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Modernity in the Balance: Italy’s Equilibrium 21
(1888–1916) for La Città Nuova. Yet the comprehensive utopian proposition
he put forth was arrested by his untimely death before it could be debated or
developed. Futurist painters had portrayed inhabited scenes of a tumultuous
urban life on the cusp of revolution with exaggerated three-point perspective
of public plazas and distorted façades. Painter Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916)
produced animated drawings for such scenes as La città che sale (The City
Rises—1910). The urban depiction of scaffolding used to build workers’ housing
assigned social significance to ever-present symbols of Modern construction.
Futurist imagery often presented civic chaos with gravity overturned, swirling
spaces and kaleidoscopic buildings highlighted at night. But architectural
interpretations of the Futurist ethos were by no means a direct result of these
prolific graphic interpretations.
Enrico Prampolini (1894–1956) published the first Futurist manifesto of
architecture in January 1914. In his proposal, he charged architecture with the
“feeling for life” that would result from some combination of dynamism, light,
and air. Boccioni also drafted a manifesto of Futurist architecture in early 1914 in
which he chastised Italian architects for their devotion to the Classical orders and
“enslavement to foreign styles.” 5 More concrete in his directive than Prampolini,
Boccioni called on “necessity” as the essential element bound to Modern life that
would bring about “a radical renewal of architecture.” According to his vision,
“ships, motorcars, railway stations have attained a greater aesthetic expression the
more they have subordinated their architectural design to the needs they were
designed to meet,” which reads as an obvious entrée to a functionalist argument. 6
Aside from Futurism’s explosive rhetoric, the invitation to employ new materials
to express dynamic assemblages using joinery for ornament and acrobatic flights
of fancy foreshadowed the formal innovations of Franco Albini. 7 But as we will
learn, Albini did not accept the Futurist’s sensational rhetoric, denial of history
or inflammatory claims. The architectural imagery conjured by Boccioni was an
overt criticism of the façade veneers and massing typical of concurrent Italian
classicized “Modern” architecture. He concluded with an exalted promise: “The
future is preparing us for a boundless sky of architectural frameworks.” 8 But
when German filmmaker Fritz Lang appropriated Futurism’s visionary fantasy as
the setting for his 1927 film, Metropolis, the story’s gloomy forecast did little to
promote the idea of the Futurist city.
Apparently Marinetti suppressed Boccioni’s version of the manifesto, which
was not published until 1972. Instead, Marinetti invited Antonio Sant’Elia to join
his group after witnessing his fantastic drawings of skyscrapers with elevated
bridges, exposed elevators, and subterranean transportation lines that had been
exhibited in May 1914. Sant’Elia’s renderings offered bold, impressionistic façades
and massing, albeit without plans, physical contexts, or inhabitants. Yet the new
images more powerfully depicted an architectural avant-garde than had any
previous portrayals of a radical Modern city. Sant’Elia’s Messaggio, published in the
exhibition catalog for La Città Nuova, indicated that he was already familiar with
Futurist ideas. His manifesto emphasized exploiting new technology and design
rationality, and called on citizens to embrace new habits of living. Simplicity was