Luigi Moretti
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Luigi Walter Moretti (January 2 1907 Rome - July 14 1973 Capraia Island) was an Italian architect.
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Career
Education and academic career
Born in via Napoleone III, on the Esquiline Hill, in the same apartment where he will live almost his entire life, was the natural son of the architect Belgian Louis Rolland, the whose most important work is the cinema-theater Adriano.
He attended technical school at first, then the Classical High School and from 1925 in 1930, the Royal School of Architecture in Rome.
Was still a student when he became assistant of Vincenzo Fasolo (author of the design of Roman high school Mamiani and the Pont Duca d'Aosta) in the Chair of History and Styles of Architecture.
In 1929 Moretti graduated with honors with a project for a college of higher education in classical Rocca di Papa with whom he won the award named after Giuseppe Valadier for best thesis of the institute.
From 1929 to 1932 was an assistant to Gustavo Giovannoni the course of restoration of monuments. In 1931 The winner of the scholarship three years for Roman Studies, established by the Governorate of Rome and the Royal School of Architecture. With this funding will work with Corrado Ricci in the arrangement of the areas east and north of Trajan's Market.
Activity in building and urban development
In 1932 Moretti gave up his academic career and began to attend a series of competitions for building design and planning, obtaining the second prize for the zoning of Verona, Perugia, and Faenza, and for the housing of Naples.
In 1933 participated with Paniconi, Pediconi Tufaroli and the fifth Triennale di Milano submitting a project for a house for a man of study.
In the same year was presented to Renato Ricci, president of the National Opera Balilla (then Youth Italian Littorio) that the following year appointed him director of the Technical ONB instead of Enrico Del Debbio.
For the ONB, and later for the GIL, Moretti designed, among other houses in the same year the youth of Piacenza and Trastevere in 1934 to Trecate in 1935 that women of Piacenza and in 1937 to Urbino.
In 1937 he took over, the design of the regulatory plan of the Foro Italico (then called Foro Mussolini), which created some of his masterpieces, such as the 'Academy of fencing and the Duce's Gym (both of 1936) and the cell commemoration (of 1940).
His are also the major systems of the Forum, enriched in the 1937 with the square of the Empire and the Stadium of Cypresses (expanded in 1953 and 1990 of other architects and become the Olympic Stadium) too 'it in 1937.
Moretti's works were published in the journal Architecture.
In those years he participated in the competition for the construction of the Palazzo Littorio with a project harshly criticized the magazine Casabellaandprogressive Italian architectural culture in general.
In 1938 participated in the design of the 'USD - known asE42- winning (ex aequo with Fariello, Muratori and Quaroni) the competition for the design of the Imperial Square (now square Guglielmo Marconi ). The large building fronteggiante the square was never realized, but in the postwar structures already executed were used for the "skyscraper Italy" by Luigi Mattioni.
He served in that period, private office, thanks mainly to his friendships with members of the Fascism and journalists.
In the period between 1942 and 1945 Moretti disappeared from public view, to reappear in 1945 when arrested for his collaboration with fascism, was briefly imprisoned in the prison of San Victor.
The postwar period
In November of that year he founded the count Fossataro, known in prison, the Cofimprese, a company that played a significant role to play in managing the operations of the post-war reconstruction in Milan.
The Cofimprese foresaw the construction of twenty hotels in the capital Meneghini, of which only three were built and made, inter alia, the complex of course Italy, before breaking up in 1950.
The house "The Sunflower" Viale Bruno Buozzi built in Rome in 1950 is one of the best known projects of the period, and is considered an early example of postmodern architecture. The building is also mentioned in the essay by Robert VenturiComplexity and Contradiction in architectureas an example of architecture ambiguous, poised between tradition and innovation.
Following Moretti designed villas for illustrious patrons, including La Villa Saracen in Santa Marinella for the former director of the Rome daily The Messenger, Francesco Malgeri.
Not only architecture
In 1950 also founded the magazine Space, Review of Arts and Architecture (published until 1953) time to find a connection between different forms of art (from architecture to sculpture, from painting to film and theater), not by chance that the first issue began with an essay titled "Eclecticism and units of language". The journal was managed and written almost entirely by the Roman architect who made it come together in the results of his research and study on it wise public key, such abstract forms in the sculpture Baroque, discontinuity of space in Caravaggio and structures and sequences of spaces. Moretti it was for the entire cycle editorial director and editor. The magazine, printed in Milan in the first instance from the printers E. Barigazzi, then from the printers Lucini, was short-lived, limited output of only seven numbers. In the decades after he released sporadically Moretti numbers, mostly monographs, the magazine: In 1959 released an issue dedicated to the sculptor Peter De Laurentiis. In April 1963 published on the Space Structure of the essay collections and 1964 contemporary meaning of the wise words "architecture". And July of 1968 a number which appears in the essay Capogrossi dedicated to the famous Roman painter.
