L'architettura delle città - The Journal of the Scientific Society Ludovico Quaroni
The Journal of the Scientific Society Ludovico Quaroni
Protective Shelter for the Thousand Buddha Cliff of Guangyuan, Sichuan Province. 2011-2022
The protective shelter designed for the Thousand Buddha Cliff in Guangyuan addresses a critical condition in heritage conservation: intervention on an open-air sacred site where sculptural, symbolic and landscape values are inseparable. Carved over several centuries into a limestone cliff, the Buddhist statues have long been exposed to climatic agents, resulting in progressive material decay while remaining a visible and meaningful landmark within the cultural landscape. Rather than enclosing the site within a sealed structure, the project adopts a strategy based on passive environmental control and minimal physical interference. A large-span, semi-enclosed architectural skin filters rain, light and airflow while maintaining visual continuity with the cliff and its surroundings. Developed through successive design phases and tested by a full-scale pilot section, the shelter demonstrates how environmental protection can be achieved without suppressing the perceptual and symbolic presence of the site. The architecture operates as a mediating layer between conservation requirements and cultural visibility. By reinterpreting traditional construction principles and spatial references without literal imitation, the project reframes the experience of the Buddha Cliff as both protected heritage and living place of contemplation. The Guangyuan intervention thus exemplifies an architectural approach in which preservation, landscape and transmission of meaning are held in deliberate tension, transforming conservation constraints into a generative design condition.
L'Architettura delle città-The Journal of Scientific Society Ludovico Quaroni
New School of Urban Design, Wuhan University Campus Wuhan, Hubei Province, 2016–2020
The New School of Urban Design at Wuhan University addresses the architectural challenge of designing an educational building within a historically and environmentally stratified campus while asserting its role as a contemporary institution dedicated to architectural and urban education. Rather than pursuing iconic visibility, the project establishes a calibrated dialogue with its surroundings through controlled massing, material continuity and careful integration with topography. Conceived as a reflexive architectural condition, the building operates simultaneously as a place for teaching architecture and as a spatial instrument through which architectural culture is transmitted. Through a compact linear configuration, staggered floor levels and interconnected classrooms, the project reinterprets the conventional academic typology, transforming circulation and sectional variation into active pedagogical devices. Architecture here is not a neutral container but an operative framework that shapes daily practices, collective interaction and learning processes, positioning educational space as a critical component of disciplinary formation.
Rizhao Science and Technology Museum Rizhao, Shandong Province. 2014-2020
The Rizhao Science and Technology Museum is conceived as a civic institution dedicated to the public transmission of scientific knowledge, operating at the intersection of research, education and urban life. Originating from an initiative linked to the scientific legacy of Nobel laureate Samuel Chao Chung Ting, the project moves beyond a commemorative model to define a cultural infrastructure aimed at engaging a non-specialised audience with contemporary science. Embedded within a coastal park between the city and the Yellow Sea, the museum is largely developed underground to preserve landscape continuity while organising a complex spatial sequence beneath it. A continuous spiral path guides visitors through a progression of exhibition spaces that translate abstract scientific concepts into an embodied experience. Circulation, structure and geometry operate as a single cognitive device, framing architecture not as a neutral container but as an active mediator between scientific content and public understanding. The project exemplifies an architectural approach in which institutional permanence and experiential engagement coexist, positioning architecture as an infrastructure of knowledge within the contemporary city.
