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Rationalism (architecture)

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In architecture , Rationalism ( Italian : razionalismo ) is an architectural current which mostly developed from Italy in the 1920s and 1930s . Vitruvius had claimed in his work De architectura that architecture is a science that can be comprehended rationally. The formulation was taken up and further developed in the architectural treatises of the Renaissance . Eighteenth-century progressive art theory opposed the Baroque use of illusionism with the classic beauty of truth and reason.

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30-415: Twentieth-century Rationalism derived less from a special, unified theoretical work than from a common belief that the most varied problems posed by the real world could be resolved by reason. In that respect, it represented a reaction to Historicism and a contrast to Art Nouveau and Expressionism . The term Rationalism is commonly used to refer to the wider International Style . The name Rationalism

60-439: A 19th-century French movement, usually associated with the theorists Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and Auguste Choisy . Viollet-le-Duc rejected the concept of an ideal architecture and instead saw architecture as a rational construction approach defined by the materials and purpose of the structure. The architect Eugène Train was one of the most important practitioners of this school, particularly with his educational buildings such as

90-545: A gallery of its own, with the exception of Oppi, who exhibited in a separate gallery. Oppi's defection caused him to be ejected from the group, which subsequently split and was reformed. The new Novecento Italiano staged its first group exhibition in Milan in 1926. Several of the artists were war veterans; Sarfatti had lost a son in the war. The group wished to take on the Italian establishment and create an art associated with

120-537: A gallery owner interested in modern art, and Margherita Sarfatti , a writer and art critic who worked on Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's newspaper, The People of Italy ( Il Popolo d'Italia ). Sarfatti was also Mussolini's mistress. The movement was officially launched in 1923 at an exhibition in Milan , with Mussolini as one of the speakers. The group was represented at the Venice Biennale of 1924 in

150-453: A younger generation of German architects, including Hans Kollhoff , Max Dudler , and Christoph Mäckler . Historicism (art) Historicism or historism comprises artistic styles that draw their inspiration from recreating historic styles or imitating the work of historic artists and artisans. This is especially common in architecture, where there are many different styles of Revival architecture , which dominated large buildings in

180-462: Is far from my idea to encourage anything like a state art. Art belongs to the domain of the individual. The state has only one duty: not to undermine art, to provide humane conditions for artists, to encourage them from the artistic and national point of view." The movement was in competition with other pro-Fascist movements, especially Futurism and the regionalist Strapaese movement. Novecento Italiano also met outright opposition. Achille Starace ,

210-663: Is not a Style", won over a small but talented group of architects to the classical point of view. Organizations such as the Traditional Architecture Group at the RIBA , and the Institute of Classical Architecture attest to their growing number, but mask the Rationalist origins. In Germany, Oswald Mathias Ungers became the leading practitioner of German rationalism from the mid-1960s. Ungers influenced

240-498: Is retroactively applied to a movement in architecture that came about during the Age of Enlightenment (more specifically, Neoclassicism ), arguing that architecture's intellectual base is primarily in science as opposed to reverence for and emulation of archaic traditions and beliefs. Rationalist architects, following the philosophy of René Descartes emphasized geometric forms and ideal proportions. The French Louis XVI style emerged in

270-522: The Collège Chaptal and Lycée Voltaire . Architects such as Henri Labrouste and Auguste Perret incorporated the virtues of structural rationalism throughout the 19th century in their buildings. By the early 20th century, architects such as Hendrik Petrus Berlage were exploring the idea that structure itself could create space without the need for decoration. This gave rise to modernism , which further explored this concept. More specifically,

300-651: The 19th century. Through a combination of different styles or the implementation of new elements, historicism can create completely different aesthetics than former styles. Thus, it offers a great variety of possible designs. In the history of art , after Neoclassicism which in the Romantic era could itself be considered a historicist movement, the 19th century included a new historicist phase characterized by an interpretation not only of Greek and Roman classicism , but also of succeeding stylistic eras, which were increasingly respected. In particular in architecture and in

