So good afternoon and welcome.
It's really great to be able
to welcome you all, especially
our speakers.
I'm sure that people
will be coming in.
It's 1 o'clock, so
they'll sort of trickle in
throughout the afternoon.
This seems to be-- the last
couple of years-- the year
of centenaries.
Last year we celebrated
the centenary
of IM Pei, which was
really fantastic.
And I'm glad to
report that he's still
going strong, which is great.
And this year, there
is the centenary
of Paul Rudolph, and of
course, Bruno Zevi, who we
are celebrating this afternoon.
This is an event that's
sponsored by the Walter Gropius
Lecture Fund, which is
very appropriate given
that Zevi studied here during
the time of Walter Gropius.
And I'm sure things could be
said about that relationship
as well when he was
here in the '40s.
Just before we start, I want
to also just remind everyone
that there will be a noontime
talk given by Elisa Silva,
one of the faculty
who's teaching an option
studio in landscape
architecture on Monday.
And next Thursday on November 1,
as part of the fall open house,
the evening of the advanced
studies programs presentation,
Irma Boom will be
here from Amsterdam
to do that evening lecture.
And Irma has recently
been working very closely
with Rem Koolhaas on a mega
publication project, which
is now the kind of
reincarnation of all
the research on elements.
And a really amazing
new book has now
been published by Taschen.
So Irma will be talking about
that, the work of GSD students,
and her own work, which
is really, I'm sure,
going to be something
very, very special.
This event really started
with Jean-Louis Cohen.
This is essentially-- today's
event is his brainchild.
It's a conversation that started
maybe some three years ago.
Since then, there's
been a great exhibition
that also Jean-Louis
and Pippo Ciorra who
is the curator at MAXXI
have been involved
with, and also has resulted in
this book, Zevi's Architechts.
History and Counter-History of
Italian Architecture 1944-2000,
which I recommend to you.
And many of our
speakers are also
authors of various
essays in this book.
I think this is also really
an interesting moment
to be looking at
the work of Zevi.
I was fortunate enough to
spend quite a bit of time
at the exhibition with people.
And it's a really
wonderful exhibition
that shows Zevi as a historian,
a critic, a protagonist
of architecture,
and someone who also
made very special exhibitions.
It was really interesting
to see his early exhibitions
and the design of
the exhibition,
and the quality
of the exhibition
looking at the
architectural history.
And of course, knowing
that he was constantly
connecting history to
the present, so to speak,
and connecting modernism
to that history.
Zevi came here during the war
years as a Jewish architect.
It was also very
important that he was here
during the war years.
And I think that
that is something
that I'm sure you'll
hear about, and it's
very present in his
work and in his ideas,
especially seeing really,
some of the later preferences
and projects, where he's
looking at Danny Libeskind
and becoming-- in a
way I felt much more
conscious of his own Jewish
identity, much more explicitly.
So very, very complicated
and complex character.
But the fact that he was so
outspoken about architecture
and really trying to communicate
architecture with others,
this is why we also use
essentially the subtitle of one
of his books to speak about this
idea of how to see architecture
from his subtitle where he says
how to look at architecture.
And this specific way of
trying to communicate maybe
to non-architects,
the way in which,
the manner in which one
has to actually look
at contemporary architecture.
And his commitment to sort of
making new architecture, which
is so present in the
exhibition, where basically many
of the people that he supported
are being beautifully presented
through photographs and models.
And so that's also
an aspect of Zevi
that we don't really
know so much about,
that Zevi's intellectual
project is also
manifested through a
vast body of projects.
And I think that
would be fantastic
for us to become more
familiar in a way
with the work of those
Italian architects.
Many of them known, but many of
them not so well known to us.
Clearly when he was
here, the work and focus
on Frank Lloyd Wright was one
thing that impressed him a lot,
and his focus on
organic architecture.
So there are many complex
dimensions to his work.
And I'm really looking
forward to our two panels that
will be discussing this work.
The first panel will be
moderated by Michael Hayes.
And he will introduce
the speakers,
so I won't introduce them.
And the second panel
by Tony Vidler.
We're really happy
that the two of you
have agreed to moderate
these two sessions.
Michael, of course,
needs no introduction.
He's been part of the school,
and such an important part
of the school, and
part of our thinking
about architectural
history and theory.
And of course Tony, really
an amazing historian.
So influential.
Involved at many
schools from the UK,
to Princeton, to UCLA,
to Cornell, to Cooper.
And so we are very happy--
[inaudible]
So we're very happy
that he is here with us.
And we love reading
your work and we're
very happy that you're here.
So please welcome
Michael Hayes, who
will introduce the first panel.
Thank you.
[applause]
Thanks Mohsen.
Just first, some quick thanks.
To Paige Johnston for helping--
for organizing this,
working very hard
with the communications program.
Dan Borelli and
Ines Zalduendo have
made a fantastic
exhibition of publications
related to Zevi,
to his time here,
which I encourage you to see.
The rare books are
just being installed
as we speak because they
had to have a cover.
But they'll be available
during the conference.
The fact is that Zevi isn't
that much discussed at the GSD.
And I think one
of the things that
will be important about this
conference is first of all,
to change that.
And second of all,
but it might be worth
pondering as we go along
why this has been the case.
Because I think
some of the things
that the speakers will
elucidate will actually
both answer why that
has been the case
and why it should change.
So this is what I hope.
And I just want to say a
bit about the teaching of--
think a little bit about
the teaching at the GSD
and why Zevi has not been
more part of that discourse.
I mean for example, someone
like Rudolf Wittkower,
we still read the humanists
book, mainly for the chapters
on Alberti and Palladio.
And I think the reason is,
that in a professional school
and because of the
ethos of the GSD,
there is a sort of sophisticated
formalism in Wittkover.
But also the notion of
architecture as a project
in the Alberti chapter--
well, both-- this
idea that architecture
is a project that can go over
an entire career and develop
is something that really
resonates with our students.
I would even go so far to say
that though Colin Rowe is still
known and read, it's certainly
not because of Collage City,
it's because of the fact that
he's a student of Wittkower
here.
It's a different take on
him than our generation had.
We read [inaudible] for
Le Corbusier to start,
and then we use Jean-Louis
Taschen book, for example.
We don't read Rowe so
much on Le Corbusier.
Banham students love Banham now.
The picture of him in
the environmental bubble
just drive them crazy.
His attention to gadgets
and gizmos and LA,
he's become for the
millennials what Tafuri was,
I think, for us.
They're a kind of
role model, almost.
I'm thinking mainly not just
about the PhD students who
are studying history, but
even for the design students.
But it's still Tafuri
here that's regarded as--
he's taken very seriously
as a Marxist theorist,
as a dialectical materialist,
and studied for that as well as
for being a brilliant historian.
And I think Tafuri, in a way,
helped eclipse Zevi in a way.
So I think that to--
I just want to point out two
things before I introduce
the first panel to think about.
Zevi's association
is mostly mentioned
with Frank Lloyd Wright.
And the way that he
uses Wright in some ways
to build the theory of
organic architecture
that is his claim to
fame, at least in America.
And it'll be very interesting
to hear how much more complex,
in fact, his writings are
than just about Frank Lloyd
Wright in organic architecture.
But I do think that
that's the first point,
for us, even if we want
to know about Wright,
we would go first to Hitchcock.
But then here teaching
is Joe Connors
for the villa-- for the
houses, and Neil Levine.
So we don't read
Zevi for Wright.
But then we also don't read
Zevi for how he writes, somehow.
And I the comment
that just a bit.
He tended to be
less sophisticated.
But I think what the
audience will find out--
and I did know, and I
think we don't know--
not because of lack of
capacity, but actually--
because he was quite capable--
but he wanted his
writing to be accessible.
He wanted to be heard, he
wanted to be understood.
The book, Saber Ver
La Arquitecture--
which in English goes to
Architecture as Space,
How to Look at Architecture--
this is what Roberto Dulio--
who unfortunately
couldn't join us today--
said.
