Decorative paths in Lombardia by Carina Kaplan

Transcription

Decorative paths in Lombardia
Sculptural ornamentation: achievements in moulded cement
as a technique of construction and as a mean of expression
by Carina Kaplan
freelance architect and researcher, collaborates with Regione Lombardia
Contribution to the Historical Lab III: “Art Nouveau & Decoration”
whithin the 3rd Plenary Meeting of the Reseau Art Nouveau Network
Riga, 20|10|2006
1.
FOREWORD
Milano: the growth of the city after the national unification
Como Lake area: the development of leisure settings
2.
SCULPTURE
A distinctive character of Lombardian Liberty style
The moulded cement, a modern heritage of plaster tradition
San Satiro
Casa degli Omenoni
Villa Litta
The human figure
Angels
Faces
3.
TECHNIQUES
Points of view
Moulded cement productions
Standard | industrial | bass-relief: Rosa Cometta machine
Standard | industrial | bass-relief: the making process
4.
EXAMPLES IN MILANO
Casa Berri Meregalli
Casa Scagliotti Croci
Casa Battaini
Casa Balzarini
Casa Cambiaghi
Building in piazza Baccone
Building in via Maiocchi
5.
CASE STUDIES
Sommaruga and Campanini working in Milano and Como Lake area
Sommaruga in Milano: Palazzo Castiglioni
Sommaruga in Milano: Villa Faccanoni
Sommaruga in Lanzo d’Intelvi: Villa Poletti
Campanini in Milano: Casa Campanini
Campanini in Cernobbio: Villa Bernasconi
6.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
DECORATIVE PATHS IN LOMBARDIA
Sculptural ornamentation:
achievements in moulded cement,
as a technique of construction
and as a mean of expresion.
Como area: architects Giuseppe
Sommaruga and Alfredo Campanini.
1.
1.1
Summary of the contents
1. Foreword
Milano as Lombardy’s capital, is the city
where after Italy’s unification, the
development of new architectures was
mostly increased, mainly due to the
affirmation of its economic condition.
The Lake Como area has known great
industrial development as well, but also
because of the beauty of the location, it has
encouraged the growth of leisure settings.
Foreword
Milano, the growth of the city after
the Unification
This is the representation of the Urban Plan
of the city of Milan, which in the first period
of Italy’s Unification (1861) undertook a
2. Sculpture
Among the distinctive features of the
decorative path here considered, sculpture
has had a very important important role,
inspired by pre-existing models and
stylemes present in the former italian
culture, as particularly in Lombardy’s.
3. Techniques
Standard production is the industries’
response to the increasing demand of new
homes for an emerging urban bourgeoisie.
This aspect is helpful in considering our
theme, as the limits of technique in industrial
production non only are influential, but also
create assumptions in defining stylemes and
proper features of the period’s decorations.
4. Examples
In this section it will be interesting to see
some examples of architectures that have a
strong definement of sculptoral decoration,
taken as a specific thread of the expressive
milanese experience, rather than pictorial
decoration, which is also present in beautiful
examples, but not so widespread.
5. Case Studies
In this context we be shown examples
of architectures and decorative aspects
characterized by a strong sculptural
imprinting of two protagonists of the
Lombardian scene, that distinguish for their
achievements both in Milano and in the
strong renovation, that expressed in the
transformations of the institutions and a new
image of the city.
The economic growth of the last decades of
the nineteenth century determined an
enormous construction impulse, marked by
very strong speculations that will be directed
by aTown plan assigned by the council’s
administration in 1884.
The Berutto plan shows almost a redouble
of the urban area, in comparison with the
seventeenth century implant enclosed
within the spanish town-walls. Milano
therefore grows a lot, according to the
"compact" city model imposed by this Town
plan, under the score of many
businessmen's shift and by means of a
whole generation of architects' planning
ability, which have been brought up with the
teachings of Camillo Boito, an important
theorist and professional who aimed at the
consolidation of a national language of
medieval origin.The Berutto plan, which
required tall houses and compact
morphologies facing the the street's line,
Contribution by CARINA KAPLAN to the Historical Lab III: “Art Nouveau & Decoration”
whithin the 3rd Plenary Meeting of the Reseau Art Nouveau Network. Riga, 20|10|2006. Page 2
has determined the conditions for a
celebration of the residential space
dedicated to the new bourgeoisie.
