architects-from-italy

": Formal Research: research on the appearance of the building conducted through the study of the volume (e.g. introducing a new type) that arises from conceptual observations on the form."

"#2 - The form should not arise from geometric reasoning and architecture should not contain ornamental elements."

": Conceptual Research: the building takes on importance according on the process that generated it (e.g. aggregation of housing); the project is a result-manifesto of the research itself."

"#1 - Architecture must either introduce new lines of research or develop existing lines in an innovative way. There are three types of architecture research: formal, conceptual, and techno-stylistic, and the research can be conducted simultaneously in one or more of these fields."

": Techno-Stylistic Research: the material is simultaneously the outcome of a technological research (e.g. on cladding) and a defining element of the building."

"#3 - The form should align with the style/trend of its time. In order to analyze a work from the past, you must place it temporally."

""Piero Portaluppi represents a significant and exemplary part, in its elegance, of Milanese architecture between the two world wars." (Antonello Negri)"

"It is the handles that open the doors of my environments to dreams."

"Of all my past passions, of all the varied tendencies, of all the colorful fixations, of all the eclectic manias, I will speak of everything except the most comprehensive and complete art, the art I have always cultivated and adored, but which I have always vilified and mistreated: 'Mother Architecture'."

"All architecture is geometry, in dreaming, in thinking, in representation, in translation, in realization, in completion."

""Thus my great-grandfather Piero Portaluppi made Milan less austere, but the death of his son destroyed him." (Piero Maranghi)"

""... the regenerative arrival of the Portaluppis, the Gio Ponti." (Carlo Emilio Gadda)"

"Architect and engineer of the Municipality of Bologna, very skilled in regulating water and designing new hydraulic works, in straightening towers, in moving tenement buildings, a good machine maker, as Filarete called him, and well versed in measurements. (Guido Zucchini (historian))"

"He was most likely responsible for the model of the Palazzo del Podestà ordered by the Regiment in C.E.1472, since it was necessary to repair the façade facing the main square which Burselli said was ruinous due to its antiquity. And the Municipality must have done well to entrust the study of the new works to , then at the height of his fame, sought after and envied by the courts of Italy and abroad, traveling in those years between Rome and Naples (C.E.1471) and Bologna. It was better for no one than him to solve the problem of redoing the large portico and the Romanesque façade without completely demolishing either one or the other, but only covering them with new forms. (Guido Zucchini (historian))"

"It’s impossible to define what is design. You know, it’s like trying to define what art is. It’s everything that we make, if you wish. And some of it is good, and some of it is bad."

"I studied architecture but it was not my mission."

"If you do it right, it will last forever. It’s as simple as that."

"If you can't find it, design it."

"I learned an enormous amount from Massimo about how to be a good designer. But I learned how to be a successful designer from Lella."

"In reality, the Castiglioni brothers were one person. Symbiosis of thought, creative ability, inspiration and execution were an integral part of their being. Talking to one of them or all three of them was the same, they were completely interchangeable, same voice, same accent, same grin, same laughter, same gestures. They were the Castiglioni, like their work, indivisible fruit of the same research, of the same passion, of a great ability to transform the world around us into a new memorable gesture. (Translated from the original Italian)"

"Gualtiero Galmanini"

"Angelo Mangiarotti is an absolutely original author of international architecture, one of the few Italian masters (such as Ponti, Nervi and Piano) able to export his own idea and project philosophy. architecture, engineering, design and art, thanks to its ability to dialogue with these normally distant disciplines - The profound sense of ethical values, civic commitment and moral rigor with which to feel every gesture of the profession make us Angelo Mangiarotti a rare example; unique designer in his being an architect, designer and sculptor at the same time. (Beppe Finessi)"

"Let's start together, you with the computer I at Hand [...] he hadn't started yet while I had already finished, and it was a very simple thing [...] the younger and more skilled they are, the less they have interest in drawing in Hand. I believe that today with information technology, you have great means at your disposal, of course there are databases left, it is not from there that a project comes out; culture is something else ... the risk is the loss of the gesture"

"Pierto Portaluppi"

"My works have always been born from the interest, the curiosity, that I have for the material and the possible ways of working it; and then find solutions often even at the limit, I would say. It is always necessary to pay close attention to the choice of materials with which an object will be made, since a relationship with the form is always very delicate. Technological innovation represents one of the fundamental aspects for the designer's work, but it must not lead to the exasperation of the technique at the expense of other aspects."

"Angelo Mangiarotti"

"He is an architect, designer and sculptor. How would you define yourself? In the meantime, I am a convinced materialist [...] look that it is not thought that uses matter to express itself, it is matter that uses thought. If you do not know the matter you cannot speak of spirit."

"The Virtual Reality is yes the continuation of reality, but sometimes you can no longer understand what you are talking about in a pink, yellow or green thing, it is so devitalized."

"In my projects, I have always tried to make people's needs participate in the definition of the work. I would say that the fundamental starting point for designing a design object lies in the usefulness it has for people. An object that is not born of a necessity cannot even be considered as belonging to this category, design."

"I believe that design is a [...] method usually means only the industrial one, so I wonder how to consider the Etruscan statues? there are millions in the world, there are museums full [...] but how did they manage to produce them? And they are all original Etruscan! So why shouldn't we consider them design?"

"The Eclisse lamp is beautiful to look at because the concepts are in themselves beautiful."

"They told me: architect, we need to design a night lamp because everyone goes to bed. And I thought of the blind lantern used by thieves in Victor Hugo's The Miserable."

