Luigi Caccia Dominioni: Refinment and More is Less

Architecture Context Responsibility Establishing a Dialogue and Following Patterns Marco Lucchini and Agata Bonenberg with Teresa Bardzińska-Bonenberg David Palterer Grażyna Kodym-Kozaczko Rafał Graczyk Borys Siewczyński Barbra Świt-Jankowska Wojciech Skórzewski Luigi De Ambrogi Mieczysław Kozaczko Wojciech Bonenberg Jacopo Leveratto Milano, Poznań, 2015 Architecture Context Responsibility Establishing a Dialogue and Following Patterns Authors: Marco Lucchini and Agata Bonenberg with Teresa Bardzińska-Bonenberg David Palterer Grażyna Kodym-Kozaczko Rafał Graczyk Borys Siewczyński Barbra Świt-Jankowska Wojciech Skórzewski Luigi De Ambrogi Mieczysław Kozaczko Wojciech Bonenberg Jacopo Leveratto Reviever: professor Janusz Stankowski Editors: Marco Lucchini and Agata Bonenberg Layout: Maria Kalinowska Cover design: Agata Bonenberg, Ewa Grela Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento di Architettura e Studi Urbani, Milano Poznan University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture, Poznań 2015 ISBN 978-83-63549-77-0 Contents Chapter I: Establishing a Dialogue / edited by Marco Lucchini Refinement and “More Is Less” in Luigi Caccia Dominioni’s Language. Marco Lucchini / 5 Two Waterfront Ideas in Similar Context. Teresa Bardzińska-Bonenberg / 18 Transformations of Small Towns in Wielkopolska Region. Selected Aspects. Rafał Graczyk / 30 Responsive Public Spaces: Beyond the Digital. Jacopo Leveratto / 40 The Urban Context in Digital, Variable Space. Borys Siewczyński / 52 Context and Responsibility in (Trans)Humanist Architecture. Barbara ŚwitJankowska / 63 The Significance of the Church as a Landmark. The Case Study of the Post‑Concilliar Sacred Architecture in Poznań and its Relationship with the Neighbourhood. Wojciech Skórzewski / 71 Chapter II: Following Patterns / edited by Agata Bonenberg Propagation Factors of Ideas and Concepts in Architectural Design: Professional Mobility, International Architectural Education Versus Spatial Context Agata Bonenberg / 84 Preserving the Archaeological Heritage When and Where Its Original Context No Longer Exist. Reflections on the Lausanne Charter of 1990 Through Two Case Studies. David Palterer / 95 “Outlawed Urban Planning”. Suppressed Values of Urban Planning in Poznan. Grażyna Kodym-Kozaczko / 120 The Museum as Context: Exhibiting Architecture, Interiors and Fragments, or the “Paradox of the Building within a Building”. Luigi De Ambrogi / 136 Relationship Between Urbanity and Architectonical Figures of the Building. Mieczysław Kozaczko / 157 Multi-Cultural Context in Architecture. Wojciech Bonenberg / 166 Chapter I: Establishing a Dialogue edited by Marco Lucchini Chapter I: Establishing a Dialogue Marco LUCCHINI* REFINEMENT AND “MORE IS LESS” IN LUIGI CACCIA DOMINIONI’S LANGUAGE Post-WWII architecture in Milan is a complex phenomenon in which different cultural components was layered. Most of the architects, under the cultural leadership of Ernesto Nathan Rogers, were involved in the critique of orthodox Modernism working up to the three related concepts of history, context and type. In this cultural context Luigi Caccia Dominioni’s work could represent, through architecture, the plural tradition of Milan, of Manzoni and Stendhal which prefers “the less to the more and to avoid a defect rather than risk a beauty”. Caccia Dominioni’s language, was grounded on a grammar made of some constants tectonic choices such as the concealment of the load bearing structure, the graphic composition, the role of the filter system, the task assigned to the rhythmic openings and finally the emphasis given to the skin. That grammar was handled in order to contaminated many kind of language searching a constant balance between a specific tradition and a disciplinary advancement. Keywords: Luigi Caccia Dominioni, modernism, language, housing, context 1. LUIGI CACCIA DOMINIONI AND THE CULTURAL CONTEXT IN MILAN AFTER WWII Post-WWII architecture in Milan was part of the specifically Italian phenomenon that rethought modernism revising its most intransigent aspects in order to harmonize more directly with historical context. The Milan school was a quite complex episode involving different cultural aspects; among the most important were architecture and philosophical trends that opposed Croce’s idealism, like Enzo Paci’s phenomenology. Ernesto Nathan Rogers was one of the figures who was most consistently able to find relationships between phenomenological thought and architecture, understanding the latter as an experience of reality - not in the abstract but as an authentic experience of construction, its rules and the needs to which it must respond. E. N. Rogers believed that it was methodologically fundamental to gain knowledge of phenomena through their essence which, on the