Protective Shelter for the Archaeological Site of Peking Man Cave, Zhoukoudian, Beijing. 2013-2018
The protective shelter designed for the Peking Man Cave at Zhoukoudian addresses one of the most radical conditions faced by contemporary architecture: intervention within an active archaeological site of outstanding scientific value, where the architectural design cannot assert autonomy and must instead operate at the threshold between protection and accessibility. Recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the cave preserves stratified evidence of human evolution spanning hundreds of thousands of years, requiring both strict conservation measures and the possibility of continued research and public interpretation. The project responds to this challenge through a semi-enclosed, reversible architectural system conceived according to principles of minimal intervention and passive environmental control. By suspending a large-span protective structure above the cave without touching the archaeological ground, the design stabilises climatic conditions while preserving the site’s physical and perceptual integrity. At the same time, the shelter functions as a spatial device that organises access, circulation and interpretation, enabling visitors to experience the site without compromising its authenticity. Rather than dissolving the tension between permanence and use, the project deliberately operates within it. Architecture here is neither an object nor a representation, but an infrastructural framework that simultaneously guarantees the long-term preservation of a fragile heritage and its transmission as scientific knowledge. The Zhoukoudian intervention thus exemplifies a theoretical position in which architecture is understood as a mediating practice, negotiating between temporal depth, environmental responsibility and cognitive accessibility.
Four Projects of Institutional Architecture in China (2012–2022)
This essay examines four public and institutional projects completed in China between 2012 and 2022, focusing on heritage protection, cultural dissemination, and architectural education. It situates these works within the framework of a highly centralised state system and large state-affiliated design institutes. The analysis highlights the advisory and strategic role of architects throughout complex institutional processes. Protection and promotion emerge as shared objectives, linking cultural preservation with economic and social development. Together, the projects illustrate the operational dynamics of contemporary public architecture in China.
Chinese Architecture as Mediation between Modernities
At first glance, the architecture of the Chinese city over the last twenty years appears summary and awkwardly emphatic, a mirror of all the commonplaces of contemporaneity, as compliant as that of yesterday, from the Maoist period, and often heavily academic. Yet, as one gradually deepens one’s understanding of today’s Chinese cities and of the university as a place for the education of architects – still holding a position of considerable importance even in relation to professional practice – it becomes increasingly clear that an exceptional school of architecture is actively at work in Beijing. China, like every empire, has been represented and defined throughout history above all by its language: a complex cultural and political canon, constantly refined in order to reduce to unity the many Chinas and the many non-Chinas present within a space as vast as a continent and open to incursions by external cultures. The Middle Kingdom has experienced different dynasties and ethnic groups, fragmentation and recomposition, invasions and resistance. Yet, through all this, Chinese culture has survived as a unitary language of ever-increasing complexity. Seen from the outside, it appears that it is not so much the peoples of China as its culture – its languages more than its spoken tongues, its architecture more than its architects – that constitute the true subject of history. Ideographic writing is the clearest symbol of this condition: a complex system capable of transmitting tens of thousands of ideas without phonetic mediation, legible across different dialects and languages. The official spoken language, modern Mandarin, employs extremely ancient signs. It is thanks to this writing system that imperial edicts, poems, novels and administrative texts could be understood across regions separated by vast linguistic distances. China’s political unity was, first and foremost, a unity of language. China, with its unitary imperial canon – rigid yet extraordinarily inclusive – has, over time, assimilated all the cultures that approached it, transforming even the most aggressive influences into integrated elements. Like an organism capable of metabolising every novelty, Chinese culture has produced many different Chinas, all traceable back to a single ordering principle.
The Dolomite mountain range was the scene of many battles during the First World War. Many young soldiers lost their lives fighting on both fronts. Several memorials were built in their commemoration, whose shapes present interesting design aspects related to the concept of remembrance.
Postille sulla fortuna settecentesca di Bernini
As a key figure in the artistic development of Rome during the Baroque age, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) radically renewed the architecture of his time. His cultural circle – headed after his death by his pupil Carlo Fontana (1638–1714) – continued his research between the end of the 17th century and the first half of the 18th century, improving the master’s design achievements by experimenting with new solutions based on his masterpieces. Among these, the Roman church of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale had great resonance, as certified by some unpublished surveys of its façade that are now part of the Lanciani Collection kept at the National Institute of Archaeology and Art History in Rome. The aim of this paper is to reflect on Bernini’s fortune in light of these discoveries.