He said that the book
was a brilliant synthesis
between the pragmatic dimension
of an American textbook
and the interpretational
space in the European art
historical tradition.
And I think that pragmatism is
something that maybe is worth
thinking about with Zevi.
He wanted to be
understood because he
wanted to make a difference.
He wanted his work on
history to have an effect
in the [non-english],, in the
current in the current action,
in the contingent action.
Zevi's writings were
actually complex.
And we'll see here that
in the first panel,
as also were his influences.
Daria Ricchi is going to
talk about Zevi's writing
in the context of various modes
of narrative fictional writing
in Italy oriented
toward the future,
including the writings,
for example, of Argan.
We also read Argan here.
I mean, just so you know.
But also, Italo
Calvino, for example.
I think that this is
not a well-known story
that Daria will give us.
His work can be quite polemical.
Organic architecture
is actually, for him,
a political architecture.
It's an architecture
for democracy.
And it's not the just
cliched bland democracy,
it's antifascist.
This is the real--
this this is the real importance
of democracy at his time.
His writing is-- the
politics of his writing come
from close formal
looking, but also
prescriptions of polygons
instead of square grids,
heterogeneous materials.
And in place of sort of
neo-Cartesian, neoclassical
stone and stucco, it's something
much more heterogeneous.
Pippo Ciorra will talk
about Zevi's navigation
of the politics
of Cold War space,
and of architecture and
urbanism as agents of democracy.
So let me introduce our
first two panelists.
Pippo Ciorra, as Mohsen
said, was the curator--
he is the curator and organized
with Jean-Louis at MAXXI
in Rome just this year,
the exhibition Bruno Zevi,
Storia e controstoria
dell'architettura.
He is an architect, a
critic and educator.
He was a member of the
editorial board of Casabella
up until just a few
years ago, teaches
design and theory
at the University
of Camerino, and he's
director of the PhD program
at the Institute in Venice.
In 2011, he
published an overview
of the conditions
of architecture
in Italy entitled
Senza Architettura,
le ragioni per una crisi,
the reason for the crises.
He's the author of
a number of books,
including some
monographs-- including
a monograph on Peter
Eisenman, as well as Quaroni,
as well as the
publications on photography
and contemporary work.
Daria Ricchi did her PhD
in history and theory
at Princeton University.
Her dissertation, which
of course includes Zevi,
focused on architecture
historiography,
but as a kind of literary
genre, or in the context
of literary genre in the
middle of the 20th century.
Figures as I said, like Argon,
Italo Calvino, and many others,
as well as Bruno Zevi.
Her research interest also
include modern contemporary art
and architecture
in popular culture.
She just finished a
post-doctorate at Yale,
where she's working on this
project and also a new project
studying the writings of
the novelist Edith Wharton.
So I invite Pippo
first, and then Daria.
Welcome.
[applause]
So I-- do I manage
from here, no?
I think the green.
Yeah.
I have no-- no digits here.
Just put-- or you could just--
Yeah, but this should--
but it needs to--
yeah.
Oh, sorry.
How do I go back?
Yeah.
So, 15 minutes are very
quick, so I will be running.
I am not going to
read, I'm sorry.
I'm Italian, I belong to
the lowest level of humanity
curators, so I'm excused.
[laughter]
But to say a few things in 15
minutes, I need to be sharp.
So we did this-- none of us,
not Jean-Louis or I, maybe
none of us come from
that Zevi environment.
We are all more
or less Tafurian.
I studied in Venice.
So we had to
rebuild our history,
and redo our recognition and
investigation on our running
story to understand why it would
be important and make sense
to study Zevi and to do
an exhibition on Zevi
today, besides the pleasure
of fighting one year a day
with Adachiara, Zevi's
daughter every day.
[inaudible]
So my idea was to--
for this conference-- was to
understand why Zevi is still
important today,
because Italy is still
the result of a post-war
series of events, and ideas,
and positions which
is very strong
conditioning the situation of
architecture in all the country
today.
So Zevi is only a way
to investigate the--
I'm a curator, so
I have this type
of thing of being somehow
a presentist, the worst
possible thing in the world.
So I want to read Zevi to
understand what happens now
to us, and to me.
And so my secret
curatorial agenda
for the exhibition, which was
interesting, and its exhibition
was important because
Zevi is a different way
to look at the history
of Italian architecture.
As Mohsen said, many
of you don't even
know many of the
architects we discovered
that are very
interesting, and they were
of course shadowed by Tafuri.
The second thing was
this incredible power
that Zevi developed in terms
of communicating architecture,
redefining all the
medias, all the languages.
And the third one
is of course, is
investigation of the
power of historiography
as an agent in society.
But then there was my
fourth secret point,
which was to use
Zevi to understand
why we don't have in very
good shape for architecture
today in Italy.
And somehow the situation
which blocked him,
which really was its failure,
so we talked about the failure
today, is still somehow
operating in our situation.
Forgive me for my English.
Four premises to
understand this frame,
the first one is this obsession
with the word politics
that you find today in every
conference, every student's
thesis, every
architecture essay.
Sometimes it makes
sense, sometimes
it does not make sense.
But there is definitely an
obsession in this field.
The second point is to remember,
to remind you that Italy
was a kind of a Cold War lab.
Because you had a super strong
right wing Catholic party,
and a super strong--
that you wouldn't find in
any other country in Europe--
Communist Party.
So the Cold War
was in the country,
and we were also on
the border of the West.
So the presence of the Cold
War was very, very strong,
and it was communicated in
a very colorful way, also.
You see there Aldo Moro
and [inaudible] Berlinguer,
when finally in 1978, made
a coalition government
between the Communist Party
and the Christian Democrat
party, which was exactly the
squeezing condition for Zevi's
ideology of this
secular liberal state.
The third point is of
course the politicization
of Italian architecture.
We know from the beginning, you
all have read Jean-Louis books.
I mean, all of you
have written on this.
We know that we
could not understand
a sort of Italian
architecture if we
don't look at it through the
frame of political ideas.
My first books were probably
[inaudible] Tafuri on Quaroni.
Tafuri would made a professor
by Zevi and Quaroni,
that's interesting.
And Porta and Bonfanti, a very
bad book, but with a lot of
informations on BBPR.
The last and problematic
issue is that today, we still
have to face suffering,
bad condition
for Italian architecture.
It's not a good country
for young architects.
There's not a good
place for architect
to be considered from society.
So for me, the reasons of
this suffering condition
are still to be found in the
beginning of this history
in the early post-war times.
Or we have no
architecture, or we
have very little architecture.
Sometimes architecture
we could discuss.
But the only thing people
know around the world
about Italian architecture today
is our majesty, Renzo Piano,
and the vertical
forest by Stefano.
The third point is,
Zevi has of course--
as Michael was saying before--
has a proyecto historico.
Proyecto historico is a
sentence we learn with Tafuri,
but actually Zevi has a very
strong proyecto historico.
And his proyecto
historico was exactly
in between politics
and architecture.
It was shaped by an
ideological development
he had while he was in America,
in the years he was in Harvard.
Six months in New York and
then three years in Harvard
working with these
people that were
the only kind of
liberal, really liberal
democratic socialist people in
Italy, they didn't want to stay
nor with the right
wing Catholics,
neither with the communists.
So that's where Zevi
wants to position himself.
And Saber Ver La Arquitectura
is the architectural translation
of this point of view,
looking at architecture trying
to squeeze between the
tradition of classicism,
and let's say the fascist
legacy in architecture.
And on the other side, this
hyper-functionalist legacy
coming from Le Corbusier,
which he didn't like at all
in the end, or he liked it.
And the result of all this,
the synthesis of all this
of was course, this
idea of organic,
an idea of organic which was
not there actually in America.
But it's an idea of
organic is shaped
giving his own reading of Frank
Lloyd Wright, reading which
was not present in America
I would say, even in the GSD
at the time.
But organic architecture
for him was exactly--
in 1938, Zevi gives his
first public speech at this
[non-english],, the fascist
university meeting.
