Open Access
By analysing issues of an attributional, iconographic and iconological nature, and studies in depth of the relationship of sculpture and architecture with social issues ‒ such as the management and organisation of building sites, the relation between the centre and the periphery, and the ties between workshops and individual craftsmen ‒ this volume offers a complete tool for understanding the complex panorama of sculpture in the State of Milan from the late 14th century to the early decades of the 16th century. The broad timespan examined, during which the Visconti were succeeded by the Sforza and then the French, enables us to follow the cultural and stylistic changes that characterised Milanese art between Late Gothic and the late Renaissance and to focus on the work of those sculptors who most influenced the artists contemporary with them: above all, the Masters of Campione and Carona, Jacopino da Tradate, the brothers Cristoforo and Antonio Mantegazza, Giovanni Antonio Amadeo, Cristoforo Solari and Bambaia, active, on various occasions and on several levels in the major building sites in the area, namely the Cathedral of Milan and the Charterhouse of Pavia, veritable centres of irradiation of Lombard figurative culture in the period. Furthermore, the emphasis placed on the movements made by the native workers in these Milanese regions and on the cultural and artistic exchanges that accompanied these movements, performed above all by the so-called “masters of the lakes”, means that the research it presents goes beyond the boundaries of Milan, ranging from Spain to modern Silesia and taking in Liguria, Venice, Ferrara, the Rome of Andrea Bregno and in the Sicily of Domenico Gaggini, bringing out the great scope of the themes addressed in the various contributions brought together in this volume.
Texts by: Alessandro Barbieri, Beatrice Bolandrini, Massimiliano Caldera, Laura Damiani Cabrini, Grégoire Extermann, Laura Facchin, Giuseppe Fazio, Rosa López Torrijos, Predrag Marković, Fernando Marías, Giovanni Mendola, Mirko Moizi, Charles R. Morscheck, Thomas Pöpper, Marco Scansani, Martina Schirripa, Federica Siddi, Mariusz Smoliński, Andrea Spiriti, Michela Zurla.
Scultori dello Stato di Milano (1395-1535)
edited by
Mirko Moizi, Andrea Spiriti
19 x 24.5 cm, 384 pp.
282 ill. b/w, 33 ill. col.
paperback
italian
Silvana Editoriale
ISBN: 9788836654635
€ 44 / frs 44
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Gottfried Semper’s years of exile in London (1850-55) were a time of highly inspiring experiences. The London of the Great Exhibition offered the German architect an immense trove of objects for study and an intellectual environment that provided seminal impulses for his innovative cultural-historical theory of architecture. The present volume, resulting from a collaborative SNSF research project of the Institute for the History and Theory of Art and Architecture, Università della Svizzera italiana, and the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture, ETH Zurich, positions Semper as both an observer and actor in this period. It goes beyond focusing on Semper as an individual person and considers his work as a designer, teacher, and writer of architecture against the backdrop of the historical, architectural, and disciplinary surroundings.
Texts by: Elena Chestnova, Murray Fraser, Michael Gnehm, Sonja Hildebrand, Mari Hvattum, Claudio Leoni, Kate Nichols, Alina Payne, Philip Ursprung, Caroline van Eck, Dieter Weidmann, Beat Wyss.
Architectural History and Globalized Knowledge. Gottfried Semper in London
edited by
Michael Gnehm, Sonja Hildebrand
19 x 24,5 cm
216 pp.
88 ill. col., 24 ill. b/w
paperback
english
gta Verlag
ISBN 9783856764098
€ 35 / frs. 35.‒
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Through an analysis of the artistic and social dynamics underlying the organisation and direction of the important construction site of Como cathedral, on which painters, master glass-makers, goldsmiths and sculptors were active, and by retracing the historiography of the four brothers Rodari, the volume reconstructs the work of Tommaso and his workshop, reordering the chronology of some works and proposing a linear path from his early to his late activity.
Preface by Giovanni Agosti.
Mirko Moizi, Tommaso Rodari e il Rinascimento comasco
19 x 24,5 cm
340 pp.
