Gustavo Giovannoni

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Gustavo Giovannoni (1 January 1873 – 15 July 1947) was an Italian architect and engineer.

Biography

Early life and education

Gustavo Giovannoni was born in Rome, the son of Leonida and Elena (née Rossi). He attended the University of Rome, graduating in civil engineering in 1895. A disciple of Camillo Boito, he oriented his activity toward two prevailing directions: professional and academic, which he undertook as an assistant in the School of Engineering. At the same time he devoted himself to historical and artistic studies with a particular interest in the history of architecture.

Career overview

Giovannoni, besides being an architectural historian and critic, engineer, architect and urban planner, was very active in the educational and organizational field. According to Ojetti, he was considered the "greatest connoisseur" of the history of Italian architecture.[1] In 1913, he assumed the chair of general architecture in the Royal School of Application for Engineers; between 1914 and 1915 he was regent, together with Leo Montecchi, of the Polisportiva S.P. Lazio, a society of which he was also a member.

After the 1915 Avezzano earthquake, he was engaged in the special committee of the University and in numerous school and village reconstruction projects. From 1921 to 1926, he became the director of the Roman section of the Club Alpino Italiano and oversaw the construction of many shelters in the Apennines, especially in Abruzzo. He was also a member of the first Board of Directors of the Abruzzo National Park, established in 1923 thanks in part to his contribution, under the chairmanship of Erminio Sipari.

Between 1927 and 1935, Giovannoni instead directed the School of Architecture in Rome and was among the main promoters of the first university faculty of architecture in Italy (at Sapienza), in which he held the chair of Survey and Restoration of Monuments. As a teacher and scholar he turns his attention to the modern city, emphasizing the formation and dissemination of an urban planning consciousness that he nurtures especially among young people. He gets to realize many of his ideas in the architectural revision of Forli, which is to become, as the "City of the Duce," a showcase of the fascist regime, a little Rome.[2]

In 1934, he was elected as member of the Royal Academy of Italy, alongside Emilio Bianchi, director of the observatory of Brera and Merato, and the pathologist Pietro Rondone, professor in the Royal University of Milan. In 1939 he founded the Center for the Study of the History of Architecture established in Rome at the Casa dei Crescenzi on Via del Teatro Marcello.

Giovannoni was engaged in the promotion and organization of cultural activities; he collaborated in the founding of the Institute of Roman Studies, was a member of the Board of Directors of the Roman Philological Society and was also a member of many academic institutes, such as the Roman Society of National History. His first interventions involved plans for a number of buildings intended for production activities and residential constructions. In 1921, in collaboration with Marcello Piacentini, he founded the magazine Architecture and Decorative Arts, which ran until 1931. In the same year, he was sent to Athens, to the international conference sponsored by the League of Nations, with the purpose of drafting the first international restoration charter, in order to help Greece with the Parthenon.

Thought

In the first half of the twentieth century, the interest of historical culture, focused until then on the monument as an exemplary work, began to expand to its surroundings, that is, the environment, which came to be considered the "frame," valued for its specific values ("monument of environment"). The main contributions came from the modern urbanism of the German countries and from the interest in the humanized environment, a preponderant concept of the English current of thought featuring August Pugin, John Ruskin and William Morris.

In his own research, Giovannoni dealt with constructional and stylistic aspects, shedding light on architectural and spatial problems, thus succeeding in approaching topics in architectural history and other artistic disciplines. Another important theme was the relationship between the new and the old, that is, between historicity and contemporaneity of buildings: in practice he proposed functional adjustments for the new and the old. He reiterated his leaning toward a "scientific philological restoration" that preserves both the monument and its surroundings, realizing that in restoration it is impossible to set unambiguous criteria.

In sum, he stands between the archaeological current, which advocates maintaining the state of the monument, and stylistic restoration, which advocates restoring a hypothetical original state. Giovannoni favors consolidation and maintenance works, achievable through the use of modern techniques, without ever losing sight of respect for all parts. His method is to provide for the possible interventions of restoration: consolidation, anastylosis, liberation, completion and innovation.

See also

Works

  • "La sala termale della villa liciniana e le cupole Romane." In: Annali della Società degli Ingegneri e degli Architetti Italiani, Vol. XIX (1904), pp. 165–201.
  • "L'Ercole e Lica del Canova nella nuova sala della Galleria Nazionale al Palazzo Corsini." In: Bollettino d'Arte, No. 2 (1908)
  • "Restauro di monumenti." In: Bollettino d'Arte, No. 1/2 (1913)
  • "Vecchie Città ed Edilizia Nuova." In: Nuova Antologia (1913)
  • La tecnica della costruzione presso i romani (1925)
  • Questioni di architettura nella storia e nella vita. Edilizia, estetica architettonica, restauri, ambiente dei monumenti (1929)
  • Vecchie citta ed edilizia nuova (1931)
  • Saggi sull'architettura del Rinascimento (1931)
  • "Sei studi di storia dell'architettura medievale e moderna." In: Un secolo di progresso scientifico in Italia 1839-1939 (1940)
  • "L'Urbanistica del Rinascimento." In: L'Urbanistica dal Antichita ad Oggi (1943)
  • Architettura di pensiero e pensiero sull’architettura (1945)
  • Lezioni di Architettura Generale (bound "manuscript" textbook, illustrated)

Translated into English

Notes

  1. ↑ Ojetti, Ugo (1925/26). "L'architettura (Commenti)," Dedalo, Vol. VI, p. 412.
  2. ↑ Furani, Gabrio (2002). Forlì. Firenze: Nardini Editore, pp. 34–38, 52–55.

References

  • Cifani, G.; Centofanti M.; Del Bufalo S. (1985). Catalogo dei Disegni di Gustavo Giovannoni Conservati nell'archivio del Centro di Studi per la Storia dell'Architettura. Roma.
  • Etlin, Richard A. (1991). "Nationalism in Modern Italian Architecture, 1900-1940." In: Nationalism in the Visual Arts. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art.
  • Fraticelli, Vanna (1982). Roma, 1914-1929: La Città e gli Architetti tra la Guerra e il Fascismo. Roma: Officina Edizioni.
  • Gurrieri, Francesco (1974). Teoria e Cultura del Restauro dei Monumenti e dei Centri Antichi. Firenze: CLUSF.
  • La Regina, Francesco (1992). Come un Ferro Rovente. Cultura e Prassi del Restauro Architettonico. Napoli: CLEAN.
  • Monzo, Luigi (2019). "Ricordo dell’antico. Gustavo Giovannoni e la Chiesa dei Santi Angeli Custodi a Roma." In: Giuseppe Bonaccorso & Francesco Moschini, eds., Gustavo Giovannoni e l'Architetto Integrale. Roma, pp. 339–44.
  • Piera Sette, Maria (2001). Il Restauro in Architettura. Torino: UTET.
  • Tramonti, Ulisse (2000). "Gustavo Giovannoni a Forlì. Il Ripristino e la Sistemazione del Chiostro Vallombrosano." In: Il Complesso Monumentale di San Mercuriale a Forlì. Restauri. Forlì: La Greca Arti Grafiche, pp. 107–29.
  • Ventura, Francesco (1995). Gustavo Giovannoni. Torino: Città Studi.
  • Zucconi, Guido (2001). "Giovannoni, Gustavo." In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 56. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.

External links

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