And he finds this way to
say things he could not
say by supporting medieval
architecture as the solution
to this fight between
modern and traditional.
Organic becomes the next step.
Organic is, for
him, the solution
of this opposition between the
modern and the traditional.
This project, which
is the project that
want to transform Italy into
a democratic liberal country
will be a failure.
We all know it
will be a failure.
Of course, it will not be
a failure only for Zevi,
but it will be a failure for an
import bunch of intellectuals
like Olivetti--
which we see here
with Bruno Zevi--
like Bobbio, like all
the Italian, secular,
progressive, liberal group
of people that we're trying
to define a country which
had not to be yielding
not to the Vatican
and neither to the
communist side.
So it was a big
defeat, but it was
the defeat of a group which had
their own political project.
Comunita, of course
by Olivetti, started
as a cultural, architectural,
sociological magazine
and becomes a
political movement.
Il Mondo [inaudible] was a super
interesting, super interesting
newspaper, which was
really representing
the position of the of the only
people which [inaudible] didn't
want to take a place between
the right and the left.
And Zevi was going together
with all these people.
But this political project,
this hypothesis collapse
was defeated completely.
But this kind of
strange oppositions
alliance that there was
between the right wing
and the left wing,
Togliatti and De Gasperi,
the two major figures
of post-war Italy.
The one-- De
Gasperi, representing
the Catholic tradition, an
incredibly powerful presence
of the Vatican in the definition
of the political projects
in Italy.
And on the other
side, Togliatti,
which was trying to shape--
already trying to shape
the Italian Communist Party
with some difference compared to
the Stalinist elections coming
from Moscow.
So these two political areas
invaded the whole field
and basically left no
room, no possibility
for this kind of liberal
democratic project,
which was Zevi's ideas.
But the interesting thing
is that the same phenomena
we can see in politics basically
happened also in architecture.
This idea of an
architecture of democracy,
of an architecture of genius
and talented architects
who would build
beautiful buildings,
engaging the concept of space--
because Zevi is very
much about space--
was never really
winning in Italy.
You had two possibility.
On one side you have Luigi
Moretti building the Watergate
here.
And Luigi Moretti was
the favorite architect
of this right wing
Vatican fueled developers,
the [inaudible] and many other
companies that were basically
building the country.
Or on the other side, you
had the Venetian utopia.
So Venezia and
this idea of, no to
the intellectual individuality,
no to the genius,
yes to the design of the
city, yes you utopia.
Yes, I mean-- we
are very, very--
we're cutting very hard
because of the time.
And Tafuri has a
clear way to dismiss.
Tafuri always pulled some words
to dismiss this project using
this terrible word,
terzaforzista,
which means somebody which is
in between the two major lines.
And it's a word they
always used with contempt.
Intelligencija is another
slight message of contempt.
So this idea for Tafuri,
that these people would not
take position pro or
against Marxism, or pro
or against the
Catholic project was
for him, a sign of a
non-possible political,
architectural, and
aesthetic project.
And so for Tafuri, the
Olivetti is a problem,
Zevi is a problem,
Bobbio is a problem.
Echo at a certain
point is a problem.
I mean, Vittorini of course,
writes a lot and very well
about this.
But I think this is at the
same time, the collapse
of the political
project which is still
a problem for my country.
And the collapse of an
aesthetic and professional
project that Zevi
was carring on.
So I think it's very
interesting to reread
the history of
Italian architecture
through Zavi's frame,
because it allows us--
it helps us to bring out,
to make these things very,
very, very visible.
Of course, Zevi was failed.
I mean, Zevi's failure was
luckily then a very productive
failure, because he was a super
activist, an incredible agent
in many [? world. ?]
In 10 meters of
our exhibition, we
find the work of a
critic supporting
the project of transit, of
somebody running for elections,
somebody writing
books, an educator who
leaves the university 15
years in advance, and so on.
So Zevi is a lot of things.
That's why it's difficult
to compress it into a frame
or into a slogan.
But I think the most
interesting part--
I think both
Jean-Louis and I have
been accused of dismissing
a little bit the last period
of his life, which we
somehow did consciously.
I think for us, the
most interesting part
goes from Metron,
so 1945, to when he
leaves the school, 1978, 1980.
So the big success of
post-modernism in Italy, which
was a personal defeat for him.
But then he was--
it was using all the medias.
Now that's very
interesting, because he
was active in all the
architectural medias.
Reviews, writing on newspapers
and weekly magazines,
he's been writing on a spread,
so for [non-english],, 50 years,
[non-english] of columns.
Associations, now
the funding of CICA,
we see [inaudible] also here.
Operative criticism,
there's no time
here to start this discussion.
But this would be a
very interesting one.
Q rating, I think Zevi was
the first one in Italy who
was doing historical
exhibition in a curatorial way,
in a completely different
way there was before,
like deconstructing the work
of Brunelleschi, Michelangelo,
Biagio Rossetti, and turning
it into something else.
Broadcasting, he founded
the-- three months
after free television
was allowed in Italy,
Zevi opened his own
television and he broadcasted
for three years from his house.
That's the antenna on his house.
Then running two elections,
then communicating.
Now we also--
[inaudible],, and
[? petra, ?] and [inaudible],,
wonderfully laying
on a bed in Venice.
But Zevi was already laying
on a bed in television
with Amanda Lear
20 years before.
Then the last part,
since we are at the end.
What happens in 1978?
Zevi leaves the
university, [inaudible]..
Zevi gets mad because he thinks
that postmodernism is exactly
the form in which society
and architecture is defeating
his project.
And it becomes even more
polemic, more against,
more running.
So just to close, three phases
in his work, I would say.
The first phase in his critical
work goes from '45 to '59
and it's when he
loves the architects
that everybody loves.
I mean, you would
find them, Casabella,
the same architects you
would find on Metron.
Then the second period, which
is more interesting I think
for us, from when he opens
[inaudible] to the end
of the '60s when he
released this cunning
and scouting for super
interesting architects that
were not accepted in
the court of Tafuri.
And then the last part,
which is more or less a mess
and where he kind of endures
the new architecture from a very
strange point of view.
Sometimes more religious
than architectural.
That's it.
This is only a few dates--
I mean, this is Italy today.
And I think this political
situation is still
the problem of these things
we've been discussing.
Now and a few moments,
and then I close.
'45, the foundation of
APAO, super important.
And APAO-- I mean, when I
went through a few things
in this last year, I thought
that the modern [inaudible]
of APAO was the [inaudible],,
because Zevi was
six months of the [inaudible].
And APAO is a school, a
journal, and an association.
So I think there is a link.
1948, Zevi goes to
Venice invited by Samona.
Samona is putting up a new IUAV.
And it's a IUAV
which is extremely
different by the one
that would be then shaped
by Tafuri from 1964.
And then I thought we could
do this lecture of the three
ways of being Venetians, which
I think we should do once.
Then in 1960s, he founds
the Instituto di Storia,
and is the one who puts
Tafuri on the chair in Venice.
1951, '54, La
Martella, the Martella,
it's both the biggest success
of this Olivetti [inaudible]
for architecture, but
also the big defeat
of a political project
for the country.
This is Zevi on the side where
they were opening the village.
I think La Martella is an
underestimated project which
should be studied longer.
For me, it reminded me of some
other things, very interesting
that were happening in the
world in the same time.
And I think we should
spend some times on that.
'59 is the foundation of Inarch.
Inarch is very important, I
am sorry, because it's the--
Inarch session in Eric is
proposing to the architects
to build an alliance
with developers.
I mean, on one side, you
have the Venetian school,
the public client, the
Italy of the peripheral,
the suburban buildings.
Zevi was inviting the
architects and the investors
together in Inarch because
he thought that there would
be an alliance,
and this alliance
would produce good
architecture and democracy.
The Studioasse, this is
another incredible story
of the jam session of the most
interesting Roman architects
trying to build the city
with one project in 1967.
It's probably the
last moment when
Zevi was at the center of
the discussion for Rome,
but also for the country.
And then in 1978, he
leaves the university
15 years before retirement.