Ripensare la funzionalità della liturgia: un prototipo di chiesa del pittore Francesco Incarnatini
The well-known manuscript Vat.lat.11257.pt.A, which is kept in the Vatican Library, contains a plan drawing of a single-nave church with side chapels that was drawn up by Francesco Incarnatini. He was a Roman painter active at the Savoy court. This paper aims to investigate the implications of this drawing.
La cappella di S. Paolo in S. Carlo ai Catinari: i Cavallerini e l’ingaggio di Mauro Fontana
This paper, which is part of broader research, aims to clarify the dynamics that led the first chapel on the left side of the church of Santi Carlo e Biagio ai Catinari to obtain the ingenious design and the sumptuous marble coating of Mauro Fontana (1701-1767). The patrons of the chapel, the Cavallerini family, were strictly bound in the iconographic program by the dedication of the altar to St. Paul. The altarpiece, which was transported from the old church of San Biagio, has been relocated several times within the new temple. Finally, it replaced the title of the ‘Beata Vergine’. By comparing two manuscripts by the Barnabite Father Francesco Valle on the state of the church in the mid-18th century, along with the documents in the appendix, the text analyses the macrophases and architecture of the chapel, on which Fontana would later insert the rich altar.
The Aventine Hill, located at the southern limit of the ancient urban fabric of Rome, close to the left bank of the Tiber, stands out both in the history and landscape of the city for its eminent position dominating the river and for its leafy character, that still survives today, despite an intense twentieth-century edification. Although having housed a populous neighborhood in Roman times, close to the port and merchant infrastructure, the Aventine Hill remained almost empty for a long period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the early twentieth century. A series of ancient plans and views testify to this image of the hill, based on an intimate relationship with the Tiber and the large vineyards and gardens, marked with ruins of the Roman era, among which only the great ecclesiastical complexes of Santa Sabina stood out, of Saint Alexios, of Saint Prisca, and of the Priory of Malta, surrounded by lush vegetation facing the water. This paper briefly traces the historical-urban events of the hill using the graphic sources (engravings and paintings), focusing on the large conventual complexes that dominate the top of the hill, called «Aventinus Maior».
Copyright (c) 2025 L'architettura delle città - The Journal of the Scientific Society Ludovico Quaroni
Renaissance Synthesis: an architectural and landscape evaluation of Villa Medici’s harmonious design
The most delicate melt of art, nature, and architecture found in the Renaissance period is best embodied in the Villa Medici atop Pincian Hill in Rome. Indeed, the famous gardens and panoramic aspects of the villa are imbued with ideals of beauty, order, and harmony that characterize the values of this period. The paper aims to critically evaluate the landscape value of Villa Medici through detailed analysis of the careful design strategy adopted for its gardens and contextual environment. A villa with progressive terrace morphology, classical statuary, fountains, and lush greenery makes Villa Medici as a sculpted landscape where built and natural worlds come into harmony. Such elements are strategically spatially organized and aesthetically orchestrated in a distilled renaissance struggle for the ordered and sublime. The weight of Villa Medici as a seminal work of Landscape Architecture is given by this study through a close consideration of spatial composition, visual axes, and scenic perspectives wherein the synthesis of art and nature coalesces into an expression of timeless beauty.
The space of communal power in 13th-century central Italy
Buildings used as seats for the representatives of local communities in the Middle Ages were (and often continue to be) a key element of the urban landscape as well as of cities’ identity. The phenomenon mainly involved central-northern Italy. The analysis of mediaeval municipalities necessitates an investigation of the relationship between public space and municipal buildings. The historiography has primarily focused on the north of Italy, where there is a strong communal presence. Numerous studies conducted in the Lombardy region and intriguing publications released in Tuscany serve as a foundation for historical-architectural analyses of communal buildings. There is a lack of research on municipal palaces in central Italy. In this historiographical context, it’s intriguing to investigate the territorial declinations of these and their relationship with the urban context. The palaces, built since the late 11th century, delineate the skyline of the city, occupying a prominent position. In this paper, I aim to analyse three different case studies in Umbria and Latium: Bevagna, Assisi, and Priverno.
