Riccardo Cozzi HTS first year T2 - AA School of Architecture Tutor: Claire Potter
THE “BISCIONE” OF GENOA AND THE END OF A MYTH Il Biscione di Genova è un manifesto, una dichiarazione di guerra al formalismo puro, un distacco dall’istituzionalita’ politica del costruire.
The Biscione of Genoa is a manifesto, a declaration of war on pure formalism, a detachment from the institutionality of building.
Voi l’avete chiamato verme E lui verme e’ diventato Ma sappiate, questo rappresenta la vostra fine.
You called it a worm And it has become a worm But be aware, this represents the very end for you.
La smetterete di azzannare la natura con le vostre pretese formaliste Ma che bella scala, ma che bella casa Godete, sbavate sara’ la vostra ultima volta.
Will you stop biting into nature with your formalist pretensions What a beautiful staircase, what a beautiful house Enjoy it, drool it as it will be your last.
La vostra inefficienza verra’ messa alla luce Il vostro fallimento sara’ chiaro a tutti Non potrete fare altro che ritirarvi.
Your inefficiency will be exposed Your failure will be clear to all You’ll have no choice but to retire
Il Biscione di Genova e’ un Verme, Un Verme che non ha un creatore, Esso si configura e si insedia nel terreno come solo i vermi sanno fare.
The Biscione of Genoa is a Worm, A Worm that has no creator, It configures itself and settles into the soil as only worms can do.
Gioite genti L’architettura si fa verme, la natura configura la sua forma e il libero arbitrio dell’architetto crolla, denudato dalle sue pretese formali.
Be joyful people Architecture becomes a worm nature configures its form and the power of the architect collapses stripped of its formal pretensions.
Il tuo tempo e’ finito. FINE DI UN ALTRO MITO.
Architect, your era is over END OF ANOTHER MYTH.
Riccardo Cozzi
Riccardo Cozzi HTS first year T2 - AA School of Architecture Tutor: Claire Potter
From the INA-CASA plan to the “Biscione“ in Genoa: How a visual analogy can become a metaphor for a new architecture: “The worm-architecture”. In this essay I will talk about worms, about their magnificence and glory, about crowds that are proudly pointing their fingers, about the religion that is architecture and the death of its God. I will talk about epochal reforms and again about blind, humble worms that know how to fulfil their duties. But first it is necessary to contextualise the research and start with the historical facts... In the history of modern architecture, the Forte Quezzi housing complex, built in Genoa by architect Luigi Carlo Daneri in 1956-68, is undoubtedly one of the largest and most significant examples of modern social housing in Italy, a translation of a revolutionary residential concept. The construction of this complex was part of the large national public intervention programmes for post-war housing reconstruction (INA-Casa plan), financed with state funds and direct contributions from Italian employers and citizens 1. This reconstruction plan, approved by the Parliament on 24 February 1949, aimed to increase blue-collar employment, relaunch the country’s economy in the post-war context and provide housing for needy citizens. The plan, which lasted 14 years, saw the construction of more than 35,000 homes with the involvement of 40,000 workers every year. The INA CASA Plan was a radical reform that completely changed the face of Italy, especially in urban terms, but also economically, politically and socially. 1
Fig. 1: Amintore Fanfani durig a rally in Milan in 1954
“The concept of the plan started from the awareness of the discomfort of so many millions of unemployed Italians, not only in physical terms due to the lack of daily bread, but also in spiritual terms as they are deprived of work - a fundamental component of their personality”. Filiberto Guala, Chairman of the Ina-Casa Implementation Committee “The Plan for the Construction of Workers’ Housing was born out of a concern - very much alive in me from the first months after taking on the ministry - to make a contribution to the reabsorption of Italy’s too many unemployed. I thought it necessary to turn my attention to the construction of houses, since they are the most capable of acting as a driving force in the economic system”. Amintore Fanfani, Minister of Labour and creator of the Ina-Casa Plan. (Fig. 1)
Fanfani Law 43/1949 1
Fig. 4: Block C in the foreground and Block A (Biscione) in the background
In order to understand the reasons why Forte Quezzi has been defined by Bruno Zevi as a “pioneering model of mass housing”2 it is necessary to contextualise the role of the designers and the architectural choices in the period in which the INA CASA plan was implemented. The majority of the INA CASA plan, in fact, followed pre-established architectural directives; in order to limit and speed up the architectural choices, maintaining a coherence in the development of the constructions, they introduced “Building Schemes” (Fig. 2-3). The proposal of such building schemes clearly shows the exclusion of more complex typologies and demonstrates that the INA CASA plan is moving towards pre-established architectural solutions from the very beginning, without offering any incentive for experimental or at least culturally advanced projects. By defining as priorities the creation of jobs and the construction of housing, architecture took a back seat and the innovative drive came to a halt. The problems were primarily economic, and the response that was given was purely economic.