And a good way for optimism,
and I leave the chair.
And then he becomes a senator.
And he becomes a senator
in the same election
was the famous porno star,
and in the same party
with the famous porno
star, Cicciolina.
This is the exhibition.
I thank you.
Sorry for running
in this crazy way,
but I thought it could be
a nice frame for your more
sophisticated papers.
Grazie.
[applause]
[speaking italian]
[inaudible]
Somewhere in the same--
well, where is the book?
The catalog?
[inaudible]
But there was an--
[laughter]
Same topic.
It was-- well, it was more
like-- it was like [inaudible]..
But then it--
[laughter]
Yes, yes.
One direction.
[interposing voices]
But then it's exactly
the same, right?
That the--
[inaudible] directions.
Exactly.
I'm actually talking
about the first period
which is very political.
As you've seen, Zevi
was always political.
And I'm not touching
about politics at all.
So I'm really the counterpart.
Because Zevi wanted to study
literature and his father
wanted him to
become an engineer.
So probably
architecture-- thank you--
and writing about architecture
was a good compromise.
So my paper focus on
his early writing.
And what I basically took as
a trilogy, his different tones
and style, and mainly
how it was basically
part of a cultural
panorama in Italy.
So basically, starting in
between the two World Wars,
Zevi published
three seminal books.
1945 is Verso
un'architettura organica,
translating in Towards an
Organic Architechture in 1950.
Saper vedere in '48, translate
in Architecture as Space, 1957.
And finally, Storia
dell'architettura moderna,
1950, that's exactly when the
first period of Zevi ends,
which was never
translated into English,
but for instance in Spanish.
So the three books were
all published by Einaudi,
his [? business ?] intern.
And this demonstrated
[inaudible]
would change in historical
narratives in just two decades.
That happened not in
architecture history,
but also in literature,
again, in Italy.
And so Zevi turned the writing
of architecture history
into critical
practice, one in which
different narrative
modes are intertwined
with the making of history.
And in other words, with
social and political events.
But again, it's not only
related to his work.
So first, history is narrated as
myth, as an idealized reality.
For Zevi, this is the myth
of America pre-World War II,
a new democratic world, and
the architect of pioneers.
And here is seen as right.
Second is Saper
vedere, data which
is more a textbook, a guide
to instruct a wider audience.
The historian becomes a
guide who educates and inform
a larger public, not only
a specialized audience,
but also those general
interested in architecture.
So my mom read this book.
Finally, and not without
coincidence, after the war,
public needed certainties.
So Zevi aimed to write this
reassuring and comprehensive
story and covered
200 years of history.
And again, he published this
with the touring base, and now
the publishing
house that basically
intended to target a wider
public, not only architect.
And similarly
basically, Zevi was
creating a architectural series
for the publishing house,
and having a scientific rigor,
but the more approachable
language.
So Zevi first published in '45,
Verso un'architettura organica.
But during the '40s, Italian
historians and literary critics
had expressed their enthusiasm
in the discovery of America
considered as a United States.
For instance, America
primo amore, America,
First Love by Soldati in '35.
Obviously, the fascination with
the pioneer in Chicago school
and Frank Lloyd Wright,
but also the narrative
of Midwestern authors like
Sherwood Anderson, William
Faulkner, and Saul Bellow.
And Elio Vittorini, which
was, again, highly politically
edited Americana,
and saying that
by discovering Midwestern
American writers,
we could actually
understand Italy.
And this is Italy at the edges.
So it's like Turin, or
Sicily, [inaudible]..
It's not Venice, it's
not Rome, it's not Milan.
And also, now the publishing
house is in Turin.
But as Manfredo
Tafuri would write,
towards an organic architecture
was the manifest not only of
an historiographical choice,
but also principle of action.
So the books basically
revises the history
of modern architecture
by promoting Wright
as its ultimate hero,
the poet of the prairies.
Wright created the
myth out of his fight
to emancipate
American architecture
from European culture,
so this reverse.
But Zevi also saw in
Wright the prehistory
of modern architecture,
the search for myth
as primitive symbols that the
mechanic civilization would
otherwise repress and
against the fascist myth.
And it was obviously responding
to Gideon, Mechanization Takes
Command.
And we can also see the
very Italian attempt
to find historical roots, even
if geared towards basically
a future practice.
This book length essay,
as Zevi described it,
was written to amend that
the historical perspective
that most notorious histories,
Storia, of modern architecture
by [inaudible] had built. And
that culminated in the names
of [inaudible].
So he did basically the
same by having Wright
at the end of this progression.
The subtitle in
Italian reads, essay
on the development of
architectural thought
in the past 50
years, and stresses
the evolution of
architectural thought
when basically moving forward,
but at the same time building
history.
And again, this is
the Italian version.
The English has a really
different and presuppose
a different reader.
Zevi's book was a
response to Gideon's
Space, Time, and
Architecture, but still was,
according to his own word in
the book preface, a chronicle
rather than a history.
And I'm here deviated
to insert again
Zevi's work in
the '40s in Italy.
So basically, in
architecture and literature,
the '40s are a farewell to
the genre of chronicles.
So in '46 and '47 for
instance, Pratolini
wrote two books
present in chronicles.
So Chronicles of Poor
Lovers and Family Chronicle.
And they were representative
of a cultural trend.
And while this is OK, this
was basically before Cronache
changed its name in [inaudible]
and Zevi was writing a column,
geared basically to--
well, in the UK, you
would say the lay press.
So general magazines.
And so this was before
[inaudible] changed the name.
So it was all about chronicles.
So like, you see the gossip.
But the mid '50s, the
genre of chronicles
would become obsolete.
So in '55, the same
author of the chronicles
published Metello,
which was put together
in a title, An Italian Story.
So we are going towards stories
and not chronicles anymore.
That ratified the
end of neorealism,
which despite its
cinematographic characters,
probably true to
life, black and white,
and unembellished narrative,
so basically chronicle.
So this is the last book.
But in '55, and
this is the last--
mixing historical and
fiction was not legitimate.
So this is a famous--
The Leopard, which was rejected
by Vittorini three times in '55
because mixing historical and
fiction was not legitimate yet.
Probably-- I mean, again,
this is Italo Calvino.
Early writing is also realist,
so almost like a chronicle.
This is one-- so he's
basically-- first two books are
not translated.
It was-- really it was
not Calvino's fault.
But probably the last of
his [? realist ?] is Plunge
into Real Estate-- which I
think is more interesting than
Invisible Cities--
is effective as though
truthful story about building
construction and involved
the construction boom
and the building
speculations of the '50s,
and basically epitomizes
his view on architecture.
And they were
reading each other.
Even like,
[inaudible],, they we're
all with the [inaudible]
publishing house, so Einaudi.
It was conceived
around '55, even
if it's been published later.
And they now, they had earlier
suggested to actually title,
Chronicles of the '50s.
And then it actually
shifted into the story,
and then Calvino actually
changed style in the effective
as we know him.
So going back to Zevi in
'45, upon his return in Rome,
Zevi opened a
magazine Metron, which
chronicled what was happening
in architectural production.
But sees it publication
nine years later '54
when it started L'Architettura.
Chronache e Storia, in which
chronicles and basically
storia, so both
narratives are synthesized
in the word architecture.
In an article published
in Metron in '49,
Zevi further explained
is that the right
and not Gideon for introducing
him to ideas about space?
And I open a quote,
"I will only mention--
I will limit myself to briefly
mention a single point which
seems the most important and
in every way the most vital to
architecture.
I refer to this
spatial conception.
The great contribution
of right has
been to bring up the
problem again specifically
in terms of interior space."
So to this respect,
Wright's work
is the prelude to Zevi's second
major book, Saper vedere, whose
literal translation is, how
to look at the architecture,
but has been translated
as Architecture as Space.
And this is actually--
is the exact translation
whereas Towards.
Is really different animal.
So the book came three
years later after Towards.
It was a more deducted tool,
a manner to guide and lead
the reader toward the
analysis and understanding
of architecture and the
attempt to define architecture
as space.