330-889: The 20th century. The Arts and Crafts style managed to combine a looser vernacular historicism with elements of Art Nouveau and other contemporary styles. The influence of historicism remained strong until the 1950s in many countries. When postmodern architecture became widely popular during the 1980s, a Neohistorism style followed, that is still prominent and can be found around the world, especially in representative and upper-class buildings. International British Empire France Austria and Germany Greece and Balkans Italy Mexico Netherlands Portugal Romania Russian Empire and USSR Scandinavia Spain United States Novecento Italiano Novecento Italiano ( lit.   ' Italian 1900s ' )

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360-455: The City in 1982, explored several of the ideas that inform Neo-rationalism. In seeking to develop an understanding of the city beyond simple functionalism, Rossi revives the idea of typology , following from Quatremère de Quincy, as a method for understanding buildings, as well as the larger city. He also writes of the importance of monuments as expressions of the collective memory of the city, and

390-1000: The General Secretary of the Fascist Party, attacked it in the Fascist daily press and there was virulent criticism of its “un-Italian" qualities by artists and critics. In the 1930s, a group of professors and students at the Accademia di Brera established an opposition group to Novecento Italiano. Among them was the director of the academy Aldo Carpi , and students Afro , Aldo Badoli , Aldo Bergolli , Renato Birolli , Bruno Cassinari , Cherchi, Alfredo Chighine , Grosso, Renato Guttuso , Dino Lanaro , Giuseppe Migneco , Mantica, Ennio Morlotti , Aligi Sassu , Ernesto Treccani , Italo Valenti , and Emilio Vedova (and later Giuseppe Ajmone and Ibrahim Kodra ), with participation from Trento Longaretti , who wasn't involved in

420-657: The Mussolini regime, including the University of Rome (begun in 1932) and the Esposizione Universale Roma (EUR) in the southern part of Rome (begun in 1936). The EUR features monumental buildings, many of which evocative of ancient Roman architecture, but absent ornament, revealing strong geometric forms. In the 1950s in Italy, studies on rationalism and the methodology of science were developed in

450-561: The Soviet Modernist group ASNOVA were known as 'the Rationalists'. Rational Architecture (Italian: Architettura razionale ) thrived in Italy from the 1920s to the 1940s, under the support and patronage of Mussolini 's Fascist regime. In 1926, a group of young architects – Sebastiano Larco , Guido Frette , Carlo Enrico Rava , Adalberto Libera , Luigi Figini , Gino Pollini and Giuseppe Terragni (1904–43) – founded

480-416: The foundational discussions because he returned to his hometown Treviglio by train after classes. This movement became known as Corrente , which also published a magazine by that name. By 1939, a famous editorial in the magazine stated the group's opposition to fascism, Novecento Italiano, and Futurism. The unity of the group depended much on Sarfatti and it weakened in her absence from Milan. When she

510-603: The genre of history painting , in which historical subjects were treated with great attention to accurate period detail, the global influence of historicism was especially strong from the 1850s onwards. The change is often related to the rise of the bourgeoisie during and after the Industrial Revolution . By the end of the century, in the fin de siècle , Symbolism and Art Nouveau followed by Expressionism and Modernism acted to make Historicism look outdated, although many large public commissions continued in

540-521: The greatest were the most revolutionary”; the artists of Novecento Italiano “would not imitate the world created by God but would be inspired by it”. Despite official patronage, Novecento art did not always have an easy ride in Fascist Italy. Mussolini was personally uninterested in art and divided official support among various groups so as to keep artists on the side of the regime. Opening the exhibition of Novecento art in 1923 he declared that “it

570-615: The hallmark of today's youth is a desire for lucidity and wisdom...This must be clear...we do not intend to break with tradition...The new architecture, the true architecture, should be the result of a close association between logic and rationality. One of the first rationalist buildings was the Palazzo Gualino in Turin , built for the financier Riccardo Gualino by the architects Gino Levi-Montalcini and Giuseppe Pagano . Gruppo 7 mounted three exhibitions between 1926 and 1931, and

600-406: The idea of place as an expression of both physical reality and history. Architects such as Leon Krier , Maurice Culot , and Demetri Porphyrios took Rossi's ideas to their logical conclusion with a revival of Classical Architecture and Traditional Urbanism. Krier's witty critique of Modernism, often in the form of cartoons, and Porphyrios's well crafted philosophical arguments, such as "Classicism

