From Within by LetteraVentidue Edizioni

Pills A collection designed and directed by Francesco Trovato Scientific Committee Francesco Cacciatore Fabrizio Foti Paolo Giardiello Marta Magagnini

ISBN 978-88-6242-424-0 First Italian edition: January 2018 First English edition: December 2020 © 2020, LetteraVentidue Edizioni © 2020, Jacopo Leveratto Thanks to my personal masters of interiors. To Gianni Ottolini and his advice during the writing. And then to Luca Basso Peressut, Imma Forino and Gennaro Postiglione. I stole something from everyone. I hope they won’t take it badly. The re-drawings presented here have been developed, in different years, as part of the courses and workshops held by Gianni Ottolini at Politecnico di Milano, and are published here with his kind permission. Any reproduction, even partially, is prohibited. It is the hope of the author and the publisher that, by having kept the cost of this book at its minimum, the readers shall be encouraged to purchase a copy of the book rather than spend an almost analogous sum in running photocopies. In addition, the collection’s pocket size format is an invitation to always carry with you something to read, as you move during the day. This is rather inconvenient if you think of a bunch of photocopies. Should any errors or omissions have been made regarding copyrights of the illustrations, we will be glad to correct them in the forthcoming reprint. Graphic design: Francesco Trovato LetteraVentidue Edizioni S.r.l. Via Luigi Spagna 50 P 96100 Siracusa, Italy www.letteraventidue.com

Jacopo Leveratto

From Within Between Interior Architecture and Design

Contents 7 Introduction 13 From typology to topology 45 From context to palimpsest 79 From space to place 117 The interior as a field of action 125 Bibliography

Introduction

For some time now, it has become commonplace to state that, in the near future, the design of interiors will take on a fundamental role for the next architectural and urban development1. This is because, over the past thirty years, an ever-faster integration of global economic systems has produced a twofold effect that has initiated a profound change in the use of contemporary cities2. On the one hand, in fact, the territorial decentralisation of industrial productions has brought about the dismantling of entire urban sectors; while, on the other, the metropolitan concentration of advanced service economies has required an entirely new series of spaces, thoroughly wide-spread and characterised by high flexibility and a low degree of functional identity. Therefore, with the urban population having doubled in the last fifty years3, it does not seem inappropriate to think that these factors ‒ along with increasing concerns about environmental sustainability ‒ will contribute to the rise of a predominant economy based on the adaptation of preexisting assets, which will turn most of the contemporary urban growth into a continuous and diffused form of reuse of its physical structures4. 1. Branzi Andrea, La progettazione degli interni nella città contemporanea, in Cornoldi Adriano (ed.), Architettura degli interni, Il Poligrafo, Padova, 2005, pp. 41-43. 2. Sassen Saskia, Cities in a World Economy, Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks, 1994. 3. Kretzer Manuel and Hovestadt Ludwig (eds.), Alive: Advancements in Adaptive Architecture, Birkhäuser, Basel, 2014, p. 18. 4. Cunningham Storm, The Restoration Economy, Berrett-Koehler Publishers,

Archizoom Associati, No Stop City, 1969.

In summary, the idea is that the denser cities become and the more variable their functional programme, the more they will begin to develop by adapting the system of their interior spaces as if it were a sort of autonomous infrastructure. And while this uninterrupted activity of regeneration questions the classic typological catalogue that underlaid urban government and planning, architects and designers will gradually look to interiors as the central core of the overall operation of contemporary cities5. Indeed, a more attentive look shows that much of this has already begun to take place, albeit in a spontaneous and uncoordinated manner. At the same time, however, despite such a central role, until now interiors have been considered almost exclusively as a side condition, or a local contingency for interventions of adaptative reuse6. In the best cases, in fact, interior disciplines have only been called upon to solve some technical issues, ignoring that by their very nature they can also Oakland, 2002. 5. Baum Martina and Christiaanse Kees (eds.), City as Loft: Adaptive Reuse as a Resource for Sustainable Urban Development, gta Verlag, Zurich, 2012. 6. Among the extended studies dedicated to adaptive reuse, for example, it is possible to recognize different approaches to the topic, which may be typological, technical, programmatic or strategic. In any case, however, whereas interiors have always represented the particular spatial location of this kind of interventions, interior architecture and design have barely been considered able to define a specific disciplinary approach. Plevoets Bie and van Cleempoel Koenraad, Adaptive Reuse as an Emerging Discipline: An Historic Survey, in Cairns Graham (ed.), Reinventing Architecture and Interiors: A Socio-political View on Building Adaptation, Libri, London, 2013, pp. 13-32.

