 | This articledoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved. Find sources: "Monumentalism" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(March 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Monumentalism defines the architectural tendencies that during the first half of the twentieth century had as their essential canon the inspiration and connection toclassicism andneoclassicism. Critics divide this architecture into two streams:Neo-Baroque and Simplified Neoclassicism.
%2c_Tempio_degli_Eroi_1.jpg)
Neo-Baroque (Baroque Revival) shows a return to the eighteenth century with the proportion of orders becoming gigantic, enriched with ornamental friezes. It is the public architecture of theSoviet Union with the various buildings of the central party committees inLeningrad as inKiev. The scenographic vision of the architectural space, which is to celebrate the regime, takes over on the planimetric composition of the buildings.
Simplified Neoclassicism, also calledNovecento Italiano style, is linked to theclassical architectural culture, but lightens its elements and architectural details, removing or simplifying the decoration. This is the architecture preferred bytotalitarian regimes for its celebratory efficacy in the built environment, with the exaltation of theRoman age in the Italian case. Its major theorist will be in Italy the architectMarcello Piacentini who dominates the fascist twenty years with his canons, crowding out therationalists, who attempted to reconcile the themes of theModern Movement within anauthoritarian regime. This style also affected new urbanistic projects (university city of Rome,E42) and the demolition and reconstruction of historic centers (Via della Conciliazione, historic centers ofBrescia andLivorno).
Piacentini will develop two essential canons: the exterior modernization of the style and the classic structure of the architectural design, with:
Some scholars identify traits that of theNovecento Italiano in architects who straddle the nineteenth-century language and theModern Movement, as in the last works ofAuguste Perret, where the features are however much more sober and somehow refer to the classical French tradition, as in the Public Works Museum of 1937. Other examples are found in the so-called Scandinavian Classicism and with some constructions by the Swedish architectGunnar Asplund, who for some in theStockholm Crematorium 1935–40 achieves a balance between modern forms and monumentalism in an ideal of synthesis with the languages of the past classical tradition.
Some include in monumentalism, even if in part, the so-called metaphysical architecture of interwar Italy, typical of which some fascist-era cities of foundation such asPortolago (on the Greek island ofLeros) orSabaudia. This, however, seems more related to the themes of the Modern Movement in its specification and Italian characteristic (Italian Rationalism), defining the two cities described above as rare examples, although unknown as regards the first, of theInternational Style.
Some critics go even further, including in Monumentalism part of some architectural expressions of the Modern Movement, when they concerned a search for symmetry, perfect, repetitive and monumental rhythm, as in the works ofMies van der Rohe, of which theSeagram Building it is the most complete expression. Also in some works byGiuseppe Terragni the primordial forms of Monumentalism such as the cubic, monolithic and strongly symbolic volumes are found. Moreover, theCasa del Fascio ofComo, one of the masterpieces ofItalian Rationalism, is designed on the golden section and built on symmetrical balances. However, these buildings belonging to the Modern Movement have different articulations in plan in relation to the functional distribution, which is less found in decidedly monumental constructions; in them the architectural space is closely linked to the relationship between form and function, which is the first and essential characteristic of the rationalistic theme.