Vittorio Mazzucconi - Architecture

B.1.6.1

RECENT PROJECTS

1991 - 2008
VITTORIO MAZZUCCONI

Introduction Click on the icons	In 1991 there has been a great change in Vittorio Mazzucconi’s life. At that time not only he left his "Fornace degli Angioli" Studio, but he suspended his professional practice as well, while devoting himself to other interests, through meditation, painting, travels and love. On the other hand the professional practice had left behind it the bitterness of so many difficulties and failures, as to lead him to the need for an almost complete oblivion. Not only Mazzucconi felt himself forgotten and marginalized during these years, but also he himself came to almost forget to be an architect, while preferring to set off in the solitary path of an inner quest and detachment. It is on this ground that the experience of his Foundation was born: by means of his grant, it was very much as if Mazzucconi could satisfy the need of donating the works, which had not been accepted. Besides keeping these works, the Foundation also has the purpose of promoting activities in defense and service of the same ideals of truth, art, and humanism. Between the programs, which have been realized with this aim, we can mention the "Cittadel of Cultura", a project donated to the city of Milan. In the last decade, however, there has been resumption of the design activity, at the beginning rather marginal but afterwards more effective. It included several projects in the Milanese context, obviously modest if compared to the previous international period, and finally produced two major works: the Palatine Pyramid in Rome and the Cathedral Ark in Milan. These projects, however, are not related to an usual professional commitment but can be considered as ‘votive’ works’, as all Mazzucconi works and the Foundation itself actually are: works undertaken on the basis of an inner quest, an intimate commandment and not an economic or political interest, not to talk about following any ideological or fashion pattern. The following projects belong to this period.

	The last Athenians projects They represent the last contribution to Athens, until the relationship with the Client was interrupted. He cancelled in fact many years of fruitful collaboration, acting in a very disgraceful way.

	Concert Hall in Copenhagen. There is a spontaneous consonance with the great roofs of the area warehouses, while the Canal on which border the Concert Hall has to be built, makes appropriate the reference to the great theme of the ‘Vessel’. The project makes us think of the Snows Ark, designed by Mazzucconi in the Massif Central (France). On the other hand we might refer to the recent Greek experience the image of the Doric temple that is inserted in the Ark shape.

	Spreeinsel The urban planning project for a renewal of the ancient Berlin Center is based on the theme of the ancient Castle, bombed during the last war and completely destroyed afterwards. Its image comes again to life as an insertion in a new building, whose magic and plastic shape is on the Unter den Linden axis. Once again an Ark, as in many Mazzucconi projects, which carries the treasures of a culture and of a superior identity.

	The Palatine Pyramid It’s the idea of celebrating the ancient Rome mythical birth and its Empire with a peculiar project. This proposes the shape of a reversed pyramid, which vertex is in the very center of the Romulus city. The pyramid develops into a sail or a ship orientated towards the east, thus showing its deep intent, as to be a temple.

	Beic A proposal for the new European Library of Milan, opposed to the official program. It suggests the idea of a great ‘Knowledge Ark’.

	Houses Differently from what he does in large projects of public importance, when Mazzucconi designs houses, he follows an inspiration deeply related to sentiment, the very one that animates a house and a family. Following this pattern, he also likes traditional forms.

	Lofts The abandon of industrial areas, which is nowadays usual in many large cities, has produced the tendency of changing their destination into lofts, thus suggesting a more modern way of thinking about today’s way of living.

	The Cathedral Ark Vittorio Mazzucconi’s last project proposes the construction of a building in the form of a reversed pyramid in Piazza del Duomo, Milan. The project has the purpose to find a remedy for the ugliness of such a square, to recuperate as well its historical identity, and finally to realize an unity between a religious intent and a civil engagement.

	From the last projects of Arks and Pyramids, a new life or at least a new signification are brought to the Foundation as well. The inner quest, that had already expressed itself in ideal and social commitments, such as The Citadel of Culture, now produces works, which stimulate a spiritual opening. One can say that The Angel of the Foundation’s logo finds his counterpart no more in the suffering man whose chains he breaks, but in an ideal triangle that completes his gesture, the same triangle of the reversed pyramid. The divine gesture of the Angel, from heaven to earth, is therefore integrated to the one of man, from earth to heaven.