Overview

Italian architecture has long exerted a special influence on the evolution of architectural ideas elsewhere - from the Beaux-Arts academy’s veneration of Rome, to modernist and postmodern interest in Renaissance proportion, Baroque space, and Mannerist ambiguity. This book critically examines this enduring phenomenon, exploring the privileged position of Italian architects, architecture, and cities in the architectural culture of the past century. Questioning the deep-rooted myth of Italy within architectural history, the book presents case studies of Italy’s powerful yet problematic position in 20th-century architectural ideologies, at a time when established Eurocentric narratives are rightly being challenged. It reconciles the privileged position of Italian architecture and design with the imperative to write history across a more global, diverse, heterogenous cultural geography. Twenty chapters from distinguished international scholars cover subjects and architects ranging from Alberti to Gio Ponti, Aldo Rossi, Manfredo Tafuri, Vittorio Gregotti; cities from Rome and Venice to Milan; and an array of international architects, movements, and architectural ideas influenced by Italy. The chapters each question where, how, and why the disciplinary edifice of 20th-century architecture—its canon of built, visual, textual, and conceptual works—relied on Italian foundations, examining where and how those foundations have become insecure. Indispensable for students and scholars of both Italian and global architectural history, Italian Imprints on Twentieth-Century Architecture provides an opportunity to consider the architectural and urban landscape of Italy from substantially new points of view.

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9781350257726

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Reviews

This elegant collection challenges familiar ideas of how Italian sites and histories shaped 20th-century design theory worldwide. Inaugurating a set of provocative new questions, it stands to generate innovative architectural and scholarly debates for years to come. * Mia Fuller, University of California Berkeley, USA * At once origin of the Western conceptualization of architecture as a discipline and institution, home to buildings that have become hypercanonized, and arena of historiographical debates, Italy is an undeniable presence in architectural consciousness, whether it is embraced or rejected. From a variety of perspectives the essays in this volume enrich and complicate our understanding of Italy’s position in global architectural culture. Together they amount to a critical examination of ‘architecture’s vision of itself’ over the long 20th century. * Maarten Delbeke, ETH Zürich, Switzerland *

Author Information

Denise Costanzo is Assistant Professor of Architecture and Art History at the Pennsylvania State University, USA. Andrew Leach is Professor of Architecture and Associate Dean (Research) of the School of Architecture, Design and Planning, at the University of Sydney, Australia.

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