Saper verdere fits in the
educational more than critical
book in that Zevi foremost wants
to instruct his audience what
architecture is.
Zevi opened the book by
lamenting, obviously.
And this has, according to
Zevi, every book, every magazine
lament an apology about
basic architecture education
and information
that at that point
are more or less the same.
So they, the critics,
lamented the public.
And I'm quoting, "the public
is interested in painting
a music, sculpture,
or literature, but not
architecture.
Anyone would be ashamed of not
knowing a painting by Matisse
or a poem by Eluard,
but would be at ease
in confessing they have no idea
who Buontalenti or Neutra are."
And I end the quote.
So historians and critics
can reverse this problem.
It is the staff task
of the historian
to integrate architecture
in a wider discourse.
And that'd be to line
with the other arts
just like Benedetto
Croce idealism implied
and as it now intended.
Nevertheless, the
book maintained
what the title promised, it
served as a teaching tool,
as a textbook in
every university.
I studied in Florence, so I read
Zevi and I didn't read Tafuri.
And to show past example, to
encourage future project, even
though without the same
impact at least in Italy
that on the larger public, that
the 1950 Storia would later
have.
So Saper vedere is
basically a collection
of Italian architecture, but
not a comprehensive historical
survey yet.
And the steps towards
the Storia came
when Saper vedere and its
illustrative apparatus
led to allow this
publication plan
for an historical
architecture Atlas.
So Storia begins as the revision
of Two Words, so written
in '45.
So Zevi inform and now wished to
print a new version of Towards
since the book is now not only
offers a new approach, but also
the quality and interest of
comprehensive text of history
of modern architecture.
Also, I would like to
change this title to Organic
Architecture instead
Towards, Worlds, considering
that organic is now a data
and not only an approach.
And in '48, the work,
Towards, no longer applied.
Also, propelling tendency
towards the future
had become the present,
and myth become obsolete.
Then Zevi suggested
another title, and says,
"I started the third and
hopefully last version
of Storia."
Sorry, the previous was Modern
Architecture From Functional
to Organic.
"The book is becoming
a monumental work
that will become independently
from the values of its ideas
a fundamental and essential
tool to architecture students
and scholars."
So Zevi asked not
to mention Towards.
Because this book started as
a revision of the first work,
does not have anything
to do with it any longer.
Be now the comprehensive
storia of 1 and 1/2 century.
And I'm towards conclusion,
so Zevi's Storia
remains surprising and
translating into English,
even if the rewriting
as we can think of it
presents some reasonable points.
Among Zevi's enjoyable
pages of narrative
as the [inaudible] label
them, Zevi persistently
distinguished between
works of poetry
and works of prose building
versus architecture, namely
literature.
If the intent was that of
write a comprehensive Zevi
succeed in having these
reassuring wide range
in narrative that does not
allow gaps or discontinuity,
but achieve an integration
of characters and movement.
A history that ends, not a
chronicle that terminates.
And my time is almost over, but
I basically-- the full version
says, this is basically
suggestive tale,
account whose
emissions owed much
to still embryonic
[inaudible] research
and was there in judgment where
some contradicted by fact.
And indeed, Storia
was probably more
objective historical account for
its author than for its reader.
So the main
contribution of Storia
is really to try to stress
the importance of history
as a method to
design architecture
to be taught at
the drawing table,
insisting on integration
between past history
and present practice,
adhering to the past
to [inaudible] the present.
So [? funding ?]
the future is now
gone, in 1950, as
Zevi had emphasized
in the preface of the book.
And it represented the
wider and most comprehensive
achievement in architecture
history so far.
And this stayed
at least in Italy
for almost a decade
with no competition.
Because for instance,
Pevsner was published in '45.
[inaudible] in '83, Space,
Time and Architecture
translated in '54, and
Benevolo only in the '60.
So Zevi's Storia remained for
long the last and only attempt
in architecture history
before the proliferation
of multiple postmodern stories.
Thank you.
[applause]
Oh, yeah.
Thank you both, Daria.
Thank you both.
So the politician and the--
Yeah.
Politician and the--
--and the writer.
--and the writer.
[laughter]
Yeah.
No, this-- I'm gathering my--
And I have something
to say about Argan.
OK.
And also, you both
talk really fast.
So let me-- give me some time.
I'm trying to bring the two--
Together?
--together somehow.
And also, let me say,
for the front row,
feel free to jump
in immediately.
Because it could be a
very informal discussion.
And I will turn to the
audience as soon as I can.
But I'm trying to
construct something.
And it has to do-- both of you
mentioned in different ways,
a kind of--
it's not exactly
a third way, but a
getting in between communism
and tradition, Catholicism
and communism--
I mean, sorry-- modernity
and tradition, communism
and Catholicism.
And even Daria, I can't
remember the words you used,
but there was some sense--
not dialectic, but rather a
more of a kind of middle, right?
And I'm wondering, if
Tiburtino-- you showed it very,
very quickly.
I know.
Yeah.
But if Tiburtino, which
is a social housing--
[inaudible]
Ina-Casa, yeah.
Yeah.
Ina-Casa in the '50s,
early to mid '50s.
And the brief mention of
Superstudio in a way that other
of Tiburtino somehow, but
still both could be saw--
both modes could be
saw as a critique of--
Yeah, it was.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
--pre-war modernism?
And both having legacy that
I would say could even--
certainly comes up to
postmodernism with [inaudible]
and [inaudible]
on the one side--
Yeah, yeah.
--and the historicist's
on the other side.
But did Zevi ever--
was he hanging on so much to
the pre-war work of Wright
and others that he couldn't--
and I know we're very late
in his career, especially
with Superstudio.
But I'm thinking about
before No-stop City,
the work they were doing,
the more conceptual
work before No-stop City
was already late '50s.
So it's not completely
incompatible, right?
Did he not keep up--
were those two extremes?
Because they seemed
that they would lead him
to a kind of renewal of
what the future might
be, rather than the--
it might have prevented the
failure that you documented.
Is that-- you see what
I'm trying to setup?
A different dialectic that
comes later in his life,
but in some ways at the
peak of his power in terms
of publicity, and propaganda,
and in education, in some ways
the peak of his power--
Yeah.
--but did not enter
into his thought,
even though you both show it
as part of the surrounding.
Living in Florence, maybe
Daria can answer better.
Tiburtino is the-- let's say--
the manifesto of [inaudible]..
Tiburtino is completely Zevi.
I mean, Tiburtino is--
Ah.
That is [inaudible].
All the architects that--
all the answers of Tiburtino
are registered in
Zevi's association.
And of course, then he says
he doesn't like it later.
But also [inaudible] says he
doesn't like it six years after
[inaudible].
Tiburtino is something
that Daria described very--
but sophisticatedly
she didn't mention,
Tiburtino is neo-realist, no?
And neo-realist--
[inaudible]
--was-- you know, we need
to consider that Italy
before the war, that the
modernist architects had
been working with the fascist.
Traditional architects had
been working with the fascists.
So this idea of
something, something
looking for something which
is always not here and neither
there, but in between
or somewhere else--
[interposing voices]
--utopia, that's Tiburtino.
So Tiburtino is the in-between.
It's not--
Yes.
Tiburtino is exactly
the in-between.
It is the in-between because
it's vernacular, but it's not--
Oh, OK.
OK.
--I mean, monumental.
It's modern but
it's not abstract.
And to add the--
Yeah.
Then also you have the
flood inside [inaudible]..
Well, it also has the--
the Tiburtino was there
to see this like, end of
chronicle in architecture.
In a sense it was used as
like, set design in neorealism.
And we shared this like,
fake, simple, black and white
chronicle of life.
But then basically,
it just stopped.
Then on the other
hand, Tiburtino,
it's not a bad place to be.
Yeah.
Right.
I mean, in the end, it works.
I mean, if you live in Tiburtino
today, you're not unhappy.
I consider La Martella as the
most sophisticated version
of Tiburtino.
Right.
More interesting, but Tiburtino
has an interesting side.