1.2
Como Lake area:
the development of leisure
settings
In this slide are suggested some images
where is recalled the beauty of Lake Como
and some examples of buildings of the time.
This area of high landscape value near
Milan had plenty specific industrial activity
such as textile and silken manufacture.
And many compounds dedicated to the
initial mass tourism and vacation houses
developed since the last decades of the
nineteeth century. The big hotels and villas
around Lake Como are an example.
Architects as Sommaruga and Campanini
illustrated in the case studies, have worked
both in Milano and the Lake, building
houses for their clients.
For this reason, the façades' decorations
and the external elements took advantage
only in part of tiles in ceramic -that were
also present– but largely used wrought iron
and moulded cements to achieve its main
ornamental language. Therefore the use of
cement was widely spread in this period, a
material which allowed a modern industrial
production of decorative elements
necessary in responding to the increasing
demand of requests, due to the expansion
of housebuilding. As Rossana Bodssaglia
suggests, decorative molded cement can be
considered the heir and the continuation,
in a modern sense, of the stucco tradition, in
which Italy has been specialized for
centuries. Some examples.
2.1.a San Satiro
2.
SCULPTURE
A distinctive character of
.........Lombardian Liberty style
2.1
The moulded cement, a modern
heritage of plaster tradition
One of the distinctive features of the
Lombardian Liberty style is the presence of
sculpture as a preeminent aspect of
decoration.
These are the famous plasterworks of the
vault of San Satiro in Milano, Bramante's
work of the late Fifteenth century. I indicate
them because they accomplish a double
illusion: the deepness of a space, which is
very little deep indeed and the illusion of
stone, which is really made of plaster. It's
like saying the "the supremacy of illusion".
of Villa Litta in Lainate, near Milano, also
dated in the last Fifteen hundreds.
Moulded cement, as a modern material,
inheritated this ancient tradition,
to whom was capable to give new
expressive power.
2.1.b Casa degli Omenoni
2.2.a The human figure
This is an opposite example: all-round stone
sculptures at the entrance of the House of
the Omenoni, designed by Leone Leoni at
the end of the Fifteen hundreds
The human figure appears with a certain
constance in milanese architectonic
decoration. It is therefore very frequent to find,
apart from sculptures in natural stone, like
those of Palazzo Castiglione -in the image, it's
the first on the left- those in moulded cement
of bodied taste.The favorite among
decorations, are the woman's figure and the
plant life.
A part from the Castiglioni's, the other two
images showing Casa Campanini and the
buiding in Piazza Baccone 6, are examples
of more idealized figures.In these cases the
human figure is the main character of
decoration, “part and parcel” of the
architecture.
2.1.c Villa Litta
And this is an example of sculpture made of
plaster -unfortunately badly preserved–
2.2.b The human figure
I suggest other examples where the human
figure plays an important role:
the first regards the cariatidès in the building
in Piazza Bacone 6, the same building
showing two lovers embracing on the
previous slide.
Then the following two examples are more
classic, and show two ladies in Casa
Squadrelli, in a very much historic posture,
alluding to Michelangelo’s Capella Medici
(1530) and angels in the façade of Hotel
Corso, builded between 1902 and 1905 .
2.2.d Angels
These examples, one from Casa Campanini
(1904-6) an the other of Casa Guazzoni by
Giovanni Bossi (1904-6), show how much
the sculpural experience of Palazzo
Castiglioni influenced the work of this two
architects.
2.2.c Angels
2.2.e Faces
These are two examples taken from Palazzo
Castiglioni designed by Sommaruga, one of
the case studies. They angels where
commisioned to a sculptor, Ernesto Bazzaro
and show the importance that was given to
sculptural highreliefs in conceiving the
façade.