"The Eclissi lamp. He called it concept design, a design so clear and simple it could even be explained in words, over the phone. Vico said he had learned from Latin to recognize the superfluous from the necessary, the indispensable and the useless. And when you design an object, he repeated, you have to know how to recognize what is indispensable. (Ernesto Gismondi)"

"Design is a conceptual process that can be communicated over the telephone. About Chimera Lamp. A very simple geometric shape with three cylinders in semi-transparent plastic material. I remember having described it over the telephone without any drawing. Geometry and an extremely simple communication system. After about ten days, I was brought the lamp to my studio."

"About the Chimera Lamp. All my sketches testify to the attempt to give my drawing the task, from its very first formulation, to illustrate the meaning, the soul, that my proposal would like to express, suggesting the technical means and the definitions of the materials necessary for a economic and correct implementation of series production. Therefore, for me, drawing is not reproducing the object in all its morphological and technical details but it is a means of digging deeper and deeper into, to find and express the soul, the essence of the object, or rather the other possible one. reality that exists behind visible reality (look at usual things with unusual eyes). This is, for me, design, and is expressed by sketching. “Ceci n'est pas une pipe” writes René Magritte by way of one of his paintings representing a pipe. Even in design, looking behind the pipe, perhaps there is another thing."

"After three years spent in a small goldsmith factory, I had nothing left to learn. A colleague who was looking for a new job as goldsmith, tells me: look I went to a small shop, figured that they do not even use the electric drill, but they make holes with bows, like the primitives. I understood that this was the place for me."

"I started with an idea that I had in mind and then I looked for the right technique to make it happen."

"His jewels are Martian Things"

"I liked drawing and I had a passion for sculpture, after all goldsmithing is nothing but a miniature sculpture."

"They say I can draw better than Raphael and probably they are right."

"Ever since the French revolution there has developed a vicious, cretinizing tendency to consider a genius (apart from his work) as a human being more or less the same in every sense as other ordinary mortals. This is wrong. And if this is wrong for me, the genius of the greatest spiritual order or our day, a true modern genius, it is even more wrong when applied to those who incarnated the almost divine genius of the Renaissance, such as Raphael."

"Most Holy Father, there are many who, on bringing their feeble judgment to bear on what is written concerning the great achievements of the Romans — the feats of arms, the city of Rome and the wondrous skill shown in the opulence, ornamentation and grandeur of their buildings — have come to the conclusion that these achievements are more likely to be fables than facts. I, however, have always seen — and still do see —things differently. For, bearing in mind the divine quality of the ancients' minds as revealed in the remains still to be seen among the ruins of Rome, I do not find it unreasonable to believe that much of what we consider impossible seemed, to them, exceedingly simple."

"Time is a vindictive bandit to steal the beauty of our former selves."

"Men of genius sometimes accomplish most when they work the least, for they are thinking out inventions and forming in their minds the perfect idea that they subsequently express with their hands,"

"It is true that , who afterwards did the ornamentation of the other organ opposite this one, displayed much more judgment and skill than Luca, as will be said in the proper place, because he did almost the whole of the work in the rough as it were, not delicately finishing it, so that it should appear much better at a distance than Luca's; as it does, for with all his care and skill the eye cannot appreciate it well because of the very polish and finish, which are lost in the distance, as it can the almost purely rough hewn work of Donato. To this matter artists should devote much attention, because experience shows that all things seen at a distance, whether they be paintings or sculptures or any other like thing, are bolder and more vigorous in appearance if skilfully hewn in the rough than if they are carefully finished. Besides the effect obtained by distance, it often happens that these rough sketches, which are born in an instant in the heat of inspiration, express the idea of their author in a few strokes, while on the other hand too much effort and diligence sometimes sap the vitality and powers of those who never know when to leave off."

"Titian, having adorned Venice, or rather all Italy and other parts of the world, with excellent paintings, well merits to be loved and respected by artists, and is in many things to be admired and imitated also, as one who has produced, and is producing, works of infinite merit; nay, such as must endure while the memory of illustrious men shall remain."

"I think that anyone who will take the trouble to consider the matter carefully will arrive at the same conclusion as I have, that art owes its origin to Nature herself, that this beautiful creation the world supplied the first model, while the original teacher was that divine intelligence which has not only made us superior to the other animals, but like God Himself, if I may venture to say it."

"In our time it has been seen, as I hope to show quite shortly, that simple children, roughly brought up in the wilderness, have begun to draw by themselves, impelled by their own natural genius, instructed solely by the example of these beautiful paintings and sculptures of Nature. Much more then it is probable that the first men, being less removed from their divine origin, were more perfect, possessing a brighter intelligence, and that with Nature as a guide, a pure intellect for master, and the lovely world as a model, they originated these noble arts, and by gradually improving them brought them at length, from small beginnings, to perfection. I do not deny that there must have been an originator, since I know quite well that there must have been a beginning at some time, due to some individual."

"Although Titian's works seem to many to have been created without much effort, this is far from the truth and those who think so are deceiving themselves. In fact, it is clear that Titian retouched his pictures, going over them with his colours several times, so that he must obviously have taken great pains. The method he used is judicious, beautiful, and astonishing, for it makes pictures appear alive and painted with great art, but it conceals the labour that has gone into them."

"Impressionism is at the root of all modern art, because it was the first movement that managed to free itself from preconceived ideas, and because it changed not only the way life was depicted but the way life was seen."