History of Italian Architectur, 1944-1985

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Manfredo\afuri
translated by Jessica Levine

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I
 


 IIGay Errancyll:
Hypermoderns
(Postmoderns)

t s well known that n taly, Portoghes lanhed a style that has

been alled "postmodern" wth hs S Nv and a dense
seres of pblatons, and ths joned nteatonal rt that
nldes analogos "opnon-makers" sh as Charles Jenks and
Robert Stern. Portoghes was derent, thogh,
thogh, n that
that he had a
long theoretal and pratal nterest n the manplaton of
hstoral sgns: as we hae seen, hs frst neobaroqe experments
began n the late fftes. Hs more reent "manfestos" are lear
They ontan an appeal for a "lberaton from deas" spposedly
mposed pon arhtets and ther benefares by the "mode
oement," for a oyos redsoery of the entre repertory of the
past, for expresse ontamnatons of the omplexty of hstoral
eras, and for a formal expresseness lnked to the reoery of the
onepts of plae and ontn
ontnty
ty.. Portoghes also engaged n a
rtqe of the topa of the "modern" and of ts nhlst hara
ter, whh was sprtally gronded n the deology of progress.
Lberaton" s presented as oeromng aantgarde attempts to
"reonstrt the nerse," and also as anelng nongros
dtes, n order to reoer the happness of "rh langages" that
hae been lost
lost Ehoes of the phlosophal
phlosophal wrtngs of Hedegger,
Hedegger,
Gehlen, Deleze, and Lenaslstenng, smlarm, p-h
angel of hstorypossbly medated by Maro Pernola and Gann
Vattmo, pntate Portoghes's wrtngs, as he traels the seas of
ontemporary thoght, a oyage that, as we shall see, has ts own
partlar sgnfane
 

A hedonstc rge and a taste or ctation, as well as ree assoca

ton and ph conterbalance each other n the proposals o
Portoghes, whose theotcal prodcton has been accompaned
by sklll proessonal
proessonal and promotional actvtes
actvtes Ths man and
the revew up soon became the ocal ponts o a composte
school ntent on sng desgn and wrtng to breathe new le nto a
strngent critqe o the "mode, thereby halng the advent o a
new era
Portoghes gathers almost all the mots that have been loatng
abot n the nteatonal archtectral and phlosophcal debate o
recent decades Hs theoretcal system
system accommodates a broad
spectrum o sses a critqe o the lnear concpt o hstory,
hstory, a
relecton pon memory, the need or a new nonmetaphyscal
statte or truth, the emergence o new demands or dentty and
what can be magned, the demand or perpheral denttes, the
clt o roots, and the exploson
exploson o ephemeral
ephemeral hedonsms. n act,
act,
hs cltural proect s to make debate a prorty once agan, ocsed
pon passwords sch as the "end o prohbtonsm, redscovered
archtectre, hstorcal roots, and lstenng to the ste and to hstory.
In ths way, the actors characterzng talan archtectre at the
presentthe mltplcaton o deas and the slow ormaton o
parameters o comparsonare lattened n a synthetc attempt,
lanched wth
wth the explct goal
goal o cltral "management And
that s not all The redcton o plralsm to a orml
ormlaa ncldes a
stdy o the tre natre o ktsch there s an answer or every
thng, and the need or u predomnates
The spercalty o the "crtqe o the mode resltng rom
sch a synthess s typcal The prncpal
prncpal characterstc o the
the
"modern s constant selcrtcsm destctve and gnawng
dobts accompaned modernty n ts orney, and the crtqe o
the concepts o lnear hstory and progress s ntrnsc to both the
nneteenth and
and twenteth centures The protagonsts o ths
drama o corse nclde Blanq, Netzsche, Fred, Kaka,
Rosenweg, Benamn, and Hedegger, as well as oos, Le
orbser (thogh certanly not the one o the vug lee,
Malevch,, and Mes
Malevch Mes van der Rohe. In order to presen
presentt the
the new

