Prof. Francesco Carelli

 


Pencil and ink on paper

 

The architect Sant’Elia born in Como and moved to Milan, when these two cities were undergoing major urban, economic, social, industrial transformation; Milan becoming part of the international communications network. He also worked as a maser builder on the completion of the Villoresi Canal, which gave him the opportunity to observe the hydroelectric power station in Vizzola Ticino.

This experience of urban transformation certainly stimulated Sant’Elia’s imagination, and the resulting visionary ideas found concrete expression in the typo logical proposals represented in his drawings, that highlight the influence of the “dynamism” of the industrial city on the creation of a “new architecture” clearly expressed by Sant’Elia in his 1914 Manifesto of Futuristic Architecture. Rejecting the monumental and static elements of tradition, he proposed a functional city in constant motion, where buildings, infrastructure and urban spaces were designed based on the needs of modern life.

“We must invent and build from scratch the modern city, similar to an immense, tumultuous construction site, agile, mobile, dynamic in every part, and the modern house, , similar to a gigantic machine, rich only in the beauty inherent in its lines and reliefs; extraordinary ugly in its simple mechanics, it must rise on the edge of a tumultuous abys; the street , which will no longer extend like a basement at the level of the doorways, but will sink into the earth for several floors”