Open Access

This volume brings together for the first time a selection of the writings of the Milanese architect and designer Marco Zanuso (1916-2001). Chosen from articles, conference papers, lectures and public meetings, they include a number that are unpublished. The choice of texts seeks to represent the breadth of Zanuso’s interests, ranging from new techniques of mass production to the relations between art and architecture, the role of technology in design and management methods in the design process, and his contribution to the contemporary architectural debate.

The volume is accompanied by illustrations of Zanuso’s works and projects, from the architect’s rich photographic collection.

Foreword by Bruno Reichlin, introductory essay by Roberta Grignolo.

The volume presents essays in Italian and French by authoritative scholars and historians of architecture: Margherita Azzi Visentini, Martine Boiteux, Stefano Bosi, Francesco Ceccarelli, Gian Paolo Consoli, Blanche de la Taille, Alain Delaval, Elena Dellapiana, Fabrizio di Marco, Rossella Fabiani, Valeria Farinati, Luigi Gallo, Jean-Philippe Garric, Pascal Griener, Cecilia Hurley, Henry Lavagne, Jean-Michel Leniaud, Isabelle Leveque, Carlo Mambriani, Tommaso Manfredi, Fabio Mangone, Susanne Meyer, Odile Nouvel, Susanna Pasquali, Pierre Pinon, Daniel Rabreau, Pier Paolo Racioppi, Francesco Repishti, Marie Richard, Serenella Rolfi, Marc Saboya, Ilaria Sgarbozza, Letizia Tedeschi, Sergio Villari.

Villa La Saracena, designed and built between 1955 and 1957 on the Tyrrhenian coast of Santa Marinella (near Rome), marked the fulfillment of the professional development of Luigi Moretti (1907-1973). This book covers in detail the design history of this architectural masterpiece and offers an original interpretation based on the critical categories of the “Mediterranean”, the Baroque and the Informal, which fuelled a lively cultural debate in the fifties. It brings out the dominant role of the building’s interior space, which creates both the form and structure and determines the surface variations and modulations of the play of light, distinctive transmutations of matter that constantly stir the viewer’s emotional responses.
With a preface by Bruno Reichlin.

This volume has grown out of the international conference "Cosa è architetto. Domenico Fontana tra Melide, Roma e Napoli (1543-1607)", held in Mendrisio in autumn 2007. It was an important opportunity to take stock of the state of knowledge about Domenico Fontana, famous above all for the design of obelisks, whose work opened the era of the predominance of Ticinese architects on the Roman scene.

The essays are by Antonio Becchi, Anna Bedon, Federico Bellini, Costanza Caraffa, Maurizia Cicconi, Giovanna Curcio, Sabina de Cavi, Giovanni Di Maio, Francesco Paolo Fiore, Margherita Fratarcangeli, Fulvio Lenzo, Paolo Mascilli Migliorini, Nicola Navone, Maria Raffaella Pessolano, Isabella Salvagni, Grete Stefani, Letizia Tedeschi, Christof Thoenes, Manuel Vaquero Pineiro, Sergio Villari.

The first issue of the “Quaderni dell’Accademia di architettura”, a periodical which presents contributions and testimonies of the school’s many activities (not just its teaching), is devoted to the recovery of the architectural heritage. This theme, of particular relevance to the contemporary design scene, is explored by scholars, who shed light on the relevant theoretical, historical and social factors, and by architect-professors who, through the presentation of a number of their projects, highlight the different strategies of intervention in the built.

Texts by Bruno Reichlin, Franz Graf, Bernhard Furrer, Claude Raffestin, Bruno Pedretti, Roberta Grignolo.

Projects by: Bearth & Deplazes Architekten, Miller & Maranta, Burkhalter Sumi, E. & M. Boesch, Mario Botta.

The Ticinese architect Luigi Canonica was employed by Napoleon in the years running from the Cisalpine Republic to the Kingdom of Italy and was again active at the Restoration. This book combines a monographic approach, aimed at the reconstruction and critical study of all of Canonica’s works, with an organization by major topics, such as his contribution to the process of urban renewal in Milan (he was the author, among other projects, of Foro Bonaparte and the Arena and drafted the first ever master plan for the city), his achievements in the architecture of gardens, villas, theaters and municipal buildings (such as the Villa Reale and Palazzo Reale in Milan and the Villa Reale with its park in Monza), and his role in the organization of offices for the control of architectural projects.

Reflecting this organization, the book presents essays by scholars and historians together with some 200 analytical entries devoted to specific works written by other specialists.

The founding father of contemporary architecture in Ticino, Rino Tami (1908-1994) designed, when still very young, the Lugano Canton Library (1936-1940), the first excellent example of a modern public building in Ticino. In the Forties, organic architecture became a part of his wide cultural heritage. His professional maturity, attained in the Fifties and Sixties with public buildings (headquarters of the Italian Swiss Radio in Lugano) and private houses (Torre House in Lugano, Nadig House in Maroggia), coincided with his teaching commitment at the Zürich Polytechnic. From the Sixties he also held the post of supervisor of the architectural features along the Ticinese stretch of the Swiss motorway: tunnel entrances, bridges, portals, viaducts, embankment walls, service area buildings, public conveniences, storehouses, air shafts.