Other examples of the human face, both by
Giovanni Bossi. Casa Alessio and once
again Casa Guazzoni
2.2.f Faces
And some more examples of the usage of
the human face as a decorative theme.
The first sculpture stood up alone, on top of
the façade of a cinema and the two other
examples are decorations fully repeated in
tenement buildings that will be deepen in the
following examples
demanded high costs in time and repeated
attempts.
3.2.f Moulded cement productions
This classification identifies two of the main
ways of producing "artificial stone”
- artificial covering stone and constructing
elements (blocks or bricks) indicated as
"standard"
- sculptoral or "artistic" elements that
starting from the production of traditional
construction elements get to define during
this period complex techniques which were
of its own, in the attempt to make objects in
the most varied forms and with an own
specificity.
3.
TECHNIQUES
3.1.f Points of view
The decorations representing the human
figure and the faces that we have seen in
the prevoius images -as other subjects–
are the winning outcome of a debate.
On one hand stood the "idealists" and the
"traditionalists" to whom the use of moulded
cement was considered unacceptable,
because the artistic and architectonic
honesty didn't tollerate the substitution of a
noble material with an imitative one.
In the other hand stood the "innovators",
among which were the "modernist"
architects who had the opposite idea:
that the moulded cement and the fluidity of
the material were a new mean of expression
to create new bizzare or unusual forms.
I have here briefly indicated the reasons that
allowed decorations in moulded cement to
take off, which are the resistance and
endurance in time -this was the evaluation
of the researchers and the experimentors of
the time– and then the combination between
seriality and its low price.
Practically, the seriality of moulded cement
turned to be not always so easy, especially
in making complex manufacters, for which
the creation of moulds and the artwork,
3.2.af Standard | industrial | bass-relief
Rosa Cometta machine
This image gives us an idea of a company
which produced elements for the
construction in cement, made with the aid of
a machinery.
The company, still working now a days, at
the time exported this machines throughout
all the world.The construction with these
blocks demanded a study and a plan of
partitions, to avoid breaking the blocks while
reaching the openings.
These machines were used in the
construction site, mostly to produce bricks
and blocks, for which a proper catalogue
existed. The models reproducted the false
bossage with vairous strickles:
with roundout stone, with hammered
finishing or with floreal or geometrical
patterns.
3.2.b Standard | industrial | bass-relief
The making process
In this image the operator is taught to use
the block producing machine. Its interesting
to underline the didactic side,which indirectly
shows the spread of an incipient
industrialization.
4.2.f Casa Berri Meregalli
4.
EXAMPLES
4.1. Casa Berri Meregalli
The following examples will briefly -and
obviously non exhaustively- illustrate how
the specific techniques we have been
seeing,with their history and debates,
established the backround of the
decorations in moulded cement and express
in the city of Milano.
The following is an Arata building, a very
interesting author that uses very much
sculpture in his architectures, drawing
volumetric façades full of chiaroscuro
(penumbra) effects.
Some notice that he misses any floreal
reference and the composition alludes to a
kind of return to eccleticism. Anyway he
develops a language quite difuse in some
milanese architectures, in which he is a real
master, based on mysterious atmospheres.
Here we see a close up of sculped angels,
holding from cement beams that come out
from the façade, resemblenig modern
gargouilles.They are true all-round cement
sculptures.The exterior decorative details
are mostly modernist, animal subject of
various kinds, fish, frogs, owls, dogs, as the
ones standing top right, and also lions and
wrought irons, non visible in this photo.
4.3.f Casa Alessio
Casa Alessio by the architect Bossi is an
interesting example of secessionist print.
The façade is characterized by curve
windows and vertical trends, quite unusual
in Milano.
The main entrances and the curved
windows at the first floor are surmounted by
highrelief “mascheroni” in moulded cement.