630-766: The influential École Polytechnique in Paris at the time, argued that architecture in its entirety was based in science. Other architectural theorists of the period who advanced rationalist ideas include Abbé Jean-Louis de Cordemoy (1631–1713), the Venetian Carlo Lodoli (1690–1761), Abbé Marc-Antoine Laugier (1713–1769) and Quatremère de Quincy (1755–1849). The architecture of Claude Nicholas Ledoux (1736–1806) and Étienne-Louis Boullée (1728–1799) typify Enlightenment rationalism, with their use of pure geometric forms, including spheres, squares, and cylinders. The term structural rationalism most often refers to

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660-458: The mid-18th century with its roots in the waning interest of the Baroque period. The architectural notions of the time gravitated more and more to the belief that reason and natural forms are tied closely together, and that the rationality of science should serve as the basis for where structural members should be placed. Towards the end of the 18th century, Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand , a teacher at

690-853: The movement constituted itself as an official body, the Movimento Italiano per l'Architettura Razionale (MIAR), in 1930. Exemplary works include Giuseppe Terragni's Casa del Fascio in Como (1932–36), The Medaglia d'Oro room at the Italian Aeronautical Show in Milan (1934) by Pagano and Marcello Nizzoli , and the Fascist Trades Union Building in Como (1938–43), designed by Cesare Cattaneo, Pietro Lingeri, Augusto Magnani, L. Origoni, and Mario Terragni. Pagano became editor of Casabella in 1933 together with Edoardo Persico. Pagano and Persico featured

720-541: The rhetoric of fascism . The artists supported the fascist regime and their work became associated with the state propaganda department, although Mussolini reprimanded Sarfatti for using his name and the name of fascism to promote Novecento. The name of the movement (which means 1900s) was a deliberate reference to great periods of Italian art in the past, the Quattrocento and Cinquecento (1400s and 1500s). The group rejected European avant garde art and wished to revive

750-479: The so-called Gruppo 7 , publishing their manifesto in the magazine Rassegna Italiana . Their declared intent was to strike a middle ground between the classicism of the Novecento Italiano movement and the industrially inspired architecture of Futurism . Their "note" declared: The hallmark of the earlier avant garde was a contrived impetus and a vain, destructive fury, mingling good and bad elements:

780-401: The tradition of large format history painting in the classical manner. It lacked a precise artistic programme and included artists of different styles and temperament, for example, Carrà and Marini . It aimed to promote a renewed yet traditional Italian art. Sironi said, “if we look at the painters of the second half of the 19th century, we find that only the revolutionary were great and that

810-672: The twentieth century in particular by Gualtiero Galmanini , who left an imprint that was later followed by many, influencing the starchitects of his time. In the late 1960s, a new rationalist movement emerged in architecture, claiming inspiration from both the Enlightenment and early-20th-century rationalists. Like the earlier rationalists, the movement, known as the Tendenza, was centered in Italy. Practitioners include Carlo Aymonino (1926–2010), Aldo Rossi (1931–97), and Giorgio Grassi . The Italian design magazine Casabella featured

840-481: The work of the rationalists in the magazine, and its editorials urged the Italian state to adopt rationalism as its official style. The Rationalists enjoyed some official commissions from the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini, but the state tended to favor the more classically inspired work of the National Union of Architects. Architects associated with the movement collaborated on large official projects of

870-501: The work of these architects and theorists. The work of architectural historian Manfredo Tafuri influenced the movement, and the University Iuav of Venice emerged as a center of the Tendenza after Tafuri became chair of Architecture History in 1968. A Tendenza exhibition was organized for the 1973 Milan Triennale . Rossi's book L'architettura della città , published in 1966, and translated into English as The Architecture of

900-423: Was an Italian artistic movement founded in Milan in 1922 to create an art based on the rhetoric of the fascism of Mussolini . Novecento Italiano was founded by Anselmo Bucci (1887–1955), Leonardo Dudreville (1885–1975), Achille Funi , Gian Emilio Malerba (1880–1926), Pietro Marussig , Ubaldo Oppi , and Mario Sironi . Motivated by a post-war " call to order ", they were brought together by Lino Pesaro,

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