7. Architecture

The principles for a “new city” built exploiting the potential of the new materials: “reinforced concrete, steel, glass, cardboard, textile fibre, and all those substitutes for wood, stone and brick” were set out by Antonio Sant’Elia in Manifesto tecnico dell’architettura futurista (The Manifesto of Futurist Architecture) (1914). His complex urban structures traversed by flows in constant movement present routes on different levels for pedestrians, trams and cars, prefiguring some radically innovative solutions.
Mario Chiattone and Virgilio Marchi, on the other hand, worked on projects inspired by a new form of monumentalism, a more “sculptural” brand of architecture.

VIRGILIO MARCHI, Edificio visto da un aeroplano virante, 1919
Tempera su carta intelata; 130x145 cm
Lugano, collezione privata

ANTONIO SANT'ELIA, La città nuova, casa a gradinata su più piani, 1914
Matita e inchiostro colorato su carta; 27,5x11,5 cm
Collezione privata

VIRGILIO MARCHI, Città, 1919 ca.
Inchiostro e acquerello su carta; 75,5x50 cm
Collezione privata, courtesy Galleria Fonte d’Abisso, Milano