Where I don't think
Zevi had anything
to do with Superstudio.
I mean the--
No.
--the connection point
was [inaudible],, probably,
in Florence?
No, was Calvino.
Or Calvino.
Yeah.
We hated Calvino in
the '80s because he
went with Portoghesi.
[laughter]
Of course, yeah.
As basically Superstudio were
leading everything Calvino.
Calvino was editting all the
architecture [inaudible] right.
I see.
So I want to say something
to the audience--
Yes.
--just because I'm not sure
that all the students will even
know Tiburtino.
Yes, of course.
So Tiburtino, Daria showed
just a quick drawing.
We can--
Didn't you?
There's a picture.
Should I put it?
People put it well being
in between vernacular
and something more
sophisticated modernism.
But in the United States,
it leads pretty directly
to one version of--
Yeah.
There is realism in America, no?
Yeah.
Yes.
At least in continental
America, yeah.
[interposing voices]
The explanation for
the Tiburtino is--
I mean, the typical
explanation for the Tiburtino
is the neorealist
then an area, cinema.
This country does this film
on the Sicilian fishers.
The film wants to
refuse, to reject
the intellectual language
and it's spoken in dialect.
And finally, nobody understands.
So the Italian films
had to be subtitled
to go to the Italian cinemas.
So the criticism that Tafuri
does to Tiburtino is similar.
That Tiburtino is not
actually the popular language,
but is the popular language
made up by the intellectuals.
Where in the end, I think the
criticism is a little bit--
I mean, Tiburtino is
not a bad project.
Of course there is ambiguity.
But it was a good idea, I
think, to do that experiment
to that point.
Yeah.
Yeah, if you wanted
just to show the--
Yeah.
In the States, just to get--
it ends up with
something partially
by people teaching at GSD, some
of the Argentines for example.
Yeah.
Jorge Silvetti, but
also the influence
of Agrest and Gandelsonas.
It ends up as a certain
kind of-- yeah--
a certain kind of
postmodernism, even at the GSD--
Yeah.
--the influence.
And would ultimately, yeah, be
much more influential than--
Number two of Metron,
issue number two a Metron,
there is an article called,
The Postmodern House.
That's interesting.
Oh, by--
And he was just-- and
he's just back from there.
[inaudible]
You remember.
[inaudible]
He was just back from Harvard.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah.
So what this actually--
this, the postmodern house,
which is a kind of--
it's also a kind
of anti-urbanist.
It's a lament of the state
of the city in Europe
and the United States.
This leads me to
another question,
which I think is related,
but I can't say how yet.
And when you talk about
the construction of myth,
that Zevi--
that he-- myth is going
to lead to a solution,
myth is not going
to be the solution.
It's a way that he--
Progressive.
He's writing himself into a
description of a solution,
right?
And I love the idea
that he doesn't
have the idea of a solution that
he then describes in writing.
He uses writing to find it.
To find it.
And I think that's a very
important point of your work.
But does the myth of
the American prairie,
which is the myth that
an American would--
at least one of the myths that
Americans could associate with
Wright, that Wright is right
for, Wright is correct for--
And Wright is wrong.
--America in a way--
Yeah.
--that would be
impossible in Europe--
Yeah.
--after the war.
So I'm trying to
figure out, does that
arise as a contradiction
or as a disturbance?
Because it's so
prominent in the other--
in the ways other
historians treat Wright.
[inaudible]
[inaudible]
You can start.
No, I think--
I always [inaudible].
I think for Zevi,
Frank Lloyd Wright
is on one, on one aspect
of rhetorical device, which
Daria has more or
less started to frame.
But it's also this
idea of a displacement.
I mean, if you consider
Wright in the American space,
it's that, no?
It's the single
man in the prairie.
For the European scenario,
Frank Lloyd Wright
was that relationship between
the human and the environment,
which was missing in modernism.
That's what Zevi was looking
for in Frank Lloyd Wright.
And then it was theory of space.
They open [inaudible].
Theory of space was-- nobody
has that, this idea of space.
I mean, people like
Superstudio, Tafuri, or Peter
Eisenman, space is
nowhere in these people.
Zevi, two people had space in
Zevi's life, Frank Lloyd Wright
and Luigi Moretti.
So he had to speak to Moretti--
although Moretti
was a damn fascist--
because Moretti was the only
one who could understand space.
And Zevi looks for space when
he looks for Frank Lloyd Wright.
And he looks for this
continuity between the human
and the space,
which then becomes
the seven in [inaudible] to make
it in more like a cartoon way.
Yeah.
But it's also like,
I think this idea
of democracy and [inaudible].
But the organic, which I
think Alicia is touching more
on that, but is
becoming the anti-myth.
So again, it's basically
the fascist monument
in this developing
basically the open space.
The thing that probably
didn't mention then,
again comes into
place, the other--
the Germans call, introducing
[inaudible] [? regal. ?]
I forgot.
[? regal, ?] Zettelmeyer, yeah.
For Zevi, mainly it's Argan,
but also like [inaudible]..
But I wanted to go
back to the duality.
I wouldn't think about Zevi
as [inaudible] duality,
but more with--
like [inaudible] with
a recurring theme.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That like, with a spiral.
OK.
Not a--
Not as--
Not a a Hegelian--
It's not a dialect.
Not Hegelian, there's
nothing dialectical,
but it's more like something
becomes something else.
And then by [inaudible]
becoming something--
Oh, I like that a lot.
I like that a lot, yeah.
Which is--
Yeah.
Yes.
This is for the dialectics
of Hegel revisited.
I think that Zevi-- and we'll
get back to that later--
was a weaver.
He was crossing threads.
And here, I think
what Daria said
about the American roots of
neorealism is very important.
Yes.
One has to frame the
passion Zevi had for Wright
within the broad
framework of Americanism.
Yeah, yeah.
[inaudible]
Zevi is what
[inaudible] was called
the trans-atlantic Italy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is a very broad pattern,
and it starts in the '30s
already when Casabella
sends Pagano to Los Angeles.
And he writes on [inaudible],,
when Percy Gore writes
about [inaudible]
in architecture,
but also in literature,
in cinema, in politics,
and its very broad
framework within fascism.
Both within fascist
and within antifascist.
And Zevi is caught.
In a way, we've seen--
you've mentioned
Zevi's politics.
Olivetti is the
agent of a new deal
in the post-war
American institutions.
Right.
Yes.
He's the one who
pushes to a translation
of Lewis Mumford, who is
extremely important for Zevi.
And Zeiv is at a
crossroads where
it is very interesting
moment in the early '60s.
Let's talk about the third
force, these [inaudible] aspect
which was condemned by Tafuri.
Zevi is in the center
because Zevi is the one who
organized a meeting--
correct me if I'm
wrong-- between--
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There was once [inaudible].
--Pietro Nenni, who's the
leader of a Socialist Party
and the American ambassador
where Nenni convinces
that the Socialist
Party entering
in a coalition with the
Christian democracy,
exactly for third
force was not going
to go against
America's interests.
So Zevi in a way,
and his wife Tullia--
Tullia more than Zevi.
--create this setup of a
stage where the third force--
Yeah, totally.
--is discussed in
concrete terms.
So you have to see being
also behind the Tafuri/Zevi
relationship of the [inaudible]
fights of the Italian left.
Absolutely.
And I wanted to say one
thing about the myth, which
is, it's also--
and we'll talk again, Tony
will get back to that.
We'll talk again about
Tafuri versus Zevi, Zevi
versus Tafuri.
It was very interesting,
very interesting series
of fights, sort of trench
war that lasted for decades.
But at some point,
Zevi made Tafuri--
Tafuri's critique was that
Zevi, you had produced myths.
Was indulging not in chronicles
or history, but in mythology.
And so Tafuri tried to demythify
the historical discourse.
And Zevi answered
by saying it should
be time to demystify the
discourse of demystification.
So it goes in a full circle.
Only a few things.
Zevi leaves Venice
because of that.
Zevi-- this is
important also in terms
of the history of education.