Dimitri Pikionis, landscaping of the Acropolis of Athens, 1957.

their simplicity that they seemed quite timely in opening an entire season. Indeed, the idea – that also urban spaces could be characterized by a form of interiority based on the architectural qualities of their enclosure – was re-proposed, in a brief sequence, by the Dynamics of Architectural Form by Rudolf Arnheim11 and by Renato De Fusco’s hypothesis for the urban sign12; thus returning a year later in the genius loci theory of Christian Norberg-Schulz, in which he acknowledged how the gathering function exercised by the city was able to determine an urban «interior»13. Thus, during the following decade, the research further developed the topic14, using the term «urban interiors» to indicate open spaces of the city «seen not as urban voids, but as architectural spaces that required construction and formalisation»15. the landscaping of the Acropolis of Athens (1957). 11. Arnheim Rudolf, The Dynamics of Architectural Form, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1977, pp. 112-114. 12. De Fusco Renato, Segni, storia e progetto dell’architettura, Laterza, Bari, 1978, pp. 77-84. 13. Norberg-Schulz Christian, Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture, Rizzoli, New York, 1980, p. 142. 14. Although the theme is relatively recent, the bibliography in this regard is already quite wide. See, in this regard, Leveratto Jacopo, Urban Interiors: A Retroactive Investigation, in “Journal of Interior Design”, vol. 44, n. 3, 2019, pp. 161-171. 15. Ottolini Gianni, Conformazione e attrezzatura dello spazio aperto, in Quaderni del Dipartimento di Progettazione dell’Architettura, n. 4, 1987, p. 39 (translated by the author).

Sverre Fehn, the palimpsest of Hedmark Museum, 1967.

propose an urban project that could be defined by traces of the events and memories of its inhabitants22; and even two years earlier, Bernardo Secchi – followed shortly after by Vittorio Gregotti – had attempted to shift the design horizon of his time from the field of construction to that of modification23. The debate, however, remained polarised into two positions which, although proposing the use of the same materials, were founded on very different objectives – on the one hand, the aim to bring value to the sense of identity and belonging and, on the other, that to follow a principle of economic and environmental sustainability24. Instead, for interiors, it is not a matter of choice. The acknowledgement of tangibility and temporality as its own field of operations – whatever its nature – is a simple matter of fact, in that it represents the location of its own disciplinary identity and its own design attitude. For this reason, for many scholars, it has represented the departure point to identify not only historical phenomena of reference but also relevant strategies and tactics of intervention25 – the same 22. Corboz André, Il territorio come palinsesto, in “Casabella”, n. 516, 1985, pp. 22-27. 23. Secchi Bernardo, Cucire e legare, in “Casabella”, n. 490, 1983, p. 26; Gregotti Vittorio, Modificazione, in “Casabella”, nn. 498-499, 1984, p. 2. 24. See respectively Gregotti Vittorio, L’architettura nell’epoca dell’incessante, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 2006; Fernández-Galiano Luis, Transformaciones, in “Arquitectura Viva”, n. 148, 2013, p. 3. 25. Brooker Graeme and Stone Sally, Basics Interior Architecture, AVA Publishing, London, 2007.

The fondamenta of Querini Stampalia Palace, Carlo Scarpa, Venice (19591963).

Of course, taking measurements does not mean merely looking at the consistency of a built space, as much as one cannot limit the space to its mere “solid materials”. On the contrary, it means considering all the elements that make up a certain environmental quality, albeit in their variety. In this sense, light, shadow, warmth, chill, these are all part of a design vocabulary that must consider all atmospheric and meteorological elements, not only in their visual qualities but also from a tactile and sonorous point of view. This is why the interpretation of a palimpsest cannot be limited to the solely spatial dimension, but it must also include a temporal one, in order to take into account the changing consistency of natural elements. Which is what Carlo Scarpa already achieved in his renovation design for Palazzo Querini Stampalia in Venice (1959-1963), in which water has a determining value, starting from the design of the fondamenta28. This pathway in concrete and stone, in fact, – aimed at protecting the display areas from high-water – was created using different heights that establish a complex dialogue with the canal. In some points an invasion is allowed but mitigated by stone steps that measure its level, in others it is guided into small outer channels; in some other cases, then, its course is completely halted or, instead, allowed to flow freely, so it floods the entire area 28. Mazzariol Giuseppe, Un’opera di Carlo Scarpa: Il riordino di un antico palazzo veneziano, in “Zodiac”, n. 13, 1964, p. 40; Manzelle Maura, Carlo Scarpa alla Querini Stampalia, Ricordi, Venezia, 2005.

Plan of Arnhemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Pavilion of Sculptures, Aldo van Eyck (1965-66).

Obviously, all of this goes way beyond simple ergonomics. The point, in fact, is not to welcome a series of predefined gestures, but to allow and encourage new and unexpected ones. Because the body, in interior disciplines, is not just the object of the spatial project, but also the active party in that of living, in all of its forms. A role which probably, in all its anthropological substance, no one has interpreted more accurately than Aldo van Eyck – or at least no one has ever done so in such an explicitly programmatic way – in another minimal space, this time an exhibition one (1965-66), thought to replace the Arnhem sculpture pavilion, designed by Gerrit Rietveld twelve years earlier. Van Eyck’s concept was, indeed, not to display works of art but to accompany visitors towards their active discovery, following, however, a path that was neither sequential or narrative, but random and spontaneous42. The idea, in other words, was to bring people into contact with the sculptures, causing them to almost bump into them, like an unexpected meeting, just as it happens between different visitors. And in creating such a concept, once again, he carried out the process tracing body measurements and especially its movement. Thus, instead of working on a central plan, similarly to If our spirits are different, our skeletons are similar, the muscles are placed in the same place and perform the same functions». Le Corbusier L’art decoratif d’aujourd’hui, Cres, Paris, 1925, pp. 73-78 (translated by the author). 42. Van Eyck Aldo, Pavilion Arnhem: A Place for Sculpture and People, in “World Architecture”, n. 4, 1967, pp. 59-60.