Fig. 2-3: Building schemes published by INA-CASA in the first seven year period
2
Article published in the newspaper l’Espresso of 22 September 1958 by Bruno Zevi 2
The Forte Quezzi complex, or rather the urban structure of Forte Quezzi, marks the beginning of a new chapter in public intervention in the residential building sector in Italy; a chapter oriented towards a new dimension of the habitat which, in the footsteps above all of the “ Lecourbusian” concept, is expressed through the assembly of a few large buildings which, abandoning what remained of the Vernacular style of the first projects, identify an increasingly close relationship between architecture and the city. The project, developed in 1956 by a team of 35 architects coordinated by Luigi Carlo Daneri, envisaged the construction, at different heights - between 150 and 185 metres above sea level - of five large building blocks with a total capacity of 4,500 inhabitants in 865 flats. The serpentine buildings - a typology that appears to be directly inspired by Le Corbusier’s Plan Obus for the city of Algiers3 (Fig. 6) and Alfonso Reidy’s Pedregulho residential complex in Rio de Janeiro (Fig. 5) - follow the orographic characteristics of the site, arranged along the morphological profile of the contours of the land. 3 Daneri’s interest for Le Corbusier has been documented in the works quoted in note number 1, and in the essay by Foppiano A., “Daneri→Le Corbusier. Plagio d’autore”, in «Abitare», n. 474, 2007, pp. 102-103.
Fig. 5: Pedregulho residential complex, Alfonso Reidy, Rio de Janeiro (1950-1952)
Fig. 6: Plan Obus, Lecourbusier, Algiers (1930-1933)
In the project, the dominant element of the complex is block ‘A’, later called ‘Biscione’, a curvilinear bar with eleven floors (later reduced to six) of imposing dimensions, which develops without interruption for 540 metres in length. On the third floor, a rue intérieure - reminiscent of Le Corbusier’s Unité d’habitation in Marseilles4 (1947-52) - crosses the structure from side to side, forming an immense continuous panoramic terrace, which the designer intended to be a modern architectural promenade (Fig. 8). The residential complex includes other units: blocks “B”, “C” and “E”, three storeys high, and block “D”, six storeys high, also crossed by the rue corridor, the latter being one of the most architecturally interesting examples. Fig. 4: Location of buildings in context
4 Bucci F. and Lucchini M, “La casa per tutti: la Stadkrone di Genova. Il Biscione, la lezione di Le Corbusier e il Piano Fanfani”, in «Casabella», n. 793, 2010, pp. 51-61. 3
Fig. 7: Aerial view of the newly completed district (1968)
Fig. 8: Architectural promenade of block A Forte Quezzi
The almost total detachment from the typological models introduced with the INA CASA plan, the impervious construction site which forced the architects to formally adapt the building to its context, and the innovative drive with an organic, utopian vision marking the process of integrating architecture into urban planning, allowed the ‘’Biscione’’ to become a milestone in modern architecture. But an even more interesting aspect of this project is the visual analogy of the public with the earthworm. The citizens of Genoa and the international critics, once they saw the majesty and the atypical size of the construction, decided to associate it in a derogatory way with an earthworm5. “Biscione”, in fact, is the Italian word for worms/lobsters, with an accrescitive and strongly derogatory accent, impossible to translate into English. However, I am convinced that this attribute of Forte Quezzi is not only limited to a subconscious visual association, given the peculiar shape, but that it can become a metaphorical parallelism to describe this architecture, or perhaps more generally, a new type of architecture: “The Worm-Architecture”. In order to understand the worm-architecture metaphor I am trying to elaborate, we must first analyse the word worm on an etymological and scientif-
ic level. The worm is an animal belonging to the family of invertebrates, it is humble, harmless and useful for the natural cycle. Its function is clear: to shape the soil by nourishing it and producing amino acids, water and carbon dioxide, without mentioning the fact that they become necessary nourishment for other soil animals. The physiognomy of the worm is designed to meet these needs, it is a perfect machine that performs its task in the best possible way. With the worm, nature demonstrates its stupendous functionalism, a consequence of the need for its own self-preservation. By abandoning religions and beliefs and embracing the scientific method and evolutionary studies, we realise that this perfect harmony in the worm is not the result of any “creative Hand”6. Its existence, in fact, is self-sustaining as long as it performs its function. When, who knows in the future, the needs that the worm is called upon to satisfy will change, its existence will also be questioned... it will be called something else or it will physiologically evolve to adapt to the new tasks entrusted to it by nature. But how can the worm become a metaphor for a new architecture? And in particular, what makes Forte Quezzi stand out as an example of worm architecture (having gone beyond mere visual association)?
