Post-war Architecture between Italy and the UK

Exchanges and transcultural influences

Edited by Lorenzo Ciccarelli and Clare Melhuish

£45.00

ISBN: 9781800080850

Publication: October 14, 2021

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Italy and the UK experienced a radical re-organisation of urban space following the devastation of many towns and cities in the Second World War. The need to rebuild led to an intellectual and cultural exchange between a wave of talented architects, urbanists and architectural historians in the two countries. Post-war Architecture Between Italy and the UK studies this exchange, exploring how the connections and mutual influences contributed to the formation of a distinctive stance towards Internationalism, notwithstanding the countries’ contrasting geographic and climatic conditions, levels of economic and industrial development, and social structures.

Topics discussed in the volume include the influence of Italian historic town centres on British modernist and Brutalist architectural approaches to the design of housing and university campuses as public spaces; post-war planning concepts such as the precinct; the tensions between British critics and Italian architects that paved the way for British postmodernism; and the role of architectural education as a melting pot of mutual influence. It draws on a wealth of archival and original materials to present insights into the personal relationships, publications, exhibitions and events that provided the crucible for the dissemination of ideas and typologies across cultural borders.

Offering new insights into the transcultural aspects of European architectural history in the post-war years, and its legacy, this volume is vital reading for architectural and urban historians, planners and students, as well as social historians of the European post-war period.

Praise for Post-war Architecture between Italy and the UK

'The detailed contributions to the book are a valuable addition to knowledge'
Planning Perspectives

Lorenzo Ciccarelli is Research Fellow in History of Architecture at the University of Florence and member of the Scientific Committee of the Renzo Piano Foundation.

Clare Melhuish is Principal Research Fellow and Director of the UCL Urban Laboratory.

List of figures
List of contributors

1 Editors' note
Lorenzo Ciccarelli and Clare Melhuish

2 The complexity of cultural exchange: Anglo-Italian relations in architecture between transnational interactions and national narratives
Paolo Scrivano

3 On the wave of the welfare state: Anglo-Italian town-planning strategies in the post-war years
Lorenzo Ciccarelli

Part I: Personae and Debates

4 Banham’s Italy
Davide Spina

5 From neoliberty to postmodernism
Benjamin Chavardés

6 Franco Albini and Leslie Martin: 'a parallel working life'
Antonello Alici

7 Superstudio, the sign and the problem of architectural education
Da Hyung Jeong

Part II: Designing the Post-war City

8 Reweaving the city: the CIAM summer schools from London to Venice (1949-57)
Lorenzo Mingardi

9 The influence of Patrick Geddes in post-war Italy through Jacqueline Tyrwhitt and Giancarlo De Carlo
Maria Clara Ghia

10 Domenico Andriello and the 'città dell’uomo'
Gemma Belli

11 From futurism to ‘town-room’: Hodgkinson, the Brunswick and the low-rise/high density principle
Clare Melhuish

Part III: Building the Welfare State