196 ill. b/w, 8 ill. col.
paperback
italian
Silvana Editoriale
ISBN 9788836644759
40 € / 40.‒ frs
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The Atlas is the first issue of the PNR 65 research publication plan on “Public Space in the ‘Città Ticino’ of Tomorrow”. It includes the final output for the first of the four territorial units. The research established four territorial units: 1. River Ticino North; 2. River Ticino South; 3. Ceresio Basin; 4. Insubria triangle. The same methodology for analysis and design process is applied to each territorial unit. Each volume collects a series of critical contributions in the form of essays, a complete set of territorial and urbanistic analysis maps, design projects drawings (territorial and urbanistic scale: 1:25’000, 1:5’000), a selection of design studios from the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture on topics identified by the research.
Texts by Franz Oswald, Flora Ruchat-Roncati, Renato Svaluto-Ferro and Renato Gaggini, Stefano Zerbi, Michele Arnaboldi.
Atlante Città Ticino 1. Comprensorio Fiume Ticino Nord
edited by
Michele Arnaboldi
with Enrico Sassi
26.5 x 38 cm, 224 pp.
137 ill. col., 205 ill. b/w
paperback
italian
ISBN 9788887624540
€ 42 / frs 50.–
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Architecture and Knowledge, as the volume’s title effectively anticipates, presents numerous essays exploring the multiple forms of knowledge involved in architectural art. The contributions speak of the relations between architecture and technology, political thought, planning, philosophy, history, hermeneutics, anthropology, psychology and aesthetics. This, however, does not take the form of an encroachment on other disciplinary fields, but confirms the “holistic” structure of architecture, an art that in its exercise must inevitably draw on a broad range of cultural and scientific instruments.
Architecture as an open art, enriched by the dialogue with multiple forms of knowledge, is, moreover, the most precious legacy we receive from the great architectural works of history, from both the remote past and modernity.
Texts by: Tim Benton, Silvia Berselli, Veronica Biermann, Matthias Brunner, Howard Burns, Jasper Cepl, Elena Chestnova, Michael Gnehm, Roberta Grignolo, Natalie Heger, Sonja Hildebrand, Daniela Mondini, Sascha Roesler, Angelika Schnell
Architettura e saperi / Architecture and Knowledge
edited by
Sonja Hildebrand, Daniela Mondini, Roberta Grignolo
19 x 24.5 cm, 248 pp.
97 ill. col., 55 ill. b/w
paperback
italian, english
Silvana Editoriale
ISBN 9788836639748
€ 30 / frs 35.‒
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How was work done, how did income accumulate, and how was business conducted in pre-industrial societies? Through the experiences described in this book, the reader will discover a series of features distinguishing the various forms of work. Some are well-known, others perhaps less so, but all fall into three spheres: diversification of sources of income, creation of networks of contacts (professional and familial, political and religious), and adoption of complex business strategies.
Labour and Business in Pre-Industrial Societies
edited by
Roberto Leggero
14.5 x 19 cm, 264 pp.
21 ill. b/w
paperback
italiano, english
ISBN 9788887624830
€ 25 / frs 25.–
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What does the industrial past of the Alps teach us?
The various studies contained in this volume explore differences and similarities in the protection of the industrial heritage in relation to the evolution of memory and the construction of the heritage in recent decades in the alpine world.
Alpi e patrimonio industriale
edited by
Luigi Lorenzetti
Nelly Valsangiacomo
14.5 x 19 cm, 308 pp.
31 ill. b/w
paperback
italian, french, german
ISBN 9788887624786
€ 25 / frs 25.–
Out of stock
During the last twenty years, the topic of form has become one of the most controversial issues in public and professional discussions about architecture. Hardly anyone reflected on this as intensely as the 2015 Pritzker Prize winner Frei Otto, whose concept of Form-Finding is aimed at preventing any processes of designing or shaping.
This book aims to re-examine the issue by expanding on the exemplary case of Frei Otto. The subject is approached from varyingly wide perspectives, ranging from pathways to form in engineering research and in experimental model-making to the ideological-critical reflections on form by Oswald Mathias Ungers and Rem Koolhaas.
Texts by Elisabeth Bergmann, Daniela Fabricius, Roberta Grignolo, Sonja Hildebrand, Sean Keller, Kurt Möser, Gabriele Neri, Stefan Neuhäuser with Martin Weickgenannt, Christoph Witte, Walter Haase, Oliver Sawodny and Werner Sobek, Lara Schrijver.