Rome’s complex stratification continually offers surprises and prompts new reflections. This volume fully embraces that critical fascination, providing stimulating insights and even previously unexplored scientific perspectives through a miscellaneous collection of autonomous studies, all linked to a common subject examined across different historical moments. With this spirit in mind, the editors of this collective issue—Iacopo Benincampi and Emanuele Gambuti, respectively a researcher and a research fellow working within the Project of Excellence awarded to the Department of History, Drawing and Restoration of Architecture at Sapienza University of Rome—have shaped the present volume of the series L’architettura delle Città. The Journal of the Scientific Society Ludovico Quaroni. The volume gathers Italian and international contributions connected by a shared intention: to foster reflection on the urban landscape of Rome and, by extension, of the Italian context. The collection stands as the outcome of a research project aimed at organizing a set of focused analyses which—supported by archival evidence and wide-ranging comparisons—allow for a broader understanding of social dynamics and contextual motivations that shaped certain architectural choices, as well as various changes made along the way.
The Sanctuary of Hercules Victor. A renewed image in the Tiburtina landscape
The paper explores how ordinary green maintenance in an archaeological site can contribute to an overall reinterpretation of the architectural artifact itself using as a case-study the management experience of the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor, Tivoli. The complex, located in a scenically significant position, boasts a two-thousand-year reuse that has allowed it to be preserved up to the present day. Starting from the “Progetto Strategico – Grandi Progetti Beni Culturali”, the preliminary cleaning operations of the greenery of the northern front have provided a renewed vision, particularly from the other ridge of the Aniene river, enabling us to draw a parallel with the contemporary structures of the Canevari Canal. Ancient and contemporary features are confronted again as part of an overall reinterpretation of the landscape. Keywords: Sanctuary of Hercules Victor, Tivoli, Cultural landscape, Historical palimpsest
The Italian urban landscape tradition. Sapienza University Campus and the shape of the green
Between 1932 and 1935, Marcello Piacentini (1881-1960) was in charge of coordinating the project of the new University Campus of Rome. The modern Studium Urbis would have grouped the colleges located in the city center, creating dedicated buildings, and reducing together people's pressure on historical neighborhoods. Such an opportunity affected the design, suggesting the architect imagine an autonomous citadel inspired by American and European successful experiments: particularly, the campus of Madrid and the University of Virginia. Each building was entrusted to a professional. Piacentini managed the construction of the Rectorate, assigning the surrounding faculties and the access propylaea to his trusted studio collaborators to guarantee uniformity. In addition, Piacentini developed Sapienza’s master plan by referring to the Renaissance tradition, proposing a rigorous layout dominated by voids and greenery. He adopted a basilica plan, proportioning the transversal axis using the width of Piazza Navona as a model, and manipulated the orography to align the monumental university gate with the ground floor of the Rectorate. Finally, he took advantage of the expressive properties of the perspective methods, using both the trees and traditional visual devices to generate a controlled, linear, and monumental urban space. Keywords: Rome, Sapienza, Marcello Piacentini, cultural landscape, garden design
Landscape and Antiquity. Artists, scholars, and Travelers in the Roman Campagna (XVIII-XIX c.)
During the last quarter of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth, the flow of foreign artists, scholars and, aristocrats enlivened the Italian and especially the Roman scene, the fulcrum of artistic, antiquarian, and archaeological interests. Focusing on the field of the ‘Campagna’ such different approaches emerge and some recurring elements, as well as innovative visions and singular sensibilities. Dissemination of publications and prints was decisive in the elaboration of the individual and collective experience, including depiction of antiquities as they appeared to the eyes of observers, and of the fantastic images recalling perceptions and emotions. Keywords: Rome, Grand Tour, architecture, restoration, Roman Campagna.
