The Mediterranean has been an inexhaustible source of inspiration, a meeting place and a bridge between cultures. The Mediterranean has played a mythical role in the education of artists and architects inspiring the long tradition of the Grand Tour. The impressions of
Venice, Rome, Florence, Naples and Pompei, and later Sicily, have filled the diaries and sketchbooks of writers, artists and architects. The itineraries of travels have evolved from the main routes of classical monuments to the variety of landscapes of Tuscany and Lazio,
Umbria and Marche in search of small villages and spontaneous and vernacular architecture. The travel of artists and architects, as direct experience of a place, have proved to be a long-lasting vehicle of culture through Its resonances, recorded in diaries, sketches, watercolors, photographs, and reported in conferences and publications.
The travel in the opposite direction is a direct consequence of that tradition. The desire to experience the North, to explore the Nordic landscapes and architecture was a growing phenomenon for the Italian architects in the 20th century with resonances in journals and
exhibitions and resulting in a growing network of direct contacts.
So, the travel of the architects becomes a lens to read the increasing flows of connections between North and South, and to follow the changing sensibility in the research of identity and of modern expressions.
The proposed seminar aims at recalling such a dense history of travels in both directions, focusing on Italy and Norway through a selection of key figures as well as cities and works as a red line connecting the two architectural cultures.
From the past to the present, the lecture will suggest and hopefully promote a new season of relations between our countries possibly through a series of dialogues among architects and critics aimed at understanding the evolution of the role of architecture in the current society.
Lecture by Antonello Alici, Università Politecnica delle Marche
Please register here to partecipate at the conference (free entrance)
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The event is part of the project Architecture: Projects, Territory, Relations, a series of conferences and seminars organized by IIC Oslo.
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Antonello Alici, architect and architectural critic, Ph.D., Associate Professor in History of Architecture at Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona. The Nordic Countries, especially Finland and Finnish architecture have been his long-lasting research interests. He is responsible for the Nordic Countries in the external editorial staff of “Il Giornale dell’Architettura”. He has promoted several seminars on the travels of the architects North-South and viceversa. In 2019-2020 he has promoted the international research project ‘GDC 100’ on the legacy of Giancarlo De Carlo based at the National Academy of San Luca in Rome. Since 2015 he is Visiting Professor at the International Doctoral Program in “Architectural Heritage Management and Tourism” of Silpakorn University in Bangkok. He has been Visiting Scholar at St John’s College (2020) and at the Martin Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies (2017), University of Cambridge, UK. Director of the international summer school “Living with Earthquakes. A strategic plan for the earthquake prone regions” and Member of the National Observatory for Landscape Quality promoted by the Italian Ministry of Culture (Mibact), former President of the National Association of Archives of Contemporary Architecture (AAA Italia) and Secretary General of Italia Nostra. His research and teaching activity deal mainly with 19th and 20th century architecture in the Nordic Countries, Great Britain and Italy, and it aims at raising the knowledge and awareness of the value of historical-architectural and natural heritage.
Recent publications:
The Journey to the North. The Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm in the Context of the Relationships Between Swedish and Italian Architects, in M. Sica (ed), Enchanting Architecture, The Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm by Gio Ponti, Five Continents, Milano, 2021, pp. 110-123
Aino e Alvar Aalto. Risonanze italiane, Caracol, Palermo, 2018
Riflessi italiani. Jean Sibelius e l’avanguardia artistica del Romanticismo nazionale in Finlandia , in Sibelius e l’Italia, A. Bini, F. Colusso, F. Tammaro (a cura di), Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Roma, 2019, pp. 419-436
La Sicilia di Alvar Aalto, in P. Barbera, M.R. Vitale (a cura di), Architetti in viaggio. La Sicilia nello sguardo degli altri, LetteraVentidue, Siracusa, pp. 440-455
Giancarlo De Carlo at 100 (1919-2019), A. Alici, F. De Pieri (eds), “Histories of Postwar Architecture HPA”, 5/2019, vol. II
L’altra Cambridge. La sfida della modernità nel paesaggio dell’accademia: Cripps Building at St John’s College, “Storia dell’Urbanistica”, 12, 2020
Ralph Erskine and Italy: a dialogue with the historic town, in M. Andersson, Ch. Pech (eds.), ArkDes Reserch Symposium on Architectural History 2018, Stockholm, ArkDes, 2020, pp. 226-244
Gli anni della formazione romana tra le Marche e i Paesi Nordici, in P. Posocco (a cura di), Alfredo Lambertucci (1928-1996). Costruire lo spazio, Quodlibet, Macerata, 2019, pp. 81-92
Città storica e modernità. Il caso esemplare di Urbino nell’opera di Giancarlo De Carlo, in N. Detry, S. Gron (eds), Centri minori / Enjeux majeurs. Esperienze in Italia e in Francia / Expériences en Italie et en France, Maggioli, Torino, 2019, pp. 77-89
Eredità e attualità del secondo Novecento. Architetti e architetture, in G. Canella, P. Mellano (a cura di), Il diritto alla tutela. Architettura d’autore del secondo Novecento, Franco Angeli, Milano, 2019, pp. 10-19
A.Alici et al., Cultural Heritage and Landscape: Analysis, digitization and Design Aiming at a Resilient Future, in The First Outstanding 50 Years of “Università Politecnica delle Marche”, 2019, pp. 357-373
Giuseppe Pagano and Casabella. In defence of modern Italian architecture, in H. Hökerberg (ed.), Architecture as propaganda in the twentieth-century totalitarian regimes. History and heritage, Polistampa, Firenze, 2018, pp. 35-58; Peterhouse. Prove di modernità in un College di Cambridge, in “Città e Storia”, XII, 2017, 2, pp. 287-313.