Form-Finding, Form-Shaping, Designing Architecture. Experimental, Aesthetical, and Ethical Approaches to Form in Recent and Postwar Architecture
edited by
Sonja Hildebrand, Elisabeth Bergmann
19 x 24,5 cm, 180 pp.
56 ill. col., 51 ill. b/w
paperback
english, italian
Silvana Editoriale
ISBN 9788836632657
€ 32 / frs 35.–
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The theme of the book is the definition of the relations between community and work in the alpine and subalpine environment. The setting of the Alps has resulted in specific forms of organisation of work and ownership, for example by emphasising the role of the collective management of land assets, but, at the same time, the organisation of work has modified and characterised life differently in mountain communities than in lowland communities. Alpine areas provided opportunities not always present elsewhere: exploitation of forests and waters, employment as guides, and transportation of goods by pack animals through the mountain passes and of travellers in transit. These were just some of the possible spheres of work in these areas. The texts that the reader will find in the book are organised into five sections: the first dedicated to collective needs and local resources, the second to the organisation of work, the third to trade and commerce, the fourth to infrastructure and, finally, with a function of comparison and contrast, a fifth section devoted to “other mountains”.
Montagne, comunità e lavoro tra XIV e XVIII secolo
edited by
Roberto Leggero
14.5 x 19 cm, 260 pp.
27 ill. b/w
paperback
italian
ISBN 9788887624724
€ 20 / frs 20.–
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Compelled to leave Bucharest in 1948, Ionel Schein (1927-2004) found political asylum in Paris, where his biography is entwined with that of some leading figures on the architectural scene of the time, such as Georges-Henri Pingusson, Le Corbusier, Jean Prouvé and Bruno Zevi, with whom he developed enduring relationships ranging from intellectual affiliation to professional collaboration. His projects are notable for a unified design embodying light prefabricated elements and a distribution system capable of evolving over time together with the needs of the inhabitants. This program would include futuristic prototypes, such as the first plastic house, a lightweight knockdown single-family residence, built entirely using synthetic materials in pop colours. This volume offers a reading of Schein’s work drawing directly on the architect’s archive, to date almost entirely unexplored.
Preface by Carlo Olmo. Afterword by Claude Parent.
Silvia Berselli, Ionel Schein. Dall'habitat evolutivo all'architecture populaire
19 x 24,5 cm, 232 pp.
209 ill. b/w
paperback
italiano
Silvana Editoriale
ISBN 9788836631438
€ 29 / frs 29.–
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«L’architecture est le jeu savant, correct et magnifique des volumes assemblés sous la lumière». Alluding to Le Corbusier’s famous statement of 1923, this collection of essays solicits critical reflection on the relationship between light and architecture, on both theoretical and practical levels. Beginning with a discussion of the problem of how to represent light and its effects within architectural space in different media (drawing, photography, film), it then examines the relationship between planning and hygiene-theories, focusing in particular on those which exercised their influence on the choice of orientation and exposure of buildings to the sun. On the technological front, finally, attention is turned to projects making use of the various devices, and then new, for the modulation of natural light, as well as to the many possibilities offered to designers by new technologies of artificial illumination.
Texts by Katrin Albrecht, Charlotte Ashby, Marcel Bächtiger, Daniel A. Barber, Silvia Berselli, Matthias Brunner, Marco Di Nallo, Valeria Farinati, Ruth Hommelen, Margaret Maile Petty, Éric Monin, Dietrich Neumann, Mary Reid Brunstrom, Lutz Robbers, Giuliana Scuderi, Nathalie Simonnot, Daniel Siret, Marie Theres Stauffer, Simona Talenti, Annarita Teodosio.
«Le jeu savant». Luce e oscurità nell'architettura del XX secolo / Light and Darkness in 20th Century Architecture
edited by
Silvia Berselli
Matthias Brunner
Daniela Mondini
19 x 24.5 cm, 280 pp.
