Page 26 - Studio International - November 1973

realize the reconstruction of the universe We feel ourselves constructed in steel; we, too, the photomontages of Heartfield, Hausmann and
Hoch where photographic representation was
through this total fusion, to liven it up, that machines; we, too, mechanized ! included as a living piece of urban reality. The city
is to re-create it in its entirety. We will give Today we know how to reveal to the world for the expressionists is the site of psychological
flesh and bones to the invisible, to the their deepest souls and their measureless and social oppositions, of the existential dejection of
contemporary man at its most typical, which is
impalpable, to the imponderable, to the hearts in which dynamic architectures are amply confirmed by the frequent occurrence of the
imperceptible. We will discover the abstract spiralling; the new architectures that Sant'Elia theme in literature, cf. Paolo Chiarini and Ladislao
equivalents of all the forms and of all the and Virgilio Marchi have already established'. Mittner. Equally indicative are texts by painters
like Ludwig Meidner, cf. Chiarini, Bilancio
elements in the universe, then we will combine The elements taken from the urban dell 'Espressionismo, Vallecchi, Florence). The
them together according to the whims of industrial panorama are not new, but new, Futurists, however, brought notions of an essentially
inspiration to make plastic complexes which we rather, is the lucid perspective of analogy to the dynamic dimension to the theme, and hence a more
precise idea of urban space as the inferential field of
will set in motion'. machine which informs it, corresponding forces analogously, if differentially, competitive. For
This manifesto, in fact, welded the inventive precisely to the problematics of European their part, those expressionists of the social tendency,
operationalism of futurist object-construction Purism around L'Esprit Nouveau. Pannaggi arrived at the theme with the war years and after,
beginning in fact with Grosz (To Oscar Panizza, etc).
to their project of totally reconstructing the was to make use of it, with a strong dose of The Novembergruppe was particularly taken by the
environment. It is a charter, of futurist imagination, for the interior of the Casa theme, but, were preceded by Marc who had died in
architectural environmental design, Zampini at Esanatoglia (Matelica) in 1925-26, battle in 1916.
9 Archivi del Futurismo, I, pages 73-76.
interesting to Balla and to Depero for the and also for stage sets22. Prampolini did this as 10 An anthology of the city theme in Italian futurist
lyrical trend, for the formal inventions of well. All the second-wave futurist painting is painting must be completed by some reference to
dynamic symbolism and the paramount role of invested with a hypothetical, mechanized urban Rosai, Soffici and later to Primo Conti with their
recital of village and antimetropolitan attitudes, the
pure chromaticism.16 With these 'plastic space, the typical psychological aspects of extreme dramatic alienation of the industrial
complexes', Marinetti stressed 'With Futurism which were accented in its inflections — the metropolis, so insistently underlined by Sironi, in
interiors like Cafe for example, in crowded streets or
. . . art becomes art-action. That is to say, will, psychology of situation or colour — particularly
in deserted industrial suburbs. For Sironi, the
aggression, possession, penetration, joy, brutal on the part of Fillia who should also be machine is a monster, almost phantasmal, and the city
reality in art, geometric splendours of forces and recognized as a poet. When this late-futurist theme is interpreted in a negative sense as existential
fate, more as with German Expressionism than with
forwards projection. Art, then, becomes stance was faced, in the second half of the
Futurism's exaltation of the modern. This attitude,
presence, new object, new reality, created with twenties, by examples of European rationalist initially keyed to the dynamics of interpenetration,
the abstract elements of the universe'.17 architecture, a lyrical matrix was claimed along moved in the twenties into metaphysical dimensions.
Neither must one overlook the more heraldic
An important group of Balla's paintings of with the lyrical absorption of the very myth of
exaltation of urban splendour, with all the overtones
1915, both qualitively and quantitively, the mechanical art. This was particularly the case of Secessionism, in Dudreville, Galli, later of Evola,
cycle of Interventionist Demonstrations, 18 is with the architects Paladini (in Rome), Sartoris not to mention De Troyer and the more dynamic
synthesis of Funi. Funi and Dudreville were both
imaginatively woven around the motif of the and Diulgheroff (in Turin). In this sense, a members of the Nuove Tendenze to which Sant 'Elia,
multiple unfurling in urban space, extremely particular stage was completed by the first too, belonged and with whom he exhibited in Milan in
condensed and abstract, of an item of mass- exhibition of futurist architecture held in Turin 1914.