Naturalistic ornamentation can be also
found on the ledge
4.4.f Casa Scagliotti Croci
4.5.f Casa Battaini
This 1903 House is Casa Battaini, and as
the next two that we are going to see after
this one, they are collocated one after the
other in Via Pisacane. Here is possible to
see the soft enrolling of the cement in an
innovative conception of the tympanums
and in the links between the balconies. The
decoration of the portal is very “organic” in
the sense that it alludes to nature when
recalling a seashell.
4.6.f Casa Balzarini
In the 1902 Casa Balzarini prevail “veristic”
floreal patterns. The windows are
sorrounded by frames of big weaving leaves
that form a continous frieze
Casa Scagliotti Croci is part of a group of
four tenement buildings that form a small
and homogenous headquarter. The
buildings are all characterized by the same
moulded cements, where upon very classic
partitions some liberty ornamentations have
been applied. It’s not an example of a very
innovative decorative pattern, but yet
interesting for the usage of a repeated
decoration to enrich the façade,
as can be found in many popular buildings
in the city.
that connects them.The in rilief patterns
stick out very much, as can be seen in the
detail on the left and they surely requested
highly specialized manpower for their
making.It is to highlight the elegant design
and accurate manufacturing of wrought
irons, that integrate consistantly with the
molded cements of the façade.
4.7.f Casa Examples Casa Cambiagli
anyway shows the typology of the buildings
determined by the town plan we have
previously seem. The detail reveals insteda
a very beatifull example of the fusion of
decorative and constructive elements. The
theme of the lover’s embrace, given by their
winded bodies, fuses with the balustrades
and the outline of the windows.
4.9.f Casa via Maiocchi
In this last example I’m going to show you
an example where decoration presents an
aspect a bit heavy and monumental,
1902 Casa Cambiaghi, distinguishes for the
decorative specialness of the windows on
the first floor that recall the pattern of the
peacock, characteristic of modernist
iconography and in particular to Jughensttil.
In some windows the peacock’s tain forms a
zoomorphic tympanum.
4.8.f Casa in Piazza Baccone 6
measured by a repeated use of human
faces achieved in an accurate way although
they lack expressions, becoming a kind of
“masks”.In any case the effect in the context
of the street is very effective due to the
strong presence of the building.
This last example well synthesises a comon
mark of milanese buildings, that use plastic
values of decoration to enliven and
comunicate their compliance to the new
liberty stile.
5.
This building in Piazza Bacone 6 doesn’t
present particular architectural features,
CASE STUDIES
Architects working in Milano
and Como Lake area
Sommaruga and Campanini
5.1.a.fPalazzo Castiglioni | New façade
The following is an important building’s
façade in the Milan city centre, Palazzo
Castiglioni’s, by Giuseppe Sommaruga.
The importance of Sommaruga as an
outstanding representative of Lombardian
Liberty is very well illustrated in this
summary by Silvia Colombari who says that
Sommaruga expresses himself using
elements in which the european language’s
pattern mixes with others of italian origin
and milanese tradition: the rustical bossage,
of great pictorial effect and the round
porthole openings of the ground floor, a
veristic decoration, wrough irons, all planned
by himself. All these are solutions which
launch a stylistic tendency, a sort of
“Sommaruga line” that consists in giving the
plastic values of decoration the job of
bringing movement to the buildings.
This – continues Colombari – is a different
choice from Horta’s or Guimard’s art
nouveau, which aims at metamorphosis and
dinamism of structures.
In my opinion, Silvia Colomabari expresses
very well the role of decoration in the
milanese production, and I believe also in
the lombardian production. I will say
sculpural decoration as a distinctive mark.
5.1.b Palazzo Castiglioni | old façade
This is an old image of Palazzo Castiglioni
that, originally had Caryatide-like sculptures
in the façade of the main entrance.
Now they have been placed on the lateral
façade of Villa Faccanoni, today Clinic
Columbus.
5.2.f Villa Faccanoni and the removed
sculptures
Here are the two sculptures that represent
the allegory of Peace and Industry. Beyond
gossip, it is interesting to see how
Sommaruga wanted to achieve rough and
truthfull surphaces, commisioning the job to
a sculptor –Bazzarro- that rivisits the
historical tradition of the caryatides.