It was the 1954 when Moretti decided to found the art gallery, also known as space, in his hometown of Rome.
His interest in art is also evident from the tendency to collections of works, particularly the Seicento and antiquity.
The SGI and IRMOU
In 1957, he became a consultant of the Società Generale Immobiliare ( SGI ) for which he designed, among other things, the buildings at the head of the EUR. In the same year he collaborated with the Municipality of Rome and the Ministry of Public Works, working on projects for inter-municipal plan of Rome (never adopted) and the Archaeological Park, from which arose the controversy with Bruno Zevi and Espresso on the devastation of Appia.
Also in 1957, he founded the Institute for Operations Research and Applied Mathematics Urbanism (IRMOU) with the express purpose of continuing studies on the so-called parametric architecture, a doctrine which drew on the application of mathematical theories in the design planning. Relating to the design of Built Environment, with mathematical analysis, highlights the functional roots of Moretti studying new dimensional relationships of the architectural space and Urban, like Le Corbusier had studied the Modulor and the golden ratio. These studies were represented in 1960 with huge echo of the press, at the XIII Triennale di Milano.
In 1958 he later went on to design major residential neighborhoods, including the CEP of Livorno in that year also participated in the project of the Olympic Village designed to the XVII Olympiad scheduled in Rome in 1960. Just for the design of the village in 1961 won the Prix IN / ARCH 1961 for the best achievement in the region Ontario. On the same urban-design director is the Tenth District of Rome, partly realized between 1960 and 1966 on behalf of Incisa.
In this period Moretti had a significant influence on the work of the urban plan of Rome, which will be adopted by the City Council on 18 December 1962.
The latest works
In 1962, on behalf of General Real Estate, the Watergate complex (the same who gave his name to the political scandal of the same name, which broke out in the United States of America in 1972 ) in Washington, and the Stock Exchange Tower in Montreal.
In 1963 again won this award / ARCH for best achievement in the Lazio region with the study design of two twin buildings in the EUR (the headquarters of the It and the SGI).
In 1964, the Medal for meritorious school, culture and art was awarded, by the then President Antonio Segni.
In 1965 began a fruitful relationship with the Consulting Group Le Condotte (later merged with Italstat) taking care of the design and implementation of resettlement Thermal Boniface VIII Fiuggi, the Metropolitana di Roma in the trunk by the Termini station to Via Ottaviano in Prati, opened in 1980. As part of the work on the underground in Rome, Pietro Nenni designed the current bridge open to automobile transit in 1972. Another work of considerable Moretti is underground parking for two thousand places in Villa Borghese, which opened in 1973.
He worked with C. Conrad producing a biopic film about Michelangelo Buonarroti who received the Venice Biennale Art Film award from the biographies found on the site of the Polytechnic Bari <ref>http://icar.poliba.it/storiacontemporanea/autori/moretti/schedauto.htm</ref>.
In 1968 won the Premio Feltrinelli 's Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and got the task of designing a sanctuary Tagbha on Lake Tiberias. The project was approved by the Holy See but the work was not started because of the delicate situation between Israel and Palestinians which soon erupted into war. In that year also he married Maria Teresa Albani.
The following year, in 1969 found a fertile market for jobs in Arab countries, especially in Kuwait (where he designed the headquarters dell'Engineer Club Beduin and Houses) and Algeria ( Hotel El Aurassi and Complex Club des Pins, in addition to a number of schools and residential neighborhoods).
In 1971 he designed new buildings, for building projects of General Real Estate, including the residential center on the Potomac River in Alexandria in the United States of America and the Old residential Roquencourt (Paris), in Montreal, and the attachment to his previous realization of the 1961, the Torre (Stock Exchange Tower) Stock Exchange, a new skyscraper. He exhibited his works in a monographic exhibition at Madrid.
He died in 1973, due to heart failure while he was in the midst of his work.
References
- Antonella Greek, Gaia Remiddi,Luigi Moretti. Guide to the Roman works,Palombi editore, Roma 2006
- Nice Alexandra, Marco Giunta,Luigi Moretti. Balilla experimental house at the Foro Mussolini. The House of weapons before the House of Weapons, and Arachne., 2006
- Cecilia Rostagno,1907-1973Luigi Moretti, Electa, 2008
