The exhibition was organized within the framework of the "Week of Italy on Red October" by the National Institute of Architecture of Italy In / Arch with the financial support of the "Italian Quarter" company. The exhibition is curated by the secretaries of the Institute In / Arch Francesco Orofino and Massimo Locci, and for the first time it was shown at the XII Biennale of Architecture in Venice as part of its special program; thus, in Moscow now you can see a small piece of last year's biennale. Sipping lat macchiato in the spacious (and cool) hall of Red October, you can even feel like you are in Italy for a short while.
"Architecture. Merging of design and business”- says the inscription on the lattice made of a simple fence netting of the chain-link, painted in white and stretched in two layers on a simple wooden frame; something similar can be seen at a very civilized construction site. The lattice covers a small square in the vast space of the "Chocolate Shop" of Krasny Oktyabr - on the walls formed there are 29 large photographs in chronological order: starting with black and white, 1950, and ending with our time. In the center is a large wooden model of the northeastern suburb of Rome.
“The mission of the Institute In / Arch is to unite architects, designers, customers, media and other professionals. Therefore, the formation of In / Arch is directly related to the development of the architectural history of Italy,”the curators are sure. The project shown at the exhibition is a textbook, it is included in the curriculum: it is a project for the reconstruction of Rome, developed in the 1960s by the architects of the ASSE bureau (it is represented by a large architectural model made of wood). The goal of this large-scale project was to transfer part of the administrative and industrial facilities from the historical center to the northeastern suburb of Rome, where at the time of design there were one and a half thousand hectares of fields and pastures. Thus, it was planned to free the historic center of Rome from a number of urban functions through the urbanization of the suburbs. Accordingly, railway stations appeared to efficiently connect this suburb with the center in the center of Rome.
Some of the buildings designed by ASSE architects for this project continue to this day. And, although the project was never fully implemented, it became a textbook - because it radically changed the approach to the city as a whole. The curator of the exhibition Francesco Orofino told about this at his lecture, which took place at the "Red October" last Saturday. According to Orofino, the work of Bruno Zevi, Lucho Pissareli and other architects of the ASSE bureau within the framework of the project for the redevelopment of the northern suburbs of Rome, established an inextricable link between design and business: the first provides a creative component, the second - a practical one. Together they form a new urbanistic approach to architecture that remains the only true one today. According to Orofino, in the original version of the XII Biennale, the title of the exhibition, for greater clarity, was even supplemented with the subtitle “Strategic Alliance for Quality” - it was invented by Bruno Dzevi himself.
The uniqueness of the Roman project of the ASSE bureau also lies in the fact that it began to be carried out in the 60s on the initiative of young architects without any state support. “First, developers joined the implementation, then business structures, and finally. last but not least, the city administration,”emphasizes Francesco.
Another characteristic feature of the curator is disegno unitario - the uniformity of the architectural approach. The architects approached the urban transformation of Rome in a complex manner: the construction of a residential area was planned along with infrastructure, shopping centers and administrative buildings. In order to avoid the creation of traditional point centers in the new northern suburbs of Rome, the architects proposed to concentrate the main objects along the axis directed east of the city. According to Orofino, axial development (creating a chord) is effective for the reconstruction of cities with a radial-ring system, such as Moscow and Rome.
Subsequently, the architectural bureau ASSE developed urban projects for other Italian cities. Some of them have already been completed: this is Gallaratese in Milan or the bridge over the Bazento river in Potenza. Others are still ongoing, such as the cable-stayed bridge over the Po River in Piacenza and the expansion project of the Bocconi University in Milan. Among the works of ASSE there are many objects of transport infrastructure: in particular, the interchange in Naples and the Cattinara overpass in Trieste.
“We brought this exposition not as a guide to action, but in order to jointly decide how successful the projects were,” admits Massimo Locci. A 1982 photograph of Naples shows the business district taken from a field. The curator assures that the project has not yet been completed and the business area is still adjacent to the undeveloped site. Massimo contrasts this case with other, more successful examples of transformation.
During his lecture, Francesco Orofino drew attention to the importance of the union of architecture and business. Due to its underestimation in Italy, as well as in Russia, changes in the urban environment have been chaotic for a long time. The curator emphasized that aesthetics in the modern architectural language is formed by the creative component, together with social responsibility and financial support. However, when the gaze slides over the glass surface of the Parc Muzyka auditorium and the internal structure of the bridge over Bazento, thoughts lose their rationality. And in the head of a visitor leaving the hall, filled with a tart smell, rather than pragmatic calculations, but a free quote by Le Corbuzet, given by Francesco: “Architecture and happiness are not far from each other. Only happy people create architecture."