New porticoed streets for ancient Istanbul. Innovation and historicism in eighteenth-century Ottoman urban culture
This paper analyzes the emergence of new porticoed commercial arteries in the Ottoman capital starting from that of the Damad İbrahim Paşa complex. Precisely around 1720s, Istanbul became a laboratory for new architectural and urban ideas, thanks to both internal dynamics of the empire and to the intensification of the interactions with foreign cultures. More directly than ever, the architecture of the city started dialoguing with remote sources, exponentially enriching its formal and typological vocabulary. The present study tries to explore the background of this urban novelty with a fresh look, taking in consideration all the factors which rendered eighteenth-century Istanbul a unique crossroad of people, cultures, and ideas. Interactions with Western Europe, the conquest of new territories in the Aegean, and the possible role of the local Ottoman and pre-Ottoman references are thoroughly discussed to depict a complex a panorama which spans over seven decades, till the completion of the Mihrişah Valide Sultan Complex in 1801. Keywords: porticated arteries, Damad İbrahim Paşa Complex, colonnaded streets.
The Missions of San Antonio, Texas. Architecture as a holistic representation of the environment
This paper analyzes the development of San Antonio missions’ cultural landscape to address the dialectic relationship between urban models created for the New World, European ideologies, and the role and contributions of the Indigenous population. During the 18 century, the need to improve the Christianizing of the Americas, associated with the urge to defend the territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, prompted Franciscan missionaries to open new settlements in Texas. Five of these are still standing in the current metropolitan area of San Antonio. The region’ s marginal location and the site’ s strategic position favored the growth of such Franciscan Missions under the protection of the Spanish Crown. The territory, in itself fertile, was re-shaped through substantial infrastructural and technological innovations. A complex system of artificial canals allowed the development of agricultural fields – the ejidos, or common lands – characterized by high and regular productivity, being able to feed the Mission population. Furthermore, rancherías (i.e., ranch lands) were established and designed for gazing. The local native population, commonly known as Coahuiltecos, rapidly converted from a nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle to begin farming. The construction of fortified villages was the core of these newly founded communities. They had the specific role of controlling the territory and shaping Indigenous people’ s customs to be integrated within the novo-Hispanic society. The Mission settlements originated utilizing specific layout principles, hybridizing European models, such as the ones of medieval abbeys and architectural and military treatises. These settlements embody one of the most successful examples of Franciscan utopia. Keywords: San Antonio, missions, acequias, novo-Hispanic society, cultural landscape.
Copyright (c) 2024 L'architettura delle città - The Journal of the Scientific Society Ludovico Quaroni
The urban strategy of Pope Paul III. The conclusion of the Trident of Piazza del Popolo
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the transformation of Rome promoted by the Papal Government aimed not only to answer to the needs of a modern state but also to represent the Papacy as an absolute monarchy. The visit of Emperor Charles V in 1536 became the opportunity to improve urban connections and to build architectural complexes such as the Capitoline Hill. The importance of these places was highlighted by putting them at the head of new streets: Pope Paul III made the Capitol visible from Via del Corso, renovated in 1538 as a part of the Campo Marzio general urban plan. If Pope Leo X imagined two streets (Via del Corso and the new Via di Ripetta) leading into the square in front of Porta del Popolo, and Clement VII began the third axis, it was Paul III who should be properly considered as the inventor of the trident of Piazza del Popolo. On the other hand, the pope experimented with the employment of straight roads that organized the territory as symbols of power also in his residence in Caprarola, an effective laboratory of absolutism. Keywords: Rome, Pope Paul III, Emperor Charles V, the Trident, urban strategies.
