Much has been written about the changes in academic training and the profession of architects in Italy during the first decades of the 20th century. The new architect was not only a technician and not only an artist, he was called an “integral architect”, a complete professional figure in charge of old crafts and new tasks, ranging from history to restoration, from urban development to architectural design, from structural knowledge to ornamental matters. Less known is, instead, the debate about transformation in history of architecture or, better, about what Gustavo Giovannoni called “integral history of architecture”. History, which was able to connect in an organic vision different aspects of buildings: forms, functions, languages, construction, structures, materials and techniques.At the beginning of the 20th century, history of architecture was in Italy, traditionally, a field of research for historians of art like Adolfo Venturi. But, between 1920 and 1940, engineers and architects started claiming history as their own field of investigation. From the pages of the journal «Palladio», an heterogeneous group, around Gustavo Giovannoni, started writing on the history of architecture. They knew perfectly well the lesson of Auguste Choisy (L’art de bâtir chez les Romains, 1873; Histoire de l’architecture, 1899) and also the books of Adolfo Venturi (Storia dell’arte Italiana, 11 volumes from 1901 to 1940), but they tried to unite different points of view and achieved autonomy from the history of other visual arts. The assignment to write the history of architecture was put into the hands of those who knew how to design and build. The change was relevant and a new historiography was born, especially based on construction history. Also drawings gained a different importance in new historiography, as one of the essential instruments in understanding and explaining architecture. Ancient architecture, the medieval one, the architecture of the Norman period in the south of Italy, were studied with different “tools” belonging to technicians: constructive surveys, analysis of materials and techniques. Architects and engineers began looking into the construction history and, in this way, the point of view of the art historians was completely modified.Through the protagonists of this story (Gustavo Giovannoni, Giuseppe Samonà, Giovan Battista Milani, Vincenzo Fasolo, Enrico Calandra, and others) and the analysis of their books and drawings, this proposal aims to highlight one of the points of departure of contemporary Italian historiography (sometimes forgotten), written by engineers and architects for engineers and architects.

Construction History: a new point of view in Italian historiography in the first half of the 20th century

BARBERA, PAOLA
2015-01-01

Abstract

Much has been written about the changes in academic training and the profession of architects in Italy during the first decades of the 20th century. The new architect was not only a technician and not only an artist, he was called an “integral architect”, a complete professional figure in charge of old crafts and new tasks, ranging from history to restoration, from urban development to architectural design, from structural knowledge to ornamental matters. Less known is, instead, the debate about transformation in history of architecture or, better, about what Gustavo Giovannoni called “integral history of architecture”. History, which was able to connect in an organic vision different aspects of buildings: forms, functions, languages, construction, structures, materials and techniques.At the beginning of the 20th century, history of architecture was in Italy, traditionally, a field of research for historians of art like Adolfo Venturi. But, between 1920 and 1940, engineers and architects started claiming history as their own field of investigation. From the pages of the journal «Palladio», an heterogeneous group, around Gustavo Giovannoni, started writing on the history of architecture. They knew perfectly well the lesson of Auguste Choisy (L’art de bâtir chez les Romains, 1873; Histoire de l’architecture, 1899) and also the books of Adolfo Venturi (Storia dell’arte Italiana, 11 volumes from 1901 to 1940), but they tried to unite different points of view and achieved autonomy from the history of other visual arts. The assignment to write the history of architecture was put into the hands of those who knew how to design and build. The change was relevant and a new historiography was born, especially based on construction history. Also drawings gained a different importance in new historiography, as one of the essential instruments in understanding and explaining architecture. Ancient architecture, the medieval one, the architecture of the Norman period in the south of Italy, were studied with different “tools” belonging to technicians: constructive surveys, analysis of materials and techniques. Architects and engineers began looking into the construction history and, in this way, the point of view of the art historians was completely modified.Through the protagonists of this story (Gustavo Giovannoni, Giuseppe Samonà, Giovan Battista Milani, Vincenzo Fasolo, Enrico Calandra, and others) and the analysis of their books and drawings, this proposal aims to highlight one of the points of departure of contemporary Italian historiography (sometimes forgotten), written by engineers and architects for engineers and architects.
2015
978-1-329-15030-0
Architectural writing; Historiography; Construction
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11769/85338
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