suspending-modernity-the-architecture-of-franco-albini_compress

Introducing Franco Albini 7
Albini was engaged in urban design debates and practices that culminated in
his design with Franca Helg and Bob Noorda for Line 1 of the Milan metro, while
simultaneously producing works of industrial design, including lamps, tables,
shelving and hardware, and earning recognition for his finely crafted furniture.
Renewed interest in “spontaneous” or vernacular architecture had been in vogue
since the 1930s, but it was not until after the war that architects re-appropriated
common craft and form for mass housing. New ideas for neighborhoods resisted
previous Modern models of compositional and geographic abstraction. Beginning
in 1938, Albini and his fellow Rationalists encouraged the integration of living
functions, including public and green space, transportation, and infrastructure,
into new collective compounds through urban planning. His master planning
and residential projects during reconstruction aided in the emergence of new
ideas of place, scale, comfort, and individual identity. During this period, Albini
played a key role in the critical reassessment of values extracted from Italian
tradition to reshape Modern culture. His address given to the Movimento di Studi
per l’Architettura (MSA) in June 1955 was soon published in Casabella continuità
(see Appendix 1), and it stimulated much interest and deliberation about the role
of tradition in Modern culture. 6
Several of Albini’s published projects became catalysts for passionate debate.
Observers aiming to protect the ethos of abstraction criticized his Pirovano
1.4 Milan
Metropolitana—
subway
handrail, 1964