Luigi Moretti: Lessons of SPAZIO focuses on the theoretical work of the Italian architect Luigi Moretti (Rome, 1906–1973). It does so selectively, focusing on the editorials he published between 1950 and 1953 as editor-in-chief of the magazine SPAZIO, as well as a further essay on parametric architecture, published in 1971–1972, in the first issue of the magazine MOEBIUS, directed by his friend Giulio Roisecco.
This book rediscovers Moretti's personal impact on international architectural theory through thoughtful comments that shed light on the architect's modernity and original approach. Although Moretti is an architect renowned for his projects and buildings, his theoretical essays are less well-known. The aim of this book is therefore to explore Moretti's theoretical work, which covers many topics, including pictorial art, sculpture, architecture, urban planning, music, cinema, poetry, mathematics, computer science, parametricity. In addition to the translation from Italian to English, the book contains reproductions of the original articles, accompanied by a series of essays of critical commentary and updated interpretations that show new ways of approaching, reading, and understanding the foundations of current architectural theory and its progress over the last 50 years. This book approaches Moretti's thought from a new perspective, with the aim of reconsidering the originality of this brilliant and visionary architect who was intellectually ostracised for many years due to political and ideological contingencies, even though he personified the ideal of the 'Renaissance man' in modern times.
A re-reading of Moretti's work is more justified today than has ever been before, both to reconnect the threads with contemporaneity and to make his intensity and farsightedness of vision known to researchers, teachers, and students working in the areas of architecture and design theory, technology, and art today.
Table of Contents:
List of figures
Preface: Luigi Moretti and The Magazine Spazio: An Intellectual Journey by Tommaso Magnifico
Introduction: A Book on Architectural Theory (By Roberto Podda)
Chapter 1: Spazio N˚1
1.1_ From Spazio N˚1, Eclecticism and Unity of Language (By Luigi Moretti)
1.2_ The Morphogenetics of a Unitary Language (By Roberto Podda)
1.3_ (Figures) Reproduction of Spazio N˚1, Pp. 5-7
Chapter 2: Spazio N˚2
2.1_ From Spazio N˚2, Genesis of Shapes from The Human Figure (By Luigi Moretti)
2.2_ Discussion Around Architecture and Human Figure (By Roberto Podda)
2.3_ (Figures) Reproduction of Spazio N˚2, Pp. 5
Chapter 3: Spazio N˚3
3.1_ From Spazio N˚3, Abstract Forms in Baroque Sculpture (By Luigi Moretti)
3.2_ Architectural Forms in The Thinking of Luigi Moretti And Peter Eisenman (By Roberto Podda)
3.3_ (Figures) Reproduction of Spazio N˚3, Pp. 9-20
Chapter 4: Spazio N˚4
4.1_ From Spazio N˚4, Transfigurations of Wall Structures (By Luigi Moretti)
4.2_ From Geometric Composition to The Code Of The Informal (By Roberto Podda)
4.3_ (Figures) Reproduction of Spazio N˚4, Pp. 5-16
Chapter 5: Spazio N˚5
5.1_ From Spazio N˚5, Discontinuity of Space in Caravaggio (By Luigi Moretti)
5.2_ The Fracturing and The Re-Composition of The Real (By Roberto Podda)
5.3_ (Figures) Reproduction of Spazio N˚5, Pp.1-9, 91
Chapter 6: Spazio N˚6
6.1_ From Spazio N˚6, Values of Mouldings (By Luigi Moretti)
6.2_ From Spazio N˚6, Structure as Form (By Luigi Moretti)
6.3_ The Prevalence of Exteriority And The Structures Of Objective Reality (By Roberto Podda)
6.4_ (Figures) Reproduction of Spazio N˚6, Pp.5-12, 112
6.5_ (Figures) Reproduction of Spazio N˚6, Pp.21-30, 110
Chapter 7: Spazio N˚7
7.1_ From Spazio N˚7, Structures and Sequences of Spaces (By Luigi Moretti)
7.2_ The Energy of Space (By Roberto Podda)
7.3_ (Figures) Reproduction of Spazio N˚7, Pp. 9-20, 107-108
Chapter 8: Moebius N˚1
8.1_ From Moebius N˚1, Mathematical Research in Architecture and Urbanism (By Luigi Moretti)
8.2_ Parametric Architecture or Also Augmented Functionalism (By Roberto Podda)
8.3_ (Figures) Reproduction of Moebius N˚1, Pp. 30-53
About the Author :
Roberto Podda, PhD, MA, BArch, has been Associate Professor of Architecture at XJTLU since 2019. He graduated from Politecnico di Milano. His PhD in architectural and urban design dealt with morphotypological experimentation at the scale of the urban region. From 2009 to 2019, he taught at Politecnico di Milano. From 2019 to 2021, he was director of the UG programme at XJTLU. He has published numerous essays in books and journals on the topics of architectural and urban composition theory. Since 2023, he has been Director of the Sino/Italian Urban Regeneration HUB, at XJTLU School of Design.
Review :
“LUIGI MORETTI: Lessons of SPAZIO is a great achievement and an impactful and important study of Luigi Moretti’s theoretical work. The author has not only translated into the textual content of the magazine SPAZIO but also written a detailed analytical study of the discourse of a highly cultivated Italian intellectual. The text is compelling me to reconsider the role played by the Italian Renaissance, not only with regard to Italy but also with regard to the modernisation of the entire world. As suggested by my book Studies in Tectonic Culture, my impulse has been to attempt to ground the relative autonomy of architecture in the poetics of construction rather than in Form, which surely puts me at odds with Eisenman. This work on Moretti compels me to rethink all this and this surely will take some time. However, Roberto has effectively set me off!”
Kenneth Frampton, Emeritus Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, New York.
"The author has done a unique and superlative piece of work. Unique because it has never been undertaken before. Indeed, scholars who have addressed Moretti's artistic and cultural thought have done so with a specific generality and, so to speak, 'from a bird's eye view' – as in the case of Bucci's book, which I know, without truly penetrating the essence of Moretti's historical-critical culture. Superlative, because, with great courage and intellectual ability, the author has deeply analysed Moretti's thought, revealing how he was not actually as 'isolated' as often claimed by domestic critics, nor indeed 'backwards'. On the contrary, Roberto has highlighted its great contemporary relevance and even its 'prophetic' scope, as in the case, for example, of the conception of Parametric Architecture and Operational Research in Urban Planning, comparing them with subsequent and much later applications. Staying on topic, I particularly appreciate, and I certainly believe Moretti himself would appreciate, the author's critique of Schumacher's 'Parametricism', which could be defined as 'formalist technologism', where Parametricism itself is reduced to a cerebral search and arbitrary play of forms, a sort of computerized kaleidoscope, thereby betraying the ethical, social, and artistic representation principles of Architecture."
Tommaso Magnifico, Architect, Luigi Moretti Project Archive.