ur* Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento di Architettura e Studi Urbani. Marco Lucchini 6 ban scale, translated into the relationship between the permanence and change of the city’s physical structure and, on the architectural scale, into coherence between form and theme1. Luigi Caccia Dominioni (LCD, 1913) lived and worked in Milan during the era of post-war reconstruction. He never formalized his thoughts in written texts but did find some space in Casabella Continuità, directed by Rogers, because he was deemed able to read history, local geography and context2. In fact, his architecture was viewed as being able to weave a dialogue between Milan "tradition" and the city’s desire for growth and development. In this context, tradition refers to a "neoclassical society from which a sense of proportion, formal reserve, respectful construction is drawn"3. That tradition was part of an urban culture that LCD was able to read in a refined, well-educated, sometimes almost sophisticated way, by combining technical correctness with a kind of sobriety that also left room for moderately vivacious expression. Like all architecture, LCD’s is deeply related to his clients who, in his case, were part of the most dynamic upper-class Milan, leaders of the industry that placed Milan at the fore of the economic boom, engaged in the post war reconstruction of a city seeking new symbols with which to identify. It was a very different world from that of the “house for everyone” (low income housing) whose primary exponents were Albini, Figini and Pollini, Gio Ponti, Bottoni, De Carlo and many others. While confined to peripheral areas, public housing projects in Milan were among the few urban facts expressing principles that would influence overall urban form and the urban landscape. LCD’s works rarely played a decisive role in the conformation of urban space. Exceptions were the Viridiana neighborhood and Milan-San Felice - questionable in some ways - both developed in collaboration with Magistretti. On the micro-urban scale, choices were often constrained by contractual obligations and building regulations. On the typological scale, on the other hand, LCD "speaks" much more incisively with the city and its culture through linguistic choices based on a grammar that allowed interaction with a broader urban syntax. His architectural typologies were characterized by continuous wall surfaces within a consolidated historical fabric, slab types or buildings isolated in space. 1 A. Monestiroli, La ragione degli edifici. La Scuola di Milano e oltre, C. Marinotti Edizioni, Milano 2010 p. 60. 2 E. N. Rogers, La responsabilità verso la tradizione, Casabella Continuità, n. 202 August-September 1954. 3 G. De Carlo, Orfanotrofio e convento a Milano, Casabella Continuità 207, october 1957, p. 39. Refinement and “More Is Less” in Luigi Caccia Dominioni’s Language 7 Fig. 1. Beata Vergine Addolorata and Santa Croce house (draw by the author) These latter are present in relatively less compact, semi-central areas, or in some cases, like the Piazza Carbonari building, in more outlying areas developed at the time, with very loose planning constraints. 2. URBAN SPACE DESIGN The most interesting opportunities for the design of urban space were perhaps the Beata Vergine Addolorata convent complex in via Calatafimi and the via S. Croce residential building. The first, initiated in 1947, is located near the southern vertex of a roughly triangular block. The main building is a six-storey slab containing living spaces, laboratories, a dining hall and other services. It continues the existing building in via Sambuco, varying its geometry, however, since LCD’s building deviates by about 30 degrees from via Sambuco, giving priority to via Calatafimi. Despite its being a private place for religious life, the convent building participates in the urbanity of its context. A discrete flow of artisan and commercial activities, including "the Senigaglia fair" animated by the remaining functionality of the nearby Navigli canal system, had given the area great vitality for many years. 8 Marco Lucchini Fig. 2. Santa Croce house (photo by M. Lucchini) In recent decades, changing socio-economic dynamics characterized by a marked orientation towards leisure activities and luxury housing have contributed to distancing the convent (still used by religious orders and associations) from vibrant city life. It is, however, part of a vast system of public spaces characterized by green areas and monuments like the S. Eustorgio and S. Lorenzo churches. The expressive content of LCD’s architecture can be found in constant figures based on the composition of simple elements unrelated to transient oscillations in taste that defined well-balanced volumes combining sobriety with suspended complexity that was never exhibitionistic. As pointed out several