5 The first attack on Forte Quezzi, with its explicit analogy with the earthworm, is made by Renato Bonelli in “L’Architettura. Cronache e storia”, n 44, 1959 p.762-763
6 I am referring to a divinity that can shape and create new spaces and objects with its own hands (From man created from clay in Mesopotamian religions to the biblical Judeo-Christian tradition) 4
In its essence Forte Quezzi has become a worm. If there is no God creator the so-called archiect - who, with his formalist and artistic pretensions, has modelled his form in an attempt to prevail over nature then Daneri has merely interpreted it, capturing the form already defined by the natural context. It is the morphological curves that shape the building. There has been no prevarication in the perfect order of things, the form has become this time the extreme and final consequence. This is just one small aspect of Forte Quezzi that makes it part of the category of the Worm-Architecture; a primarily stylistic, formalist and creative approach that originates from an alienation of the architect-God-creator from his millenary role. The concept of worm-architecture was thus born out of an innocent, purely visual association of the Genoese citizens, which later became a metaphor for an approach to architecture in which, in the name of respect for natural laws, the form of the building becomes a consequence and the artistic pretensions of the architects do not seek to override and influence a formalism that already exists in nuce. However, I do not want to exalt Forte Quezzi as the culmination of the Worm-Architecture. The hand of the designers is still present and the harmony between the building and its natural context has not yet reached a stable point. There are many paths that can be taken, this is just a starting point. But the awareness of the failure of architects is now clear and tangible, and an alternative must be found as soon as possible. The great failure of architects lies in their claim to become “Gods”, creators of spaces, to prevail over nature and impose themselves on it with their pure formalism. And so the concrete casts begin, the soil is irreversibly bitten and life dies. All this in the name of what? A nice shape, a nice staircase, a nice house... It is not enough. The responsibility is too great, it can’t be left in the hands of a bunch of obsessed human-traps-builders. Architecture is too often a trap for humans because there is a gigantic oxymoron in it: static places to contain dynamic and fluids elements. A very strong contradiction in being. Therefore architecture must become a worm; it must become blind, think only of its function and evolve when needs change, just as ivertebrates can do. From a formal point of view, Worm-Architecture will be completely different, an unexpected outcome every time. A flower, a tree, mountains... all natural elements are magnificent. This is because there is no creative hand that has given them form. Nietzsche, by declaring war on the idols of the past, put an end to the myth of religion7. It is time to put an end to another divinity: The architect. 7
Fig. 9: A worm fulfilling its mission.
Bibliography Acocella A. “L’edilizia residenziale pubblica in Italia dal 1945 ad oggi” Cedam, Padova, 1980. Bonelli R. “L’Architettura. Cronache e storia”, Fabbri Editori, n 44, 1959 p.762-763. Bucci F. and Lucchini M. “La casa per tutti: la Stadkrone di Genova. Il Biscione, la lezione di Le Corbusier e il Piano Fanfani”, in «Casabella», n. 793, 2010, pp. 51-61. Foppiano A. “Daneri - Le Corbusier. Plagio d’autore”, in «Abitare», n. 474, 2007, pp. 102-103. Herbert G., “THE WORK OF INA-CASA IN THE FIELD OF LOW-COST ITALIAN HOUSING”, Athens Center of Ekistics, Vol. 6, No. 37 November 1958, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43622622, pp. 194-197. Mugnai. F. “A margin for Genoa. The residential area of Forte Quezzi by Luigi Carlo Daneri” Firenze Architettura (1, 2016), pp. 44-49. Nietzsche, F. “Twilight of the idols”. 1974 New York: Gordon Press. Paul F. Wendt, “Post World-War-II Housing Policies in Italy”, University of Wisconsin Press, (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3144613), Vol. 38, No. 2 (May, 1962), pp. 113-133. Pickett, Brent L. “Nietzche’s Ethics.” The Journal of Politics 59 (2): . 1997 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2998179 pp. 576–582
“Twilight of the Idols: or How to Philosophize with a Hammer”, 1889 p.45-49 5