130 ill. b/w
paperback
italian, english, french
Silvana Editoriale
ISBN 9788836629817
€ 32 / frs 40.–
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Light is the essential medium across which space, forms, and colors become perceivable to the human eye. This collection of studies investigates the use of light – natural and artificial – in Christian architecture and art from late antiquity to the Baroque, revealing its complex symbolism and the modes in which it comes to be enacted. Thus, the following are analyzed: the architectonic dispositions that regulate daylight, the material culture that produces artificial illumination, the understandings of and reflections on the effects of light and shadow observed in literary, theological, and philosophical texts, as well as works of art, be they illuminated manuscripts, mosaics, frescos, or stained glass windows.
Texts by Sergio Bettini, Anna Bülau, Elena Castelli De Angelis, Fabio Fernetti, Francesca Galli, Iuliana Gavril, Vladimir Ivanovici, Brigitte Kurmann-Schwarz, Frank Martin, Mira Mocan, Daniela Mondini, Bettina Preiswerk, Nicolas Reveyron, Barbara Schellewald, Nadine Schibille, Angela Schiffhauer, Sophie Schweinfurth, Xenia Stolzenburg.
Manipolare la luce in epoca premoderna / Manipulating Light in Premodern Times
edited by
Daniela Mondini
Vladimir Ivanovici
19 x 24.5 cm, 332 pp.
100 ill. col., 35 ill. b/w
paperback
italian, english, french, german
Silvana Editoriale
ISBN 9788836627219
€ 49 / frs 59.–
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Pier Luigi Nervi (1891-1979), last century’s most famous Italian engineer, devised many of his architectural works by using sophisticated scale models which provided a preview of their stability. The result of elevated scientific knowledge and craft skills, these models accurately reflect Nervi’s ideas, always convinced of the necessary synthesis between engineering and architecture, science and art. The book is the result of lengthy historical archival research, enriched by a very full iconographic apparatus that reveals the exceptional nature of these “miniature masterpieces”.
Gabriele Neri, Capolavori in miniatura. Pier Luigi Nervi e la modellazione strutturale
19 x 24.5 cm, 344 pp.
320 ill. b/w
paperback
italian
Silvana Editoriale
ISBN 9788836627233
€ 32 / frs 40.–
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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.
Marco Zanuso, Scritti sulle tecniche di produzione e di progetto
edited by
Roberta Grignolo
19 x 24.5 cm, 350 pp.
282 ill. b/w
paperback
italian
Silvana Editoriale
ISBN 9788836622986
€ 38 / frs 45.–
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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.
L'Architecture de l'Empire entre France et Italie
edited by
Letizia Tedeschi, Daniel Rabreau
19 x 24.5 cm, 544 pp.
216 ill. b/w
paperback
french and italian
Silvana Editoriale
ISBN 9788836622955
€ 45 / frs 55.–
Out of stock
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.
Annalisa Viati Navone, La Saracena di Luigi Moretti. Fra suggestioni mediterranee, barocche e informali
19 x 24.5 cm, 324 pp.
257 ill. b/w, 19 ill. col.
paperback
italian
Silvana Editoriale
ISBN 9788836622979
€ 38 / frs 45.–
Out of stock
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.
Studi su Domenico Fontana
edited by
Giovanna Curcio, Nicola Navone,
Sergio Villari
19 x 24.5 cm, 352 pp.
150 ill. b/w
paperback
italian
Silvana Editoriale
ISBN 9788836622412
€ 38 / frs 45.–
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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.
Riuso del patrimonio architettonico
edited by
Bruno Reichlin, Bruno Pedretti
19 x 24.5 cm, 144 pp.
170 ill. b/w and col.
paperback
italian, english abstracts
Silvana Editoriale
ISBN 9788836620760
€ 20 / frs 25.–
Out of stock
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.
Luigi Canonica 1764-1844. Architetto di utilità pubblica e privata
edited by
Letizia Tedeschi, Francesco Repishti
24 x 28 cm, 440 pp.
349 ill. col.
paperback
italian
Silvana Editoriale
ISBN 9788836621002
€ 95 / frs 120.-
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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.
Rino Tami. Opera completa
edited by
Kenneth Frampton, Riccardo Bergossi
24 x 28 cm, 496 pp.
800 ill. b/w
hardcover
italian
ISBN 9788887624373
€ 75 / frs 120.–
Out of stock