Oriental Dreams. Reimagining Paradise in the Urban Context
The integration of gardens into the urban fabric of Muslim cities has a rich historical background, dating back to the early days of Islam and influenced by classical and Persian cultures that cherished the idea of incorporating gardens into urban designs. As a result, gardens became an inseparable aspect of Muslim cities, intricately woven into their urban structures. This architectural trend extended far beyond geographical boundaries, spanning vast regions of the Muslim empire from Arabia, Greater Syria, and North Africa to Spain, Iran, and India. Gardens held a profound and symbolic importance for Muslims, closely intertwined with their religious beliefs. The Quran, the sacred scripture of Islam, frequently referred to the concept of ‘gardens’, assuring followers of the prospect of dwelling in lush gardens in the realm of paradise. This heavenly vision inspired the creation of earthly gardens, providing a tangible way to experience and connect with the essence of paradise during mortal life. Islamic gardens emerged as a quintessential element of Muslim cities, embodying the values and aesthetics of Islamic culture. Beyond their visually stunning appearance, these gardens also served practical purposes, offering shelter from the sun, refreshing water features, and ample space for social gatherings. This article aims to explore the significance of gardens in Islam, delving into their embodiment of the promised paradise. It will trace the origins of these gardens, examine their diverse forms, analyze their spatial organization, and unravel their multifaceted functions within the landscapes of Muslim medinas. Keywords: Muslim cities, Islamic culture, Quran, urban grid, landscape design
Historical analysis of a Roman urban center. ‘Hispellum’ as a case study
The paper proposes a model of historical-architectural analysis of the urban center of Spello, Italy (Umbria). We intended to extrapolate from the plurality of data, that makes up today’s landscape, the first macro-phase that can still be traced and detected on an urban scale, the one relating to the Roman period (from III-II centuries B.C. to IV century A.D.), which contributed to modify the landscape by operating on the environmental and natural framework through the action of man. The stratigraphic methodology, typical of the archeological landscape, was therefore followed, according to which the landscape should be read as the product of history. Among the various architectures that shaped the landscape of the Roman age, the fortification and the city gates built around the second half of the first century B.C. have been brought to light. The same structures have been compared with similar models existing in Umbria and Italy, belonging to approximately the same period. The final aim is to understand the significance that the fortification would have had in the political construction of the Colony of Hispellum in ancient times. Keywords: Spello, cultural landscape, Antiquity, urban design, archeological surveys
The landcape aspects of the historic city
The increasing interest that in the last decades scholars have shown for the landscape, intended as a visual expression of the structure of a territorial area, has opened up promising perspectives for the cities’ studies, offering also new methodological keys for interpreting their building history. The landscape that unfolds in front of our eyes is the result of land transformations induced over time by human activities, except in rare areas that have remained intact in their state of nature. Towns – both large cities and smaller rural centers – are the manifestation of these transformations. As nodal components in functional terms and the organization of material structures, they have been decisive in the building processes of human habitats, according to their size, location, and vitality. They carried a significant weight about the network of material and immaterial relations that have innervated the territory, but also to its concrete image; so as to become more or less extensive characteristic elements of the landscape, places in which cultural values had been thickened up to becoming identity components of that places.
La Scuola di Roma e ‘L’Architettura delle città’
The title “Scientific Society Ludovico Quaroni” of the journal appeared very intriguing to me. Because Quaroni (he was trained in an important Roman classical high school attended by all the children of the best and wealthy families of the best Roman bourgeoisie; he was also a schoolmate and friend of the writer Lidia Mazzoleni Storoni, translator of the famous Memorie di Adriano by Yourcenar), was essentially a “humanist”. Therefore, the adjective “scientific” refers to the humanistic-humanistic sciences and not to those of the so-called scientific disciplines. The humanistic root of Quaroni’s thought, and also, I would add, of doing, is repeatedly called into question by Lucio Barbera in several essays in this journal: starting with the surprise that Barbera (his pupil and later collaborator) experienced with regard to both the personal library of LQ rich in texts by classics and ancient and modern philosophers (the latter also published, and therefore read by him, in several European languages and beyond); and, obviously, the breadth of his knowledge of the international framework of the architecture of the time; and, finally, the classification criteria he adopted to order it and make it easy to consult (by the way: I discovered that those criteria were very similar to those I adopted (and kindly accepted and acquired) for my library which I donated to the Central Library of the Faculty of Valle Giulia). [...]
