ZEVI’S ARCHITECTS. History and counter-history of italian architecture 1944-2000, at MAXXI
24/04/2018.
Exhibition [ROM] Italy 25.04>16.09.2018
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
This exhibition review the work of the well-known Italian architectural critic, Bruno Zevi and, through his look, some lesser-known aspects of postwar Italian architecture and discourse. Internationally, Zevi is known to be a great popularizer of Frank Lloyd Wright as well as a defender of "organicism". In Italy, for decades was an omnipresent and uncomplicated critical voice (sometimes irritating, as some would say).
Bruno Zevi. Photograph by Elisabetta Catalano
Pier Luigi Nervi, Cartiera Burgo, Mantova 1961-1964. Archivio Pier Luigi Nervi, Collezione MAXXI Architettura, courtesy Fondazione MAXXI Roma
Bruno Zevi. Photograph by Elisabetta Catalano
Mario Fiorentino’s Monumento alle Fosse Ardeatine (Monument to the Victims of Fosse Ardeatine), 1947, Rome. From “Zevi’s Architects: History and Counter-History from Postwar to the End of the 20th Century.”
Poster
On the occasion of his birth, MAXXI is devoting an exhibition produced in collaboration with the Fondazione Bruno Zevi to the great historian, lecturer, critic, politician and designer and to the modern and contemporary Italian architecture he supported and promoted through his work. ZEVI’S ARCHITECTS
Curators Jean-Louis Cohen and Pippo Ciorra have divided the exhibtion’s contents into three categories or three principal levels of narration. The first is an “illustrated” summary of Zevi’s biography, reconstructed through his words and his public actions. The second presents a selection of projects and architects published in his books and magazine, commented on in his own words. The third level tackles his acrobatic activism in the field of the communication of architecture: writer, editor, consultant to broadcasters and publishers, curator of epochal exhibitions (such as those of Michelangelo and Brunelleschi), Bruno Zevi explored the length and breadth of the communicative possibilities of architecture and in many cases proved to be a pioneer, particularly in the field of low cost publishing and radio and television broadcasting.
Curators Jean-Louis Cohen and Pippo Ciorra have divided the exhibtion’s contents into three categories or three principal levels of narration. The first is an “illustrated” summary of Zevi’s biography, reconstructed through his words and his public actions. The second presents a selection of projects and architects published in his books and magazine, commented on in his own words. The third level tackles his acrobatic activism in the field of the communication of architecture: writer, editor, consultant to broadcasters and publishers, curator of epochal exhibitions (such as those of Michelangelo and Brunelleschi), Bruno Zevi explored the length and breadth of the communicative possibilities of architecture and in many cases proved to be a pioneer, particularly in the field of low cost publishing and radio and television broadcasting.
No to the architecture of repression, classicist baroque dialectal.
Yes to the architecture of freedom, dangerous anti-idolatrist creative
Yes to the architecture of freedom, dangerous anti-idolatrist creative
Bruno Zevi.
Through drawings, models and other visual materials, the exhibition intends to clarify the fundamental role played by Zevi in the Italian post-war architectural debate, highlighting the importance of the relationship between architecture and active politics.
Maurizio Sacripanti, Luigi Pellegrin, Franco Albini, Giovanni Michelucci, Mario Ridolfi and Carlo Mollino are just a few of the 35 featured architects whose designs, published and supported by Zevi, accompanied his career in over 50 years of critical, militant activity.
ZEVI’S ARCHITECTS also sheds light on the role of Bruno Zevi within a essential phase of the history of post-war Italian architecture, a period of incredible vitality and commitment to which the Roman historian played a leading role in all the crucial moments. The exhibition also documents Zevi’s direct and militant activism in the political life of the country and the battle to bring democracy to Italy in the years of the Second World War. Active in spreading anti-fascist propaganda in the years of his exile, from Boston and London, an unrepentant member of the Partito d’Azione from its birth, a Socialist, a member of parliament with Pannella’s Radical Party, ever open to polemics and debate, Zevi was a pioneer of the techniques of communications, introducing media and instruments never previously used to talk about architecture such as radio, television and low cost and ultra-low cost publishing.
This exhibition is part of the programme organized by the National Committee for the Celebrations of the Centenary of the birth of Bruno Zevi.
More information
Curators
Curated by Pippo Ciorra, Jean-Louis Cohen
Dates
25 April 2018 - 16 September 2018. Hours.- Tuesday–Sunday 11am–7pm,
Saturday 11am–10pm
Venue
MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo - Via Guido Reni 4A - 00196 Roma. Italy
Bruno Zevi
Bruno Zevi, was born in Rome in 1918. In Rome, he graduated from classical high school (1918-1933) at the "Tasso" high school and enrolled in the Faculty of Architecture. Following the racial laws, he left Italy in 1938, going first to London and then to the United States. Here he graduated from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, presided by Walter Gropius, and directed the "Italian Notebooks" of the "Justice and Freedom" movement (1933-1944). He discovers Frank Lloyd Wright, whose preaching in favor of organic architecture will remain a lifelong advocate. Back in Europe in 1943, he took part in the anti-fascist struggle in the ranks of the Action Party. In 1944 he promoted the Association for Organic Architecture (APAO) and the following year he founded the magazine "Metron".
Since 1948 he has been Professor of History of Architecture at the IUAV of Venice and since 1964 at the Faculty of Architecture of Rome. From 1954 to 2000 he held a weekly column of architecture on "Cronache" and then on "L'Espresso"; the articles of the first decades are collected in the twenty-five volumes of "Chronicles of Architecture" (1945-54). In 1955 he founded the monthly magazine "L'architettura-cronache e storia" which he ran uninterruptedly until January 2000 (1955-64).
He was awarded an honorary degree by the Universities of Buenos Aires, Michigan, and Technion of Haifa; is an honorary member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and of the American Institute of Architects, general secretary of the National Institute of Urban Planning (INU), vice-president of the National Institute of Architecture (In / arch), academician of San Luca and 'lnternational Institute of Architecture, president emeritus of the Comité International des Critiques d'Architecture (CIC) (1965-77), president of the Radical Party and member of Parliament in the tenth legislature (1978-89).
Among the works: "Towards an organic architecture", "Knowing how to see architecture" (translated into fifteen languages), "History of modern architecture", "Architecture in nuce", "The modern language of architecture", " Knowing how to see the city "," Controstoria and history of architecture "(1990-2000).
Since 1948 he has been Professor of History of Architecture at the IUAV of Venice and since 1964 at the Faculty of Architecture of Rome. From 1954 to 2000 he held a weekly column of architecture on "Cronache" and then on "L'Espresso"; the articles of the first decades are collected in the twenty-five volumes of "Chronicles of Architecture" (1945-54). In 1955 he founded the monthly magazine "L'architettura-cronache e storia" which he ran uninterruptedly until January 2000 (1955-64).
He was awarded an honorary degree by the Universities of Buenos Aires, Michigan, and Technion of Haifa; is an honorary member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and of the American Institute of Architects, general secretary of the National Institute of Urban Planning (INU), vice-president of the National Institute of Architecture (In / arch), academician of San Luca and 'lnternational Institute of Architecture, president emeritus of the Comité International des Critiques d'Architecture (CIC) (1965-77), president of the Radical Party and member of Parliament in the tenth legislature (1978-89).
Among the works: "Towards an organic architecture", "Knowing how to see architecture" (translated into fifteen languages), "History of modern architecture", "Architecture in nuce", "The modern language of architecture", " Knowing how to see the city "," Controstoria and history of architecture "(1990-2000).