times by the architect, elevations are complementary to the building’s plan organization. In his residential architecture for the affluent middle class, the spatial models were rather traditional, not far removed from the quite conventional division in rooms with a clear separation between the main and service areas. The architect introduced changes to these models to increase spatial fluidity. Refinement and “More Is Less” in Luigi Caccia Dominioni’s Language 9 3. PLAN ARRANGEMENT AND FAÇADE DESIGN IN HOUSING The via Vigoni house (1956-57) plan is arranged through a corridor on the longitudinal axis that connects the entrance hall with all the rooms perpendicular respect to it. There is a clear evidence that the space is focused Fig. 3. Via Vigoni house (redraw by M. Lucchini) 10 Marco Lucchini Fig. 4. Via Vigoni house, interior of the four chimneys apartment (Università Iuav di Venezia - Archivio Progetti, Fondo Giorgio Casali) on the internal staircase as happens in many other LCD architectures. Several oblique walls distort the corridor axe and we can recognize a sequence of slipped hallways. The rooms shape thus gets complex as they have a polygonal perimeter. The architect makes the partition walls similar to a diaphragm and the space sounds like a fluid. On the top floor there is a penthouse called "the four chimneys apartment"; the spatial layout gets highly dynamic: a traditional system of Enfilade in- Refinement and “More Is Less” in Luigi Caccia Dominioni’s Language 11 terconnects a series of adjacent rooms each other, through foldable doors. Moreover the dining room and the study are enriched with vertical interlocking spaces obtaining something very close to Raumplan. It is remarkable that in the service people zone there is a double room where a movable partition separates the two beds: this solution and the aforementioned enfilade, addresses the issue of flexibility, already practiced in some well known modernist examples like the Schroeder house (1924). In the same cultural context in which LCD worked, Gio Ponti also achieved the issue of flexibility in the project called “living space for four people” (1956). The house in Via Ippolito Nievo (1956) is a ten storey slab where the internal arrangement is always set on a central axis. The pivot of the distribution is again a circular staircase that "screwed" the space upwards; the lift is not in the stairwell but it stays outside on the façade: in this way it becomes a graphic and dynamic element thas trund on the façade. The apartments are relatively small with some distributional differences as the storey changes. The living rooms are located at the ends of the building: so they can extend from one façade to another, while the corner windows give the inhabitants a great view over the park. The distance of livingrooms from the entrance makes the architect to stretch the distribution paths, considered for this reason, "illusionistic galleries"4, crossing the sleeping area. The internal distribution is over along a central axis that coincides with the narrower span of the structural frame, articulated in a triple body. Fig. 5. Via Nievo house, plan (LCD’s archive) The living rooms, in via Vigoni house, have an octagonal perimeter. They emerge from the façade trough bow-windows, overlapping on the balconies. 4 F. Irace, Milano Moderna, F. Motta Editore, Milan 1996, p. 52. 12 Marco Lucchini Fig. 6. Via Vigoni house ( photo by M. Lucchini) The balconies shape is similar to bow-windows one, and their shift boosts the movement of the façade. In conceptual terms the language is rooted in the tectonic system. The load bearing structure has been hidden inside the walls; it can be sporadically seen in the larger apartments, such as the "the four chimneys", where the main living area is characterized by a freestanding columns. The façade layout has a double hierarchy: the horizontal one is given by the floor slab edge while the vertical one is given by the difference between the central block of the bowwindows volumes, close to the vertical line that collects the fireplaces pipes, and the sides block where we have full openings as transparent walls. The combination of balustrades, recessed glass block walls, strip windows and balconies renders both façades wonderfully complex, structurally hierarchical and layered. The façade layout is also compositionally asymmetrical: the arrangement of the various Refinement and “More Is Less” in Luigi Caccia Dominioni’s Language 13 architectural elements (windows, bow windows, shutters etc.) reminds us a mirror symmetry without tracing over it. The general layout provides in each floors, except the last, two flats of different size. This difference is reflected on the façade causing the aforementioned unbalancing layout. There is a mix between openings conceived as a hole and openings conceived as