The Rehabilitation Proposal for Seied Golesorkh Street
Seied Golesorkh Street is one, the most recent, of the new “cut” streets, at least until 1977, in the historic city of Yazd. The text and images describe the urban redevelopment project of Seied Golesorkh street, an intervention aimed at designing the new road front, but, taking inspiration from the availability of new areas resulting from the demolition, it is committed to provide for new services
Un pensiero, una filosofia, un’idea per la città di Yazd |A thinking, a philosophy, an idea for the city of Yazd
In 1977, at the end of the elaboration of the Master Plan for the city of Yazd, I asked Ludovico Quaroni to write an introduction to the Plan, to be published in synthesis in a short pamphlet that was meant to present the aims and a selection of the most significant reports [details]. The pamphlet would then be sent to journals and people of culture particularly sensible to the issue of the roots and the identity of the sites in those years of unbridled economic boom of the country. We, those responsible for the Plan, were well aware that its realization was not within the means of the Municipality of Yazd, which possessed neither the financial consistency nor the planning and technical skills to draw up the indispensable Detailed Plans for the realization and supervision. The organized intervention of the State would have been necessary. We presented some concrete proposals in this regard, included in the estimates of the Plan. But we felt the need for the support of a specialized, informed, and qualified opinion; and authoritative. Actually, Farah Pahlavi, Shahbanou of Iran, that is the queen, was our hoped for interlocutor. To her, who had studied architecture in Paris and by vocation and cultural preparation protected the arts, was entrusted also a sort of supervision of the management of Iran’s cities and historical monuments. With Ludovico, therefore, we discussed thoroughly the orientation of the introduction to the Plan and decided on a title; on the base of the Quaroni wrote the essay that I myself translated into Persian. Unfortunately the original text. in Italian, has been lost. But there is still my translation in Farsi. To revive the memory of the thought expressed on that occasion by Ludovico Quaroni on the city, on the oriental city, and on the precious example represented by Yazd, I believed it appropriate then to re-translate from Persian to Italian Quaroni’s text! I hope the reader, despite the ordeals suffered by the original text in its long voyage, will still be able to recognize in it the thought of our maestro. And to enjoy an unexpected return (M. Kowsar).
Memoria e idee: il Piano di Yazd | Memory and Ideas: the Master Plan of Yazd
This contribute describes Ludovico Quaroni’s approach to Persian culture, his first visits to Persia and his first contacts with the academic environment of Tehran. Then, the text introduces the sequence of events which lead to the elaboration of the Yazd Masterplan by the “Design Atelier” of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Tehran, established in 1962, and lead by Mehdi Kowsar, dean of the Faculty of Tehran, who involved Ludovico Quaroni for some consultancy and advisorship activities.
