870

1
c asa b e l l a 870 19 9 6 –2 016 i n d i c i n u ova e d i z io n e
i n d i c e s 6 32 – 8 6 9 n e w e d i t io n

FEBB R A I O 2 017 i n c o n s u lta z io n e e s c l u si va s u :

avai l a b l e for r e f e r e n c e o n ly at :
c asa b e l l aw e b . e u

3—12 33—51 76—89

M etro + M assimo tre case . Gordo n Bu nshaft
Bot tu ra 34 I n c i n q u e pu n tat e l e o p e r e

R e fe t torio Gas t romo t i va , Morana + R ao d e l p rog e t t is ta c h e h a p or tato

a S O M i l Pri t zk e r Pri ze
R io d e Ja n e iro, Brasi l e Casa s u l l’a lt o p ia n o i b l e o,
a cura di Chiara Baglione
5 No t o, I ta l ia
L’u so i n t e l l ig e n t e e c o lto d e l l a 77
34
G or d o n B u n s h af t 19 0 9 –19 9 0
s e m p l i c i tà u n is c e a n c h e i c u o c h i A b i tar e i l pa e saggio
N i c h o l a s Ad a m s
mig l iori e g l i arc h i t e t t i p i ù b rav i M a ss i m o Fe r r a r i
Fr a n c e s c o D a l C o 38 83
G or d o n B u n s h af t
6 Sh in ic h i Ogawa 1/5
R e s t i t u ir e d ig n i tà S Ga l l e ry & R e si d e n c e, G ia p p o n e I l pa d ig l io n e d e l V e n e z u e l a
M a ss i m o B o t t u r a
38 a l l’Es p osi zio n e U n i v e rsa l e
U n p ia n o d i a p p oggio, u n d i N e w Yor k d e l 1939
p ia n o p e r p ro t e gg e r l o : c i ò
13—32 c h e n o n si p u ò e l imi n ar e
N i c h o l a s Ad a m s

du e mo di i n u n a c asa
di inte rpretare M a ss i m o Fe r r a r i 90—93
44
l a c h iesa . BIBLIOTECA
14 Pedro Domin gos
90
Casa a O e iras, Por toga l l o
E lisa Vale ro R amos r e c e n sio n i
44
C h i e sa d i P l aya G ra n a da 92
A l l a l u c e d i Barragá n Di p i n g e r e i l p e n si e ro. I l l as c i t o
a M o t ri l , S pag n a Fe d e r i c o Tr a n f a d e l l’Uma n e simo
15
A l b e r t o G i o r g i o C a ss a n i
V e rso l’e ss e n zia l e
G i ova n n a C r e s p i 52—67
24
Eduardo Souto 94—97
Boris Pod recca
Com p l e sso parro c c h ia l e
de Mou ra EN GLISH TE X TS
R e c u p e ro, r e s tau ro, 94
P e n t e c os t e a M i l a n o
ri c os t ruzio n e E n g l is h t e x t s
25
U n gio c o d i c o l ori, l u c e, 54
No n s e m p r e l a sim u l a zio n e
ri c or d i
è b u gia . I l r e c u p e ro d e l l a t e n u ta
Jean-Marie Martin
São Lo u r e n ç o d o Barro c a l
Marco Mulazzani

Urko Sanc h ez
68—75
Rio de Janeiro:
Refettorio Gastromotiva
S OS C h i l d r e n ' s Vi l l ag e
a Tagi u ra , G i b u t i
69
R e i n t e r p r e tar e l a M e d i n a

Metro +
Camillo Magni

Massimo Bottura
Ilana Bessler

SOMMARIO casa b e l l a 8 7 0 3
 Archives, Columbia University, New York
1 2 3

—In cinque puntate

Library, Department of Drawings &

1 Avery Architectural & Fine Arts
le opere del progettista

3 Courtesy SOM 
che ha portato a SOM
il Pritzker Prize.

Gordon Bunshaft, 1909–1990

Nicholas Adams

Il nome di alcuni architetti evoca già un luogo e un’epoca: è sufficiente sentirlo per visualizzarne subito il mondo. L’archi-
tetto americano Gordon Bunshaft è uno di questi: quando lo si cita viene subito in mente la New York del dopoguerra che
sperimentava l’espressionismo astratto, dominata dalle grandi corporations e immersa nei ritmi del cool jazz. Nella Grande
Mela sorsero gli edifici moderni “pelle e ossa” di Gordon Bunshaft: la Lever House (1952) e le sedi della Manufacturers Trust
Company Bank (1954) e della Chase Manhattan Bank (1961). E quella fu la città in cui visse Bunshaft:
1 un uomo caustico, laconico, brusco, apparentemente a proprio agio sia con i capitani d’industria del
—Gordon Bunshaft all’età di circa tempo sia con i sistemi produttivi moderni. Bunshaft lavorava per Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM),
otto anni
—Gordon Bunshaft, ca. aged 8 uno dei principali studi d’architettura dell’epoca.
2 Benché dal 1939 al 1983 abbia firmato ufficialmente solo trentotto edifici, la sua mano è rico-
—Gordon Bunshaft all’epoca del noscibile in moltissimi altri progetti1. Bunshaft fu responsabile della progettazione architettonica di
Padiglione del Venezuela, «Buffalo SOM dal suo ritorno negli Stati Uniti dopo la guerra fino al 1962 circa, quando altri colleghi (Bruce
Courier-Express», 14 maggio 1939
—Gordon Bunshaft at the time of Graham, Walter Netsch, Chuck Bassett) assunsero ruoli di rilievo all’interno dello studio. Tuttavia, la
the Venezuela Pavilion, «Buffalo sua influenza si avvertì anche dopo quella data. Fu autore di edifici di tipologie diverse (residenze,
Courier-Express», 14 May 1939