Zero Gravity. Franco Albini. Costruire le modernità, A cura di Federico Bucci e Fulvio Irace, Triennale-Electa, Milano 2006 (pp. 288, s.i.p.)
As part of the celebrations for the centenary of the architect’s birth, this catalogue bears the attractive exhibition title and is actually the product of research that extends beyond the exhibition appointment. It was preceded in 2005 by the book I musei e gli allestimenti di Franco Albini edited by Federico Bucci and Augusto Rossari for Electa and, as its heir, it expands the attempt to critically review all Albini’s work. The focus of the various chapters in this new book has been widened to cover the entire time-span of the architect’s production (1929-77), exploring certain themes and dwelling on some emblematic works. The selection criteria were prompted by the means of investigation and archive sources available, as well as a desire to take a step back and re-discuss a well-established historiographic image.
The structure of the book edited by Federico Bucci and Fulvio Irace maintains the same division into core themes as the exhibition and addresses seven aspects of Albini’s work in as many chapters. Two of his lessons explain his personal approach to the museum and exhibition project and introduce new possible interpretations by Bucci, Orietta Lanzarini and Marco Mulazzani. The former believes the interior and exhibition designs share a common meaning and “the complex weave of living and exhibiting, living the present and imagining the past, is an essential factor in Albini’s research...filled with symbolic meanings”. The latter two authors broach new perspectives of historiographic investigation into the already rich museographical genre. With previously unpublished letters and records, they link museums by Albini and Carlo Scarpa.
Augusto Rossari reconstructs the design process of the Pirovano Refuge in Cervinia (1948-52), relating its controversial success to the coeval debate on tradition, and then embarks on a detailed overview of possible links with the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, starting from the projects for Villa Olivetti in Ivrea (1955-56). Matilde Baffa addresses the low-cost housing theme via a chronological reconstruction of the various stages in a team effort that started in the 1930s and continued through the war to the initial phases of the reconstruction. Marco Introini’s photographic album in the centre of the book offers readers a moment’s pause. The colour illustrations provide an opportunity to gauge the topicality of some of Albini’s accomplishments, passing from the empyreal suspension of b/w period photographs to the concrete city of today.
The desire to link the architecture to contemporary times is accompanied by an attempt to probe the eccentricity of Albini’s path compared with the role of stern custodian of modernist orthodoxy and moral integrity of the trade often attributed to him by the critics. Since Giuseppe Pagano praised his “moral approach” in 1938, Albini’s worth has been measured principally in terms of exemplary and consistent method, precise form, “Calvinist” control of the imagination and rational language. The Milanese architect’s poetic, however, avoided the usual historiographic moulds, given that as early as 1936, as Irace argues, in the room for a man at the 6th Milan Triennale “Everything seemingly speaks the language of industrial production; but...nothing fails to reveal an exceptional origin.” The lack of contributions on the role played by Franca Helg – which certain scrupulous reviewers have already pointed out – and the practice’s permanent collaborators seems a deliberate choice in the critical selection of the catalogue, which focuses on the works, periods and themes that are predominantly deemed to contain the work of Albini alone, in an attempt to hone in on his peculiarities and personal traits.
Nevertheless, the authors avoid the risk of unconditional celebration. One example is the clearly reasoned essay by Claudia Conforti, who says that although most of his public-use buildings “do not differ from a fungibility that is as excellent as it is impersonal”, La Rinascente in Rome (1957-61) stands out as a brilliant episode. Certain direct reports by friends and assistants fill the memory rooms where Vittorio Gregotti, Renzo Piano, Corrado Levi, Aurelio Cortesi and Italo Rota respectively paint an affectionate, appreciative, grateful, fussy and eccentric portrait of the master and the man. Marco Albini’s piece spans his father’s entire cultural, political and professional trajectory.
Via the militant and informed filter of the writings of Carla Albini, who died in 1943, he paints a vivid cross-section of the Milanese artistic milieu before the end of World War II. The book gains added worth from the biography, updated bibliography and revised and corrected list of works. In short, this book avoids rituals of celebration and pursues a new possible interpretation to be discussed in the light of the latest considerations on 20th-century Italian architecture.
Stefano Poli Architect