5.3.f Villa Faccanoni
This is the façade of Villa Faccanoni,
another work by Sommaruga, that besides
hosting Palazzo Castiglioni's caryatides
-on the rear – not to bother again the
sensitivity of the right minded, once more
shows the use of sculptural decoration
together with the wrought irons by
Mazzucotelli as a prevailing expressive
aspect.
more complex forms, as the sculptural and
decorative elements at the top of the
coloumn.
5.5.a Casa Campanini, exterior
With this image of Casa Campanini I’m
going to introduce the author, Alfredo
Campanini.
5.4.f Villa Poletti
This image recalls another work by
Sommaruga, in Lake Como area.
Is Villa Poletti in Lanzo d’Intelvi, a small
town on a mountain above the lake.
The architect is very well-known and had an
important commissioner, therefore he could
always use expensive materials for his
buildings.In this case we can see the base
of the building in natural stone rustically
worked. Sommaruga uses it in his
architectures like an expressive mean to
root his work in the ground. Stone is also
used for the face works of the column;
instead moulded cement is used for the
The more interesting milanese result is his
own family house in Milano where he
embraces the idea of the complete design,
not only as Sommaruga did in his Palazzo
Castiglioni, but as in general the architects
adhering to the Art Nouveau movement
aspired to do. Campanini plans the whole
ornamentation aparatus, from the sculptured
feminine figures of the portal, to the
muolded cements, to the floral wrought
irons. From Sommaruga's style is possible
to find the contrast between the richness of
decoration and simplicity of the architecture,
but as Cecilia Colombari remarks,
everything looks softer and more organic.
In every part of the building the combination
of cement and other materials welds with
the variety of patterns and tratments of the
surphaces.
5.5.b Casa Campanini, entrance
Showing a very personal interpretation of the
moulded cement, in tune with the romantic
ideals of liberty stile, the allegorical figures
of Painting and Sculpture standing upon the
entrance's portal lead softly the scene.
It is to be noticed the workmanship with
which the material is been used
to give matter and body to the figures.
internal portal. The garden is really a small
courtyard containing some trees, but their
lush transforms it in the heart of the building
and topos of liberty.
5.5.d Casa Campanini, main hall and
porterhouse
In the entrance hall Campanini has chosen
the green color as the backround, to
emphasize the cromatic unity with the
garden, using it in different shades for the
"zoccolo" and the walls.
The final result brings these figures far from
the verism and the sensuality of the
sculptures destined to Sommaruga's
Palazzo Castiglioni and near to a more
idealized, modest and gracefull image of
Spring. The sculpures blend with the wall
structure, but at the same time seem to
come out of it and take life in quite a natural
way.
5.5.c Casa Campanini, hall and
courtyard
Coloumns, architraves, bands and frames
with herbal shapes made in decorative
cement, stand out against the green
Entering Campanini's house is a wholesome
experience.The promise of nature
represented in the façades is maintained in
the vision of a garden, framed by the
background. Delicate flowers lie back on the
walls. The internal decorations elaborate in
a more intimate way the patterns of the
external façades.
5.5.e Casa Campanini, staircase
Lombardia, together with local authorities is
supporting the on going restoration,
because of its being part of a more general
plan, whose aim is the inhancement of Lake
Como’s heritage.
This plan is an AQST, a reference frame
agreement for the developement of the
territory promoted by Regione Lombardia,
which in this case is dedicated to the
“Cultural enhancement of Como Lake Como Area Masters”.
On the staircase, Campanini uses a floreal
pattern in plaster combined with a bouquet
of painted flowers. This pattern unrolls like a
necklace till the culmination of the stairs
and accompanies the glance.
5.5.f Casa Campanini, out
The villa was planned by Campanini as a
home for Bernasconi, a silk businessman,
not far from his modern factory. In this villa
Campanini elaborates a decorative
language that recalls and emphasizes the
one of his own house in Milano.
