly those in Rome or Ancona? PIETRO BELLUSCHI: I have some detached recollections of Ancona, and although I left when I was six, when I went back I knew exactly the map of the city. I knew where a certain church was and the main street, avenues, and plazas where I used to run and play. MEREDITH L. CLAUSEN: So it's the physical. .. PIETRO BELLUSCHI: But Rome is really the place where I grew up, where my basic character was formed. [Earlier in Ancona, when my--Ed.] parents took me for a walk, I went to the opposite side of the street to show that I was independent. I was three or four years old! And I often disappeared so they couldn't find me; I wanted to be on my own. MEREDITH L. CLAUSEN: Were you interested at that time in the physical aspect of the city? PIETRO BELLUSCHI: Yeah. The physical world of course interested me. I didn't know much aesthetically as a child, but I had strong visual impressions, a memory of the church, a statue of the Pope when I was ____, and I remember colors and texture of buildings and things like that. MEREDITH L. CLAUSEN: Were either of your parents artistic? PIETRO BELLUSCHI: My grandfathers on both sides were interested in drawing. Both were very good. My father was not inclined that way, nor was my mother. MEREDITH L. CLAUSEN: Were you close to your grandparents? PIETRO BELLUSCHI: No, I was not close. My mother's father disliked children. He died when I was three or four years old, and he never wished to see me. My father's parents died before I was born, but my grandfather went to the Academy of Fine Arts at Milan. He was so gifted and made such beautiful drawings. One of his sons-- my father's brother, the youngest one -- also had a gift, but I wouldn't call it artistic. Some people are born with manual dexterity which is not the same thing as being imaginative or creative, but it helps. As a young man I was fascinated in _____ Catholic Church. MEREDITH L. CLAUSEN: Were you raised Catholic? PIETRO BELLUSCHI: Oh very, yeah. My father and mother were very religious, but my grandmother was more so than anyone else. She used to give me copper coins to go to church, and I hated it. I hated the externals of the church, what in later years I regarded as being its strength: its appeal to all the senses, including incense for the smell and all the sculpture and paintings and the colors and the architecture and the music and so on. It really made a point to make religion interesting to all our senses. But that appeared to me to be a trick to get me to accept the catechism as it was taught by rather dull priests. That was at an early age when I was nine or ten. I suppose my grandmother's fanaticism made me react in a negative way; Santa Theresa of Avila, mysticism, miracles, and other irrational happenings did not convince my inquiring mind. Had I not been born in an environment where religion played such an important part, I probably wouldn't have been so skeptical. MEREDITH L. CLAUSEN: Was there anything in the architecture at the time, or about church architecture, that particularly drew you or engaged your attention, or was that just a general kind of background? PIETRO BELLUSCHI: Just the background, and I was not very conscious of it. I can still see the church of my youth in Bologna, as every church I've been to. Without knowing it, I had the sense of space as well as sense of smell and color. I remember the lighted candles, which look very beautiful as a decoration, but I didn't at that time realize it, and I was not able to analyze any of those feelings. Only later, in my teens, I became aware of beauty. MEREDITH L. CLAUSEN: What about the move to Rome? What were your impressions of Rome? page break here PIETRO BELLUSCHI: Well, Rome was and still is a very beautiful city. I've been there almost every year since 1951, mostly to visit my mother who lived in Rome where she died at age 97. However, I must say that Rome now is not the same city I remember in my youth. It's smelly and dirty. People no longer walk; they drive at great speed. The ever-present automobile has raised havoc with the city-- pollution, congestion, added to social turmoil, Red Flags parades, the taking over of fancy hotels, and turning them into slums in no time, a rash of kidnapping and street crimes -- it is all sad to contemplate. Just last February, the young son of a very good friend of mine was kidnapped to be released more than six months later after paying $2million ransom. Perhaps all this is symptomatic of the unhappiness of a country that has no basic natural wealth and too many people who must work and eat. MEREDITH L. CLAUSEN: Well, you as a child were happy to use. ..? PIETRO BELLUSCHI: I was there until I was 24. At that time the lessons were spent there, earlier lessons in Bologna. It was in Rome that I made most of my good friends. So I like to go back to Rome where my best recollections are, but my desire is to visit the central part of Italy which is still beautiful and less spoiled.