transparent walls. The façade has a depth due to the presence of the Bow Window. In 20th century, during fifties and sixties, Milanese architecture façade design has been investigated in two ways: "deep" façades and "thin" one. This topic deals with an identity character deeply rooted in the history of architecture since the Renaissance. We can image façade as two boundaries whose distance could be modified in a way that depends by the tectonic system. We can have a complementary system where load bearing structure and building physic function like insulating and protection system are allocated on different layers. The synthetic system fulfils the structural and building physic function of the building by means of a single multifunctional layer. If the architect carves or digs the wall he will obtain a living space. In Milan we can easily recognize a difference between architects like Gio Ponti or Asnago and Vender-who set their poetry on façades meant as geometric skin which tends to hide the real constructional system, and others like Figini and Pollini, BBPR and Gardella which used to handle the depth of the façade letting, for instance, the load bearing structural visible. In LCD’s architecture, different forms of expression were determined by the project’s context and were intended, as pointed out by G. Polin, to distinguish and characterize places5. In Milan, buildings with significant façade depth are centrally-located dwellings. In addition to the Via Vigoni building, the residential buildings in corso Italia (1957-64), Via Santa Maria alla Porta (1960-62), and especially the residential/office building in Corso Monforte (1966) are also noteworthy. This last is a small building that respects the proportions and dimensions of the surrounding urban fabric. Since the 1930s, the San Babila area had undergone major transformations: building demolitions and substitutions altered the dimensions and proportions of urban space, modifying street layouts and introducing large 5 G. Polin, Un architetto milanese tra regionalismo e sperimentazione: Luigi Caccia Dominioni, in: Casabella n. 508, December 1984, p.42 14 Marco Lucchini Fig. 7. Via Vigoni house ( photo by M. Lucchini) buildings which were not very innovative from an urban standpoint but which pursued an image of monumentality for the new metropolis in the making. LCD contributed to this process with office buildings in corso Europa (1953-59) - known as the black standard bearers – which conceal, behind their refined curtain walls, an exploration of organization based on an organic geometry rarely found in office buildings. The house in Corso Monforte pursues the opposite strategy by seeking to restore the block behind the S. Babila church with a corner building that forms a substantial perspective backdrop for via Del Duca. The volume is divided into three parts: a plastered street façade composed of a series of tall, narrow openings that evoke - without hesitation - "the Lombard window"; a crown formed by a light enclosure with shading devices closed at the top by a small pitched-roof volume; and finally the stair cylinder in the courtyard which is slightly taller than the roof Refinement and “More Is Less” in Luigi Caccia Dominioni’s Language 15 and which is the moment of greatest visibility of the curve defining the courtyard. The evident splay of the windows reveals the wall thickness by creating sharp shadows. Shutters move within the masonry wall thickness. At a glance, the building does not seem to say much, but its details and general composure recall an idea of beauty that reveals itself slowly - something typical of the critical spirit of Pietro Verri’s neoclassical Milan6. 4. "TEXTILE" SURFACES Another area of the architect’s expressive research concerned free-standing dwellings characterized by a figuratively thin envelope composed of a clinker tile skin made up of rectangular or hexagonal elements composed to create a "textile" surface. The walls can be defined metaphorically as textiles. They are not really fabric screens but recall G. Semper’s7 proposal in which the idea of weaving is represented by the syntactic relations between construction elements. For this reason, Luigi Caccia Dominioni’s rarefied skins can be considered petrified fabric8. The idea of textile is evoked by the semi-glossy or rough surfaces of the hexagonal or rectangular clinker elements. The former are present in the Loro Parisini office (1955) and the Beata Vergine Addolorata and sant’Antonio convents in via Maroncelli; here the elements can be hollow to create a rarefied interlock that filters light and ensures visual privacy. Long rectangular clinker elements are used in the residences in Via Ippolito Nievo (1957) and Piazza Carbonari (1961) giving rise to a relatively marked geometry creating an abstract perception of the masonry, emphasizing the lightness of the clinker facing, like a taut skin. In these buildings, the structural system is hidden and distanced from the building’s corners which are voided by the placement of windows that "break down" the wall mass. The window are of different heights and shapes but are unified by being flush with the façade, which appears as a surface engraved with fine graphic elements reflecting the light that changes with the seasons offering ever-different views. 