Vol. 16 No. 20-21 (2022): Il gruppo AUA Architetti Urbanisti Associati (1958-1965). La formazione giovanile di un gruppo di personalità della Scuola di Architettura italiana - I
Nel 1964, l’anno prima dello scioglimento consensuale, l’AUA raggiunse il numero di 14 componenti: Lucio Barbera, Sergio Bracco, Sandro Calza Bini, Enrico Fattinnanzi, Massimo La Perna, Claudio Maroni, Gianfranco Moneta, Maurizio Moretti, Giorgio Piccinato, Vieri Quilici, Stefano Ray, Bernardo Rossi Doria, Manfredo Tafuri, Massimo Teodori. Tre in più rispetto agli 11 firmatari del Manifesto dell’ASeA, anche se furono soltanto otto i firmatari della prima Dichiarazione d’intenti dell’AUA, intitolata Architettura e Società, che stabiliva scopi, indirizzi e metodi di una professione rinnovata. Il gruppo ASeA-AUA fu tra gli organizzatori della prima occupazione studentesca della Facoltà di Roma nel 1956 per contestare, assieme ad altre sedi universitarie nazionali, una legge (n. 1378, 8 dicembre 1956) che, reintroducendo gli esami di stato, permetteva agli ingegneri di iscriversi all’Ordine degli architetti rendendo praticamente impossibile l’inverso. La seconda occupazione della Facoltà (dicembre 1960), più nota e documentata, ebbe l’effetto di una vera e propria deflagrazione del dissenso degli studenti intellettualmente più impegnati rispetto all’insegnamento di Saverio Muratori, dominante negli anni finali del Corso di Laurea. Ben note sono anche le vicende – riportate sulla rivista Architettura Cronache e Storia – della mostra organizzata dal gruppo ASeA-AUA alla Fondazione Olivetti, nella quale fu presentato il cosiddetto “Tavolo degli Orrori” composto con progetti elaborati nei Corsi del professor Muratori con chiarissimo – e ideologico – riferimento alla Seconda Esposizione dell’Architettura Razionale Italiana del 1931. Quell’occupazione e le manifestazioni ad essa collegate, aprirono un intenso e persino drammatico periodo di riforma della scuola d’Architettura. L’iniziativa del gruppo aveva dato forza a una latente insoddisfazione di parte del Consiglio di Facoltà nei riguardi dei metodi e delle concezioni didattiche di Saverio Muratori. Nei due anni successivi all’iniziativa degli studenti la Facoltà in un primo momento offrì un corso alternativo ai corsi muratoriani affidandolo – dopo una breve, ma brillante transizione affidata a Saul Greco – ad Adalberto Libera, chiamato appositamente da Firenze per insegnare a Roma. Ma pochi mesi dopo la Facoltà fece un ulteriore e più deciso balzo in avanti, rispondendo alla morte improvvisa e drammatica dello stesso Libera, con un ancora più deciso impegno riformatore che ebbe come culmine il Convegno del Roxy (novembre 1963) che celebrò il ritorno nella Facoltà di Architettura di Roma di Luigi Piccinato e Ludovico Quaroni e la chiamata di Bruno Zevi da Venezia. In tutta questa fase i componenti del gruppo ASeA-AUA furono presenti, ormai giovani docenti innovatori, in un ruolo che, per un certo tempo, parve indispensabile al nuovo assetto della Facoltà. Crediamo, dunque, che lo studio delle vicende del gruppo ASeA-AUA, possa essere una fonte importante per costruire una un’aggiornata visione critica della Storia della Facoltà di Roma – e non solo. Per questo in due numeri de “L’architettura delle città – The Journal of the Scientific Society Ludovico Quaroni” abbiamo raccolto e pubblicato documenti, progetti e memorie di quel gruppo di “antichi” giovani architetti riguardanti gli anni della loro formazione; che furono gli anni nei quali sembrò a molti italiani che si potessero realizzare le speranze di una intera generazione. (Lucio Barbera, Vieri Quilici) A cura di Lucio Barbera, Vieri Quilici, con Anna Irene Del Monaco
The AUA, Architetti Urbanisti Associati, (1961-1965), one of the Roman studios that appeared at the beginning of the 1960s with decidedly innovative intentions, was formed as an evolution of a spontaneous group of architecture students at Sapienza University who were involved both in university politics (Unione Goliardica Italiana) and in a highly critical participation in the debate on the cultural and educational directions of the Faculty. In that first phase (1958-1961) the group did not have a name and was identified simply as “the students of Via Tiepolo”, from the address of the common headquarters where, in addition to studying, drawing, designing, they made permanent the intellectual and political exchange between themselves and with many other friends and colleagues who made the frequentation of “via Tiepolo” an important complement to their training as architects. That first group – “the students of Via Tiepolo” – is today known and remembered in particular as the promoter and animator of the first spontaneous student organization of the Faculty, the Association of Students and Architects, ASeA, which was the protagonist, in the school, of the first important actions of protest and innovative cultural proposal; in fact, it is necessary to refer to the ASeA to understand the primary reasons for the associative choice made by that group of students, which soon became culturally homogeneous and cohesive, intending to develop its own action of renewal by transferring it from the university field to that of architectural and urban planning practice; which they faced by founding, then, the AUA (Associated Architects and Urbanists) as soon as the first of them graduated. The years in which