Zevi leaves Venice because after
this meeting with Schlesinger
and Nenni in Tullia's house.
In Zevi's house there is the
first center left coalition,
so the third part exists.
And he leaves Venice
because he wants
to be in Rome close
to the government.
So he moves from
[inaudible] to La Sapienza.
And then the piano di Roma,
the master plan of Rome
is the result of this situation.
And then the [inaudible]
is the last part.
And Tafuri takes
over the history
of the institute of
the study in Venice
because Zevi moves
to Rome and chooses
Tafuri as his successor,
failing Benevolo, which was
the Catholic guy in this fight.
So that's very important.
The other thing is, I think
that still, I mean the only way,
the only moment
Italy tried to escape
this dialectic was [inaudible].
And in fact, it didn't work.
Because the two poles wants
to survive against everything.
They want even to kill the
country rather than giving up
to the possibility of a
liberal democracy in Italy.
And architecture was being
killed within this frame,
basically.
[non-english]
I want to come back to
this notion of space
and try to feel it in a little
more tactile corporeal way.
You briefly showed a slide of--
can we ask Matthew to
bring back-- there's
a slide of wire models.
Oh.
I have it, but it's
my presentation.
It's your presentation?
No, that was his.
Oh, it's not your presentation.
No.
Oh, it doesn't matter.
It was Michelangelo.
Michelangelo.
[interposing voices]
-- on Michelangelo.
Yeah.
But that's the other-- yeah.
So if you remember,
it came very fast.
But there were domes
and pendants and things
that Michelangelo
modeled in wire.
Yeah.
So I want to have that image.
And I want to imagine he--
I think he never
did-- but I want
to imagine if he modeled
some late Frank Lloyd
Wright with wire, if he modeled,
and put that in your head.
One of our PhD students,
Natalia Escobar
is looking at the
work of Lina Bo Bardi.
And Zevi actually wrote Bo
Bardi-- writes Bo Bardi-- no,
he--
They do a magazine together.
They do a magazine, yeah.
[inaudible]
And he describes her
work, he describes
it like it's almost
like a dataist collage.
I mean, the Sesc Pompeia, he
describes it in terms of--
oh, these are the
models I'm thinking.
Bravo.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you.
The models.
But imagine Guggenheim
or something
like that modeled
in these wires.
And then imagine the Sesc
Pompeia when he sees it.
He sees it in much more
material terms, much more--
I would almost say a
heterogeneity, almost a collage
like.
And I think he uses the word,
the shock of the experience.
But in a good way,
in a good way.
[inaudible]
Because I'm Italian, I'm
[inaudible] interrupting.
Is there something--
Tony was whispering
that once you abstract
the Baroque, or Bernini, or
Michelangelo, if you abstract
it down to wire, it becomes much
more palatable as a precedent.
And I'm wondering, but
does it also evidence
a corporeality and the
materiality that he's after
and what he calls organic
that we're somehow
missing because we
abstract it too much?
This is my point.
That's a good [inaudible].
Yeah.
This is my point.
That's a very good question.
Yeah.
[inaudible]
Now I have a question for
people apropos this image
of the [inaudible]
exhibition on Michelangelo--
Architetto.
Architetto.
--slight semantic
difference, architect,
organized at the Palazzo
delle Esposizioni in Rome in--
1964.
--1964 with Portoghesi.
Portoghesi.
So at that time, Portoghesi
who was working--
They were friends.
--on Borromini in
particular, was--
and Zevi were close.
Is it possible to read these
models as a sort of response
to the analytical
models, Moretti--
Moretti, I think so.
[inaudible]
Yes.
There is--
[interposing voices]
There is this German president
who was this [? berkman. ?]
What this guy was doing similar.
I think they both refer to it.
No, because Moretti was making.
And these were very
important models
which were discussed
in an early [inaudible]
of oppositions in this country.
Yeah, yeah.
A long time ago. yeah.
They were figure
ground reversals.
They were solid.
They were solid.
They modeled the space as solid.
So in this inversion
between solid and void,
as in the Moretti/Zevi
polemic embodied.
[interposing voices]
I think Moretti--
Tony.
I think the--
Sorry.
I think they both--
I'll get you back.
There is this German architect
in the '20s who does this work
of--
I think [? berkman ?]
is his name.
They both refer to him.
But I think Moretti,
the difference
is Moretti introduces
mathematics in this discussion.
And Alicia could
speculate on that.
But I mean, one sentance is that
Zevi, through this work done
by the students in
Venice, he wants
to move the discussion on
language from the decoration
to the space.
Now that's what the
models are made for.
In the process, destroying
the space, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
What interests me is if
the Moretti is solid,
he's like pouring--
casting the interior
volume is a solid block,
this is completely
evaporating the space itself.
Yeah.
But the one thing in the middle
that they're both refusing
is Le Corbusier volume.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The idea of a volume
which is projected
from a plan which is then
conceal wrapped in a surface.
The three elements of to what's
in the architecture, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So the volume--
[interposing voices]
--of space only
disappears in Corbusier
much later, when that's
passed on to [? siebler ?]
in the 1930s.
Because Corbusier never uses
the word space until 1933.
Yes, yes, exactly, exactly.
He only uses the word volume.
Yeah, yeah.
Zevi says that he changes the
Gideon sequence now and puts
[inaudible] before
Frank Lloyd Wright.
And I think Zevi achieves
another result here,
which is historiographical.
He tries to demonstrate
through this analytical work
that history is a
horizontal condition.
I mean, we are all contemporary.
By taking away the language,
the linguistic thing,
these things are contemporary.
And Zevi's idea is that we are
contemporaries of Michelangelo,
[inaudible].
So the models work very
well also in that sense.
It's culture.
I have to bring Daria back
in, I cut you off, sorry.
Which is a really
[inaudible] to [inaudible]..
Yeah, of course, of course.
But no, it was I think
for the sake of clarity,
maybe something that has to
be clear is, he was from Rome.
Very Roman.
Yeah.
[speaking italian]
OK.
Even if maybe intellectually
isn't [inaudible],,
sometimes we call it a riot.
Is it was embedded
in these buildings.
And so it is mainly about
creating space by carving space
instead of adding.
It's almost in a sculptural way.
And I think it
permeates the way he
writes, even if he's not always
acknowledging [inaudible]..
This is one.
The second one was talking
about the space of Wright.
There's a typological idea also.
Like Zevi, for instance,
it looks at the chimneys
as this idea of domestic fire.
Or talk at the end
about happiness.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think there's a whole light
side of Zevi that get raised.
But--
For Daria, I would like--
also it's important
for me, I think
the way Zevi builds his
language comes from politics.
Yeah.
Oh, interesting.
The first times he speeches--
It is true.
Yeah.
--he does public speech, it's
always in political frames.
Wow, wow.
In [inaudible],, then the radio
for the antifascists in London,
the radio here in America.
So his rhetoric is built
in the political frame.
But also it is trying
to bridge, which
is again, a time of specific
of having [inaudible]..
I mean--
Yeah, yeah.
That also be understandable.
Yeah.
[inaudible]
Go straight to the point.
Different audiences.
And also, I think this could be
interesting for the students.
Jean-Louis can say much
better these things.
Zevi, he is a 20th
century intellectual.
He is controversial.
I think we definitely miss
the possibility of being
controversial today,
especially in academia
in the world of architecture.
The 20th century
intellectual is controversial
because you need to
have a counter position
to get there
[inaudible] to a point.
And I think this is
something we miss very much.
And also, Zevi considers
politics something that
has to get to results in life.
So the architect, the
professor, the designer
goes out of the school
and practice politics
because he wants to change
the situation in real life.
So these are two strong
difference, big difference
of what the situation is today.
And I think would be
interesting to see
how people react to a
condition like [inaudible]..
Let's turn to the audience
for a question or a comment.
Yeah?
Take the mic so we-- yeah.
While you're on the
subject of politics,
I've always been curious
why more architects don't
get into politics.
And there seems to be a
difference between the United
States and a lot of the--
you know, like Mexico,
or Argentina, or Italy.
