Architect Drawings : A Selection of Sketches by World Famous Architects Through History

Terragni, Giuseppe (1904–1943)
Monumento ai Caduit, Erba, preliminary perspective sketches, 1928–1932,
Centro Studi Giuseppe Terragni, Ink and graphite
Giuseppe Terragni was a leader in the Italian rationalist movement in the early part of the twentieth
century. With tremendous energy and devotion to architecture, he built a large repertoire of modernist
constructions in his short life. His sketches used firm lines that accentuated the edges and
defined the box-like forms of his architecture.
Born in Meda (near Milan, Italy), Terragni studied at the Milan Polytechnic School of
Architecture between the years 1921 and 1926. Upon leaving school he opened a practice in Como
in 1927. He collaborated extensively with his brother Attilio and his longtime friend Pietro Lingeri.
His architectural style was influenced by Russian constructivism and later the work of Le Corbusier
and Mies van der Rohe (Pevesner, Richards and Sharp, 2000). In 1928, he joined the National Fascist
Party, an event that shaped much of his career.
In 1932 he began work on a building for the Fascist Federation called the Fascio House. As a building
for a new political system, Terragni was searching for an equally new architectural language. The
project was a headquarters for the party organizers and had to reflect Mussolini’s ideas of fascism by
evoking the transparency of the party (Schumacher, 1991). An open grid filled with glass dominated
the front façade, which was compositionally organized by the golden section and regulating lines
(Pevesner, Richards and Sharp, 2000). A few of Terragni’s other projects include the Casa Giuliani-
Frigerio in Como (1938–1938), Novocomum Apartment Building (1928), the Kindergarten Antonio
Sant’Elia (1936), and the Palazzo dei Congressi (1942).
This page of sketches (Figure 7.2) exhibits early studies for the Monumento ai Caduti in Erba
from approximately 1928. This monument for World War I veterans reflects Terragni interests in
nationalistic architecture. To remember fallen soldiers, the monument was placed at the crest of a hill.
A long set of stairs encouraged the visitor to ascend to a compositional structure of convex and concave
arcs. On this page, Terragni was concentrating on the configuration of the splayed, and almost
baroque, stairs at the bottom of the hill. This sketch was not concerned with locating conceptual
ideas but rather the refinement of an earlier, determined form. Here, he was studying the relationship
of this base to the retaining wall, and the most appropriate look for a niche and urn. Sketched
mainly from the same perspective angle, he was comparing the alternatives three-dimensionally.
Using both ink and graphite as media, some of the sketches have been rendered smaller and some
larger, scattered across the page. In his hurry, various sets of stairs have been sketched as abstracted
arcs, where in other instances, he detailed the rise and tread.
Terragni sketched the stair primarily from one angle, knowing it would be constructed symmetrically.
He was most likely right handed, since the forms have been viewed from the left, indicating
how he started drawing with the uppermost curved steps, left to right. As bird’s-eye perspectives, he
was looking down on the scene rather than viewing it from a human’s experience. This distancing may
suggest his theoretical or ideological attitude toward the project. To support this assertion, it can be
noted that he included little contextual information.
Throughout Terragni’s architectural career, he designed many monuments. This building type
may have allowed him to experiment with his rationalist position by designing structures that did
not always require functional space. His theoretical position affected what he sketched and also the
techniques he utilized.
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