5.6.b Villa Bernasconi, view of the
building
Going out, the green colur, the herbal
decorations on the walsl and in the bassreliefs on the ceiling, and the beautiful portal
in iron representing a gate around which
wraps a climbing plant, dilate till the end the
natural experience.
5.6.a Villa Bernasconi in Cernobbio,
supported by Regione Lombardia
I will end this presentation introducing Villa
Bernasconi in Cernobbio, of which Regione
In villa Bernasconi the moulded cement
works are practically everywhere, without
thematic nor dimensional hierarchies and
are very sculptoral and volumetric, as can
be seen in the perspective of the villa’s
façade. In this villa the themes have an own
peculiarity, that we will see in the following
decorative details.
5.6.b Villa Bernasconi, detail of
caterpillars
The architect uses an idealized leitmotiv of
the silk weaving, the caterpillar between the
mulberries, to elaborate the bass-reliefs that
enrich the façades, in plenty of variables.
5.6.b Villa Bernasconi, detail of
crysalis
The variety of decorative subjects having to
do with silk emphasize the important role of
the owner in the industrial context of the
Como area
5.6.c Villa Bernasconi, detail of
crysalis
Once again caterpillars, butterflies,
mulberries, almost as family scutcheon.
It’s interesting to see how he has woven an
iconography taken from the working context,
with this decorative narration.
5.6.c Villa Bernasconi, detail
Together with objects deriving from silk,
there is also a wide repertoire of flowers and
plants. Represented also in the iron works
and ceramics.
5.6.c Villa Bernasconi, detail
Examples were herbal subjects in decorated
cement embrace and envalue every element
of the building
5.6.e Villa Bernasconi, detail
Then there are also wrought irons very
similar to the ones architect Campanini
designed for his own house in Milano
5.6.d Villa Bernasconi, detail
A ledge wrapped with bunches of flowers
5.6.f Villa Bernasconi, detail
Lastly a detail of the colorfull ceramics tiles,
also developing floreal and butterfly
patterns, that sorrounds the building with a
continous frieze
6.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Archivi del liberty italiano
a cura di Rossana Bossaglia, Edizioni
Franco Angeli, 1987
Brunate tra eclectismo e Liberty.
La villeggiatura progettata dal 1890
al 1940
Cecilia de Carli, Edizione a cura
dell’Amministrazione Comunale, Brunate
1985
Costruire in Lombardia 1880-1980
Edilizia residenziale
A cura di Ornella Selvafolta., Edizioni
Electa, Milano
Giulio Ulise Arata
opera completa
Fabio Mangone Edizioni Electa Napoli,
1993
Giuseppe Sommaruga,
un protagonista del liberty italiano
Catalogo della mostra, Eleonora Bairati e
Daniele Riva, Nuove Edizioni Gabriele
Mazzotta, Milano 1982
Il liberty a Milano
A cura di Rossana Bossaglia e Valerio
Terraroli, Edizioni Skira, Milano 2003
Il Liberty Italiano e Ticinese
Rassegna internazionale delle arti e
della cultura – Lugano, Lugano e
Campione d’Italia
Catalogo della mostra, AA.VV., Edizioni
Quasar, Roma 1981
in Liberty. Milano e Lombardia
Guido Lopez e Elisabetta Susani, CELIP
Casa Editrice, Milano 1999
Il liberty
Un’avventura artistica internazionale
tra rivoluzione e reazione, tra
cosmopolitismo e provincia,
tra costante ed effimero,
tra sublime e stravagante
Lara – Vinca Masini, Aldo Martello e
Giunti editore, Firenze 1976, 1991, 2000
L’idea del lago. Un paesaggio
ridefinito: 1861/1914
Catalogo della mostra, AA.VV., Nuove
Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta, Milano 1984
Via e arte di cantiere
Immagini, materiali , testimonianze
per la storia dell’edilizia nel com’asco
e nel leccese , 1850 – 1950
A cura di Stefano della Torre, Edizioni
Nodo libri, Como, 1994

Decorative paths in Lombardia by Carina Kaplan

Transcription

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