6 D. Samsa, Milano: architettura e città fra esprit de geometrie e esprit de finesse, in Architettura Cronache e Storia, 571-72, May-June 2003 7 G. Semper interwines etymological analogies relating to craftsmanlike ways of working simple materials and essential construction strategies to express the metaphor of textile architecture: the figure of speech is represented by the action of weaving whose meaning can shift from the dimension of the fabric, recognized in noted huts covered with woven natural fibers, to that - not properly - of walls or envelopes formed by or faced with small items, figuratively and structurally connected to each other. 8 About this topics see K. Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture. The Poetics of Costructions in Nineteenth eand Twentieth Century Architecture, The Mit Press, 1995 pp. 84-85. 16 Marco Lucchini Fig. 8. Piazza Carbonari house ( photo by M. Lucchini) Regardless of construction technique, LCD’s language uses a grammar based on constant tectonic choices such as concealed structure, graphic composition, the role of the system of filters, the rhythms of the openings and finally emphasis on the roof. Often, ornamental elements appear with a meaning that is never gratuitous: overhanging eaves, splays, elaborate balustrades, and gutters can be read as classic references and reinterpretations. The same can be said of his staircases with organic plan forms. Responding to constraints imposed by Milan building regulations, the architect integrated the roof of the Piazza Carbonari building with the façade, transforming it into a solid faceted at its summit. One might speak of a figurative hybrid between a pitched and a flat roof: the façade is pushed upwards (there is no cornice) by the sequence of windows, and stops gently, but firmly, with the roof profile. The build- Refinement and “More Is Less” in Luigi Caccia Dominioni’s Language 17 ing’s identity is strongly characterized by its profile, giving it the figurative value that enables it to dialogue remotely with the urban landscape consisting of ample views and buildings isolated in space. LCD’s linguistic choices were able to define a style that marked both a precise era in Milan architecture as well as a cultivated and elegant way of perceiving professional practice. Other designers, in particular Ignazio Gardella, also embraced this approach. Not coincidentally, the shifted bow-windows and "textile" clinker finish in buildings such as the via Marchiondi house are recurring themes. Some have observed that the activity of these masters revealed diminished moral tension, as compared to the ethical inspiration of Albini’s or Bottoni’s heroic rationalism. Their inability to influence the larger scale like the form of a part of the city, prompted them to adjust their design practice to the opportunities offered by their clients, emphasizing linguistic and autobiographical aspects. Those who articulated these critiques were not at all free from a much less refined professionalism than Caccia Dominioni’s. He, along with Gardella and others (G. Gho, Minoletti, M. Bega, G. and V. Latis, Zanuso just to mention name a few) helped define an important part of Milan’s identity that endures even today, in opposition to the globalizing and vulgar drift of recent projects, devoid of true urban culture. LITERATURE [1] A Milano in una zona che si va trasformando, in: Domus n. 403 giugno 1963. [2] A Milano una casa ad appartamenti, in: Domus, n. 380 july 1961. [3] Luigi Caccia Dominioni, Casa in condominio a Milano, in: Casabella Continuità 217 december 1957. [4] Casa in piazza Carbonari, in: Vitrum n. 137, 1963. [5] De Carlo G., Orfanotrofio e convento a Milano, in: Casabella Continuità n. 207, october 1957, p. 39. [6] Gentili E., Alcune recenti opere dell’Architetto Luigi Caccia Dominioni, in: Abitare n. 13, february 1963. [7] Irace F., Marini P. (ed.), Luigi Caccia Dominioni, case e cose da abitare, Marsilio Venezia 2002. [8] Irace F., Milano moderna: architettura e città nell'epoca della ricostruzione, Federico Motta, Milano 1996. [9] Polin G., Un architetto milanese tra regionalismo e sperimentazione: Luigi Caccia Dominioni, in: Casabella n. 508, December 1984. [10] Santini P.C., L’architettura Milanese di Caccia Dominioni, in: Ottagono n. 6 1967. [11] Vercelloni V., Caccia Dominioni o il prestigio del Galateo, in: Superfici n. 1, 1961.