Table of contents

COVER

Domus 997

Cover: graphic adaptation of the plan by Kazuyo Sejima+Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA for the design of Grace Farms, New Canaan, Connecticut, USA. © SANAA

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Editorial: The fall and reconstruction of the polis

Nicola Di Battista

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CONFETTI

The architecture of Aldo Andreani

An exhibition and a book have at last brought visibility to the architectural output of one of the 2oth century’s most important Italian architects. Here we publish a letter he wrote in 1941 to the newspaper La Voce di Mantova, in defence of his restoration of Mantua’s ancient guildhalls. His words show us what a scrupolous philologist of built form he was.

Aldo Andreani

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Metamorphoses

Teaching architecture and making architecture is a trait of the Palermo School, says Vincenzo Melluso, who has been putting it into practice for years by first having students peruse the big book of the inhabited landscape and its mutations, then intersecting the discipline with other ones, and finally asking them to create architectural form.

Vincenzo Melluso

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Rhode Island School of Design

Founded in 1877 to educate the public about the importance of art and design, and linked from the beginning to the region’s quality manufacturing, the Rhode Island School of Design today combines a hands-on practical approach with the study of the humanities, and considers unreached aims not as failure, but as an ulterior chance for students to reformulate their response.

Rosanne Somerson

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Letter to a 20-year-old

The training of the young generations has always corresponded to the degree of civilisation we have reached, which is why our magazine has given much attention to university programmes by publishing articles and visiting schools to meet with their students. We now address students directly in this heart-felt and earnest letter by an artist.

Alfredo Pirri

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Madama Cucchi

The impertinent Enzo Cucchi is lurking in the 18^th-century veranda of Palazzo Madama in Turin with his Drone Dario, and ends up occupying the “Camera degli Specchi” with three oil-on-canvas paintings that speak of his continuing dialogue with the ancient and the contemporary. As Filippo Juvarra liked to say, “Those who see little think nothing”.

Enrica Pagella

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Ikko Tanaka Issey Miyake

The extraordinary quality of work by the celebrated graphic designer Ikko Tanaka has become the departure point of a very special project by Issey Miyake, who dedicates it to his master for being an endless source of inspiration. Previewed here by Domus.

Issey Miyake

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Gastone Rinaldi: una storia italiana

The career path of a talented designer from Padova in the past century is brought to the attention of current times thanks to a travelling exhibition and a handsome catalogue that cover his journey from the family company Rima, to contact with Gio Ponti and Domus, all the way to a new enterprise he called Thema.

Marco Romanelli

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Stairs by Bruno Vaerini

Space, structure and movement are the essence of a staircase. The transition between levels, instead of being inconsequential places, can become an opportunity for an actual design project. Based on these exquisitely architectural considerations and the meticulous work seen here, we present the “two-level stair”.

Manolo De Giorgi

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Restoration as a common good

The preservation of large public buildings is overbearingly complex and unsustainable if not developed hand in hand with promotion and maintenance. The Villa Reale in Monza represents a virtuous example of public and private bodies working together toward giving the restored monumental premises back to the citizenry.

Attilio Maria Navarra

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A new Quad for New College in Oxford, UK

David Kohn’s new architectural interpretation of the quadrangle so historically typical of British university campuses is a three-way spatial conversation between institution, city and nature.

David Kohn

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Variations on paper

For Peter Märkli, drawing has always been a fundamental tool of his trade. By gathering and cataloguing 700 of his sketches, the curators Fabio Don and Claudia Mion have  given an exemplary depiction of this Swiss architect’s way of working in a book published by Quart Verlag. Previewed here by Domus.

Peter Märkli

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PROJECTS

Grace Farms, New Canaan, Connecticut

A new project built in a wooded area in Southern New England illustrates the poetic approach of this famous Japanese office. A strong talent in reading the landscape resulted in a piece of architecture winding freely through the site’s morphology, where the relation between indoors and out is not clearly defined, but modulated and regulated according to exposure to sunlight, which determines the layout of the functions.

Design Kazuyo Sejima+Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA. Photo Iwan Baan, Dean Kaufman

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Museo Bailo, Treviso, Italy

By reconfiguring the main facade and introducing a new passageway to the galleries that reclaims a dark residual dead-end in the court, and combining all of this with meticulous restoration work, these architects have succeeded in reinstating the urban role of a monumental complex.

Design Studiomas, Heinz Tesar. Photo Marco Zanta

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New rooms for the Cass in London

In their renewal of the interior space of the Central House, belonging to The Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design, these architects built a miniature city by introducing a boulevard lined by studio spaces with urban-style frontage, obtained by means of a studied layout of subdivided walls.

Design Florian Beigel, Philip Christou. Photo Jonathan Lovekin, Ioana Marinescu

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From fashion to design

Firmly and keenly at the helm of Kartell since 1988, Claudio Luti tells Domus of the phases in his extraordinary walk of life, which led him from designer clothing to designer objects through the management of a time-honoured plastic factory in Noviglio, Lombardy. His attraction to innovation and challenge have seen him exploring new market segments such as tableware, fashion accessories and fragrance.

Text Claudio Luti. Photo Andrea Martiradonna

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Six in Four, the elevators at the Whitney

It is surprising how this recently deceased great American artist came to such similar results in the 1970s, regarding his work inspired by domestic interiors, to the ones attained by the German architect Heinrich Tessenow in the 1920s. All this exploration converges in his project for the four elevators at the new Whitney, where their familiar yet unexpected forms are a masterly conclusion of Artschwager’s oeuvre.

Artwork Richard Artschwager. Text Adam D. Weinberg

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Rassegna: Outdoor

Edited by Centro Studi

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Feedback: Snøhetta's Oslo

Snøhetta

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Elzeviro: The future of the city is the city

The main infrastructure for living and sustainable economy in the future is the city. Therefore, it is crucial that urban design, construction and technology develop with a constant focus on human behaviours and needs.

Claudio De Albertis

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