the group was active and immediately showed an anti-conformist attitude, were full of events and upheavals in national and international politics and culture. Among the most significant activities of the group were: self-training and self-managed teaching for freshmen, with the aim of overcoming the silent censorship that some fundamental history and design courses of the Faculty spread on the current affairs of architecture (Modern Movement, New Brutalism, New Avant-gardes); participation in important design competitions, many of which with positive results or with prizes, such as, for example, in the competitions for the Rocca di Fano, for the restoration and reuse of the Renaissance Citadel of Parma, for the Cannaregio Hospital in Venice, for the Business Center of Turin. In parallel, the group developed a fundamental editorial activity that included participation in the series of monographs – Cappelli editions – on modern architecture in the leading countries of contemporary architecture (Great Britain, Japan, the United States, the Soviet Union, etc.) and the elaboration of essays and interventions within the architectural debate animated by the magazines “Casabella”, “L’architettura. Cronache e Storia” and others. Many, almost all the members of the group, soon began a commitment in the academic field that would lead some of them, in different phases, to be protagonists of the movement of renewal that animated the Italian Faculties of Architecture after the Sixties of the last century. At the same time, they attempted a path to the profession based on the commitment of the designers to become instigators and organizers of a collective social client to be made consciously involved in the design choices on their "inhabiting the city". A commitment that, begun in the AUA, involved many of its members for years, before and after the dissolution of the group, in close collaboration with the Lega delle Cooperative. In 1964, the year before its consensual dissolution, the AUA reached the number of 14 members: Lucio Barbera, Sergio Bracco, Sandro Calza Bini, Enrico Fattinnanzi, Massimo La Perna, Claudio Maroni, Gianfranco Moneta, Maurizio Moretti, Giorgio Piccinato, Vieri Quilici, Stefano Ray, Bernardo Rossi Doria, Manfredo Tafuri, Massimo Teodori. Three more than the 11 signatories of the ASeA Manifesto, even though only eight were signatories of the first Declaration of Intent of the AUA, entitled Architecture and Society, which established the aims, directions and methods of a renewed profession. The ASeA-AUA group was among the organizers of the first student occupation of the Faculty of Rome in 1956 to contest, together with other national universities, a law (n. 1378, 8 December 1956) which, by reintroducing state exams, allowed engineers to register with the Order of Architects, making the reverse practically impossible. The second occupation of the Faculty (December 1960), better known and documented, had the effect of a real explosion of dissent from the students who were intellectually more committed to the teaching of Saverio Muratori, dominant in the final years of the Degree Course. Also well known are the events – reported in the magazine Architettura Cronache e Storia – of the exhibition organized by the ASeA-AUA group at the Olivetti Foundation, in which the so-called “Table of Horrors” was presented, composed of projects developed in Professor Muratori’s courses with a very clear – and ideological – reference to the Second Exhibition of Italian Rational Architecture of 1931. That occupation and the demonstrations connected to it opened an intense and even dramatic period of reform of the School of Architecture. The group’s initiative had given strength to a latent dissatisfaction on the part of the Faculty Council with regard to the methods and teaching concepts of Saverio Muratori. In the two years following the students’ initiative, the Faculty initially offered an alternative course to the Muratorian courses, entrusting it – after a brief but brilliant transition entrusted to Saul Greco – to Adalberto Libera, called specifically from Florence to teach in Rome. But a few months later the Faculty made a further and more decisive leap forward, responding to the sudden and dramatic death of Libera himself, with an even more decisive commitment to reform that culminated in the Roxy Conference (November 1963) which celebrated the return to the Faculty of Architecture in Rome of Luigi Piccinato and Ludovico Quaroni and the call of Bruno Zevi from Venice. Throughout this phase the members of the ASeA-AUA group were present, now young and innovative teachers, in a role that, for a certain time, seemed indispensable to the new structure of the Faculty. We therefore believe that the study of the events of the ASeA-AUA group can be an important source for building an updated critical vision of the History of the Faculty of Rome – and not only that. For this reason, in two issues of “L’architettura delle città – The Journal of the Scientific Society Ludovico Quaroni” we have collected and published documents, projects and memories of that group of “ancient” young architects regarding the years of their training; which were the years in which it seemed to many Italians that the hopes of an entire generation could be realized. (Lucio Barbera, Vieri Quilici)
Edited by Lucio Barbera, Vieri Quilici, with Anna Irene Del Monaco