As far as the circulation of the theme in futurist
symbolism — the Italian tricolour. in 1928, to the catalogue of which Fillia literature is concerned, it almost suffices to quote a
This inventive and lyrical quality took a contributed a long text. few titles: Marinetti's La Ville Charnelle, 1908;
decisive direction, and the architectural Folgore's Citta Veloce, 1919; and some instances to be
picked out in Marinetti's anthology I poeti futurista -
theorizing of Virgilio Marchi was influenced by some lyrics of Altomare, of Buzzi singing of German
it. His visionary planning appears to have been 1 Cf. Archivi del Futurismo, vol. I, pages 15-19. industrial cities, and of Folgore. To these may be
2 Op. cit. vol. I, pages 21-22. This same sort of joined Cangiullo, Montano, Soffici in Chimismi
anticipated by some of Balla's intuitions, such
opposition was expressed by A.-F., Delmarle lirici, 1919, the prose of Marinetti and Corra; and
as Bridge of Speed, 1913. Indeed Balla, in his `peintre futuriste' in a manifesto against Montmartre, from Marinetti's second anthology of 1925, Loris
frequent but spasmodic architectural projects, 15 August, 1913. 'Your Moulin de la Galette will Castrizzi, Emilio Mario Dolfi, Escodame and Fillia.
fatally disappear into a Metro station. Your lousy During the advance of the twenties, freed from the
often as background elements, in the very
place du Tertre will be crossed by buses and earlier 'crepuscular' rhetoric, the futurist myth of
lyricism of his invention and fantasy, is opposed tramways, and out of all the muck that you wish to mechanical art permitted a more limpidly urban
to the prevalent rationalist accent of Sant'Elia's preserve today, there will rise up skycrapers piercing panorama. Some reference should also be made to
its azure, great apartment blocks with infinite floors. Ruggero Jacobbi's 1968 anthology.
proposals (and of Chiattone's who very (ibid. pages 23-26). In futurist music, too, the theme was exploited,
substantially depends on him), and heralds 3 Op. cit. vol. I, pages 63-67, and 104-108. The text of Balilla Pratella and above all Russolo and his 'art of
the half expressionist and half visionary the Paris show was used more or less in its entirety for noises' (certain passages in his booklet of this name
the other European shows. are relevant), using the noises of the city as participants
architecture of Marchi. This was set out in the ' The members of this school were Vertunni, in urban space.
latter's Manifesto of Futurist Architecture, Coleman, Raggio, Sartorio, Cambellotti. "Archivi del Futurismo, I, pages 67-72.
.
February 1920, published in Roma Futurista. 5 For this period of Balla's activity, cf. the catalogue 12 Op cit. pages 41-46.
of the retrospective show at the Galleria Civica d'Arte 13 Many years ago Calvesi stressed the strict
Both in Depero's strongly fantastic and in Moderna, Turin, April 1963, by Maria Drudi connections between Sant 'Elia's and other Futurist
Prampolini's decidedly purist senses, the Gambillo and Enrico Crispolti, and the Archivi del manifestos. Le due avanguardie, pages 96-113.
decade, from the early nineteen-tens to the Divisionismo. (Also Guido Ballo's Preistoria del " Archivi del Futurismo, I, pages 81-85.
Futurismo, Tr.). 15 Op. cit. pages 85-87.
beginning of the twenties, saw the rise of a 6 Archivi del Futurismo, vol. II. 16 An example of Balla's futurist environmentalization
different vision of urban space from that of the The Lamps was exhibited in Milan, 59 to; Train was the Bal Tic Tac, realized in Rome in 1921.
most prominent futurists at the beginning of Running through the Night, in Milan, 1911, and in Surviving examples are the Casa Balla in via Oslavia
Paris, 1912; Revolt in Paris, 1912; Solidity of the 39, Rome, cf. Enrico Crispolti, II 'Sal Tic Tac' di
the decade. It was no longer stressed in dynamic Fog, in Rome, 1913; Dynamism of an Automobile, in Balla, a Via Milano, Palatino, a. VI, no. 9-52, Rome,
interpenetrations, but rather more solidly and Florence, 1913. (This information was included in the September- December 5962.
elementarily squared, on arguments of main text of the original Italian. Tr.). 17Archivi del Futurismo, I, pages 48-51.
8 Naturally the Futurists did not invent the city 18 The interventionist demonstrations were a series of
mechanical analogy. In the manifesto, theme, which has a realist origin, though transformed mass patriotic demonstrations organized with
Mechanical Art, in the most finished draft of by first the impressionists and then the post- Mussolini and D'Annunzio, characterized by
October 1922, published in Noi, II series, No. 2, impressionists. It was also very important to the flamboyant disorder and violence, clamouring for
German expressionists alongside the primordial Italy to enter the war against Germany and Austria.
May 1923, Prampolini, Pannaggi and Paladini relationship with nature, both within Die Brucke, In it the suspect elements of Futurism, the proto-
hardly refer to architecture as such and offer particularly with Kirchner, and outside, with Fascism, came to the fore. cf. Mario De Micheli,
instead a mechanized vision of urban space : Meidner a typical case; and even beyond, right up to The Political Ideology of Futurism, the following
Der Blaue Reiter, Macke, for example, and even
`The decisive, net, mechanical sense which Marc, leading on to the later developments in the essay in this collection. Tr.
22 On Panaggi's interior architecture, cf. Enrico
attracts irresistibly. We feel mechanically. vein of social criticism and Dada : Dix and Grosz, and Crispolti, in Arte Illustrata, 1969.
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