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The
Architecture of Modern Italy: Volume 1, The Challenge of
Tradition, 1750-1900, by Terry Kirk (Volume
2).
The first volume of Terry Kirk's
extensive, though not exhaustive, history on the architecture
of modern Italy (not to be confused as a history of modern
architecture in Italy) begins with the Enlightenment
-- when architects eschewed the dominant style, Baroque,
in favor of a rediscovered Classicism -- and ends at the
turn of the 19th and 20th centuries -- when architecture
was called upon to create a visual identity for a unified
Italy. In between, the author paints short but highly descriptive
and informative vignettes of well- and lesser-known buildings,
landscapes, and projects created or completed in the 150-year
timeframe. The variety of works presented is one of the
books best assets, from the theatrical spectacles of Giuseppe
Jappelli to the late 19th-century design of Florence's cathedral.
The well-known Giovanni Battista Piranesi is obviously present,
his influence permeating the book, even though the architect/draftsman/engraver
only created one building, Santa
Maria del Priorato in Rome. Through Napoleon's brief
reign, 19th-century Romanticism, and the aforementioned
unification, we see reinterpretations of the historical
elements and assemblages of architecture spurred by this
unique personality's take on Italy's past and its potential
future. What comes across is that in this period of Italy's
history the physical expression of political power, via
a fusing of the country's classical past with its new ideals,
is of the utmost importance.
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