Editoriale | Editorial: Di città in città | From City to City
The glimmers of the Mediterranean. That time, returning from Tehran, we decided to take a Pan Am flight that allowed us, at no extra cost, a two-day stopover in Istanbul before taking off again for Rome. The weather over Anatolian Turkey must have been really bad if the jumbo, upon leaving Tehran, was diverted over the Mediterranean, which it had just reached, after an hour’s flight, at a stretch of the coast between Antioch and Laodicea, between Turkey and Syria. When we had been told of the deviation, Quaroni wanted to change seats and went to sit next to the window. The large Pan Am was certainly not full. We were off-season; in fact we, were enjoying our “low season” tourism offer. The hostess brought us, unsolicited, a bottle of Shiraz wine, Persian, and two fine glass chalices; the captain began to inform us, from time to time, on the flight route, as for making amends for the deviation that lengthened the flight and not by a little. The city of Antioch to our right, he informed us. Too late. We managed, however, to catch a glimpse of Cyprus – yes, Cyprus – to our left. Ludovico – so he told me – hoped to see the islands and the ragged coast after Rhodes; “beautiful islands, even more beautiful, the coast” he exclaimed. He was from the generation for whom that group of islands scattered between Crete, Cyclades, and Samos – the Dodecanese islands – for thirty years had been an Italian asset, especially dear for some architects who had been his teachers at the faculty; historians and planners. He remained fixed at the window while the names announced by the captain – Antioch, Laodicea, and Cyprus – and the first glass of Shiraz warmed our conversation. We were coming from Persia, we had met in Tehran: now we were flying over the Greek sea, over its ancient cities, over Aphrodite’s island – Aphrodite’s ... worth a toast, Ludovico! – and we were headed towards Constantinople on the last leg of our trip to Rome. We were crossing in its entirety the space of the ancient world, that space where, at that time, by pure chance we would meet from time to time as we moved, each on his own task, among its cities of greatest fate and the most beautiful. The thoughts of that world had soared with us; with us always. Of that world we used to reason between us each time we happened to pass an evening alone together or with our refined Iranian hosts, strolling aimlessly along walks under the monumental sycamores of Tehran or sitting in the garden of an old hotel in the countryside enjoying Iranian vodka under the very bright sky of Fars, on the border of the desert. Even when we had not met for months our conversation picked up as if it had never been interrupted. “Here” Ludovico turned to me one of those evenings, after a moment of silence, “when my wife, Gabriella, asks me what we talk about so much, you and I, when we meet here in Persia, I answer, we converse... comparing... the departed seasons, and the present and alive, and the sound of her.” He chuckled in his beard at his irreverent use of the words of the great Giacomo [Leopardi]. But it was true. In those conversations swaying between antiquity and our time, between history and that instant of our lives that witnessed our being thrust into another time, only the way we dressed reminded us we were from a future that in our hearts did not hope for those places. And we conversed with our Persian friends like travelers outside of time, really comparing the cities of our many modernities, dead or dying, to the antiquity here and alive of present Persia. It was in these conversations that I understood how much in Ludovico the vision of the future city was bound to the transfiguration of the ancient city, as if to finally design a new world worthy of the great past of our history it would be necessary to erase and forget all the models of modernity experimented in the West and imposed universally, stacking one over the other, in all their monumental, mechanical archaism; and failures. In him was ever present the cultural training of a generation of Italians that could not help but confront – even if only to refute – the original Futurism, that of Marinetti “the Egyptian” who sought vital energy in the technology of the future and in the native strength – even brutish – of the past: to destroy the West.
形象的重构：浅析乔万尼·卡博纳拉批判式修复理论 - Giovanni Carbonara, La reintegrazione dell'immagine: problemi di restauro dei monumenti
乔万尼·卡博纳拉（Giovanni Carbonara）对国内研究修复理论的人而言还颇为陌生。作为一名意大利建筑修复的理论家，他的名字虽然不如博依多（C.Boito）、乔万诺尼（G. Giovannoni）、布兰迪（C. Brandi）这样耳熟能详，但毫无疑问是当代修复理论的代表人物。2019年我国出版的《建筑遗产保护学》一书开篇章节对这位学者的介绍不吝笔墨，足见其修复观点对于国内当前理论研究的借鉴意义。而囿于语言障碍，国内学者对这位理论家的贡献还知之甚少。 本文选取卡博纳拉的一部中篇代表作《形象的重构：古迹修复的问题（La reintegrazione dell’immagine: problemi di restauro dei monumenti）》进行解读。此书出版于1976年，正值西方国家后现代主义之风盛行之时，技术进步对文化的影响显现，传统与革新的交锋也波及到了修复领域。在这一时代背景下，卡博纳拉对于既有修复理论进行回顾、深化与扩充，尽管成书已近50年，但其思想放在今天，仍具有相当的启发性。