His  Ilian Arhi, 194985 

 

theoetcal poposal as supassng somethng, a hstoogaphc

myth as enfoce the ne eseach as contaste th a
homogeneous an opaque monolth, an extemely on hsto
ogaphc constucton: the  v theoze by Nkolaus
Pesne n 1936.2 Thus thee as an attempt to halt the pocess of
hstoogaphcal eson, hch has, fo some tme, thon lght
upon the eucble plualsm of expements geneate snce the

en of the nneteenth

labynthan map tacecentuy on expements
by these the chaactestc
eefeatues
falsfeof the
mplacably. he tem  as use by Lyota has athe
ffeent coonates, as he hmself emake ung a semna
hel n Pas n Apl 1985, hen he oppose the homogenety of
hs eas to those of neoecectc achtectue.3
But up to hat pont s t coect to ctcze the postmoen
usng ts on theoetcal
theoetcal pemses
pemses as astatng pont?
pont? hese, n
ealty, on n all the myths of the moe the cult of
z the pathos of the ne, an the supassng o oecom
ng of the tagc. Examnng Potoghess poucts confms the
mpefect nhlsm that nfoms them he en of pohbton
sm s tanslate nto montages of allusons an facle eects of
supse, chaacteze by a symptomatc ease of composton.
Ths s tue of the mosque n Rome an of the follong pojects
the Unt Santaa Locale of Polla, Saleno of 1981, the ton hal of
Ascea of 198, the cc cente of Paua of 1983, the Cty of Scence
n Rome of 1983, the euse of the Fotezza a Basso n Floence of
1983 (fgue 165), the pazza n Latna of 1984 (fgue 164), the
complex n Rome of 1984, an the estuctung of esences n
the hstocal cente of Genoa of 1985 Analogously, an achtec
tue comfotable not ony th sastcally efome cacatues,
but also th classcal, meeal, an baoque emblems, emeges
fom the execses of Rccao Bchaa, Gogo Blanco, Ganfanco
Cuna, an Fanz Pat, an appoaches comc nuance n the
pojects of Robeto Pzo Bol he obous loe of hstoy s
esole, n pactce, n the game of epeately puttng the
mustache on the Mona Lsa, no a mass joke thanks to a sual
cultue moe nfluence by Dsneylan than Duchamp.

"Gy Errancy: Hyrmorns (Postmorns 91

 

t s not clear that ths

ths sgnfes a true turnng pont. On the
contrary the most superfcal characterstcs of the mode have
been taen to extremes. We are left not wth a gay scence but
wth a gay errancy domnated by a perfect equatng of form and
meanng by annulng hstory n reducng t to a eld of of vsual
ncursons and by a h technque nformed by televson: n the
end a f-hu comfortably estabshes tself n the

computer age
components as here s good reason to label such a mxture of
hp
Furthermore Portoghes revealed how he uses hs sources n a
sngular lapse located at the center of hs he Lghts of Lost
Paradse
Paradse  a text ntroducng a recent anthology of wors of new
Italan archtects. Evong the
the Netschean theme of the eteal
retu n order to supportwth the help of fragments of Gehlen
Lacan and attmothe advent of a new sensblty Portoghes
ctes a passage n
n whch the anmals
anmals who are Zarathustras frends
defne the eternal retu as the
the curved
cur ved path of Etety
Etety.6
.6 But the
passage as t s quoted by Portoghes cannot be found n the
phlologcal edton of Thu Spk Zh
Zhu
u by oll and Mont
nar Portoghes too the passage from a text by Lwth
Lwth and n so
dong landed n a trap Zarathustra tus
tus to hs anmal frends
soon thereafterbut Lwth and Portoghes wth hm gnore
thsand reproaches them sharply for mmedately tun ther
premonton of the abyss nto an organ grnders song.9
And ths s the pont the mportant themes carelessly assembled
assembled
by the hypermodern synthess (those that n the world of talan
archtecture have been patenty and masteruly explored by
Scarpa by Gabett and Isola and by Ross) have been turned nto a
 barrelorgan
 barre lorgan song
All of ths may explan the success of the formula among those
on the margns of the profeon seeng a fom and conrontng
a publc
publc eager for eccentrc noveltes There are exceptons
exceptons of
course a few proects by Francesco elln and Ncoletta osentno
(fgure 166) demonstrate a compexty surpassng the mtatons
cted above as do a few buldngs and proects by Oswald
Zoeggler (gre 167) It s nonetheless clear that the hypermodern

is o Ilian Ahi, 1941985 192

 

phenomenon dd not arse accdentally.

accdentally. Along wth much that s
fermentng on the talan scene t should be apprecated as a
hstorcal symptom. ts character of "mperfect nhlsm" does not
belong to t exclus
exclusely
ely For ths reason we now shft our attenton
to the queston of the relatonshp between nhlsm and the
proect

"y Errancy": Hyrmerns (Postmoderns 193