Latin culture.
And in 1961, I met
with Burno Zevi
at the suggestion of Henry
Russell Hitchcock and Professor
Garland.
And I'm just realizing why.
He offered me to
work in his studio.
Yeah.
And I decided to come
to the GSD instead.
But I'm realizing now--
Good choice.
--was because of the
political orientation
that I probably had at the time.
And I wonder now, why do not--
what is your idea about that?
Well, I mean, we have
a kind of original sin.
[inaudible] I mean, the
heroes of Italian architecture
got jobs directly
from power in Italy.
So the relation between
architecture and politics
was built first--
I mean, if you go to the
Romans, we can go back.
For modern names, it
was built in fascism.
And I mean, the main client
for the Italian architect
till a few years ago is
always been the public client.
So architecture was welfare.
And being welfare, architecture
is coming from the power and so
through politics.
The Italian
architect is not even
able to speak to the
client traditionally,
because the job will come
to him through politics.
To do the master plan of a city
in Italy till 10 years ago,
you had to have an architect
from the the Catholic party,
an architect from
the Communist Party,
an architect from
the Republican Party,
an architect from
the Socialist Party,
and an architect from
the Liberal Party.
And of course, the smallest the
party, the more jobs you got.
No?
So the reason why
when you read Gregotti
you don't understand
a word, it's
because Gregotti does not
need to be understood.
Because the jobs will
come to him through--
the mayor of Urbino will appoint
[inaudible] or Giancarlo De
Carlo, because Tafuri, who is
the politically credited critic
tells him this is a good
guy, give him a job.
The job will go there even
if they don't need it.
So many of the
works of our masters
are ruins today
because they were
built for the pleasure of--
it's like patronizing, no,
to mention [inaudible]..
So all the-- most of
the work in architecture
was distributed
through politics.
And when Cardella or these guys
will do a single family house
in the '50s or '60s,
they didn't show it
too much because it
was not politically
correct to do work for
the private capitalist,
building a house for him.
That's quite right
with the [inaudible]..
So the narrative was public,
the narrative was political.
I went into architecture
school because I
wanted to change the world.
I didn't go to
architecture school
because I felt I was talented.
In fact, I was not talented
and I'm a curator today.
But--
[laughter]
But I think we felt that
architecture was the easiest
way to change the world.
And Zevi is a completely--
no, as Daria said, he
chooses between literature
and engineering because
architecture is art,
it's politics, it's [inaudible]
work, it's construction.
So I think we are trying to--
And it was not [inaudible].
--to liberate our architecture
community from this now.
But it's very, very
difficult. And we
have some Italian architects
who could tell you about.
But I think Zevi is
completely within this frame.
So the intellectual is--
and Jean-Louis wrote a
wonderful book on this--
the intellectual is the
filter between the power
and the agency of the artist,
the architect, or sometimes
even the writer, no?
It's an interesting story.
But we're still paying
the bill for this.
OK, you may be
liberated from it,
but maybe we're too
liberated from it.
No no, I know, I know.
But not in Italy.
And I agree, but not in Italy.
We have time for one
last question or comment.
Or comment is fine as well.
Yeah?
[inaudible]
Just because we
were sort of talking
about the nature
of Zevi's writing,
I thought that it would
be interesting to--
I mean, I think it's great
that this photograph is there.
Because as I said, when
I was at the exhibition,
I found this aspect of Zevi's
creativity the most inspiring.
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree.
Because it's not a
traditional exhibition.
It doesn't have a
linear narrative.
It combines the idea of an
unusual kind of model, which
is a frame with
photographs as fragments
and the enlarging
of the photographs,
for example, to be
able to look up and see
the roof of a building,
or something like this.
So the fact that the exhibition
is also a very particular kind
of construct intellectually,
and it doesn't really
come then from the point of
view of architectural history,
necessarily.
It's really an
architect's sort of--
[inaudible]
--deconstruction of a kind
of architectural body.
And so, just because
also, Michael, you
were saying all the things
that we do at the GSD
or we don't, in terms of
the reading like Zevi,
I've got the Architecture
as Space in front of me,
and How to Look at Architecture.
And you see that
there is the contents,
and the content has this kind
of interpretive character
to it, from space through
the ages, where it's also not
a narrative way of describing
architectural history, which
is one thing.
But then you have the
role of photographs
and the role of drawings.
Drawings are more conventional.
But when you talk about when you
have the list of photographs--
Yeah.
--the photographs
are very deliberate.
You know, they're
extremely deliberate.
And therefore, I would
say that this is also
seen from the perspective
of an architect who
is looking for specific
conditions through photography.
So he has titles
like, architecture
without internal space, which is
probably the list of monuments,
or surface and
volume as represented
in photographs, or
interplay of volumes
as represented in
photographs, and so on.
And so I think there is
something very important
in a way--
And the captions.
--about-- yeah-- about the
way in which the book is also
a specific construct
and the relationship
between text and the
photography as a way
of really presenting
this idea of how one
should look at architecture.
So I would say, it's different
in a way thab Tafuri,
but it's also a very different--
I mean, it's a very productive
way of reading architecture
if you're not necessarily
focused only on the text
but on the interrelationship
between the text,
the photograph, and the drawing.
But there's also a
really like, contingent--
I think it was the exchange
he had with Einaudi.
So what a book could sell
and what a book could not.
So like, the shift between
how to look at architecture
in Storia was exactly
because Einaudi
was thinking about
an atlas of just
pictures with just captions.
And that's one, also.
I mean, it seems like--
I mean, it is a
concept, but it's also
working with someone, Einaudi
that was publishing Calvino,
Argan, and Arquitectura.
But I think motion is--
So the caption is--
Motion is-- I don't know how
you say in English-- is putting
the finger on a bleeding wound.
Because in the
Zevian world, they
are so taken by these kind of
antagonist, polemical aspect
of Zevi.
Then there's no
real investigation
on this issue of how he uses
photography, which is enormous.
And not exhibitions, which
are the first, I would say,
contemporary approach
to exhibitions in Italy,
and probably in Europe.
They [inaudible] in a
good sense, [inaudible]
in our contemporary sense.
So I think these
are two aspects that
are very much understudied,
under-investigated in Zevi.
And I think he's really an
editor in a completely new way.
I'm hearing some
dissertation topics.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was about to say, that's--
[interposing voices]
Shall we get a question,
the last question?
[inaudible] expertise.
Last question?
From the guy.
[interposing voices]
Thank you.
I was about to say that.
So sure, Zevi was a politician
and an intellectual.
But he's also a
Jewish intellectual
and a Jewish politician
in the 1930s and '40s
and beyond in an environment
that was very unfriendly,
to say the least, to that.
So I'm surprised that his
ethnicity and his faith
has not come up beyond what
Mohsen said in the beginning.
I was wondering if
maybe you can comment
on how that perhaps shaped
his career and his writing.
All right.
Thank you.
You were missing [inaudible].
[interposing voices]
The second panel--
Yeah.
There's a second panel.
The second panel
will address that.
I'll be there.
It's a very complex issue.
Yes.
It's not excised
from our discussion.
I will mention it quite
a bit in my final paper.
So I think you'll hear about it.
And it's very complex.
And for me, a very troubled one.
I just want to say one thing
about Zevi's combination
of visual and verbal rhetorics.
I think that a major, major
training ground for him
was broadcasting.
So he's--
[interposing voices]
I believe this.
He's someone who-- he
didn't start his life
as an intellectual
being a teacher
as everyone does in general.
He started being an agitator.
An agitator.
And Zevi the agitator is a
very important component.
So he continued to agitate using
images, but at the same time,
with very focused
sense of the formula.
And this came from his
political experience
which was a real one
in a difficult moment.
Yeah.
True.
We're going to take a break.
Pamela, Paige, remind me
when we should be back
to resume panel two?
So please be back at 3 o'clock.
We'll take a break now.
And thanks to our
first two panelists.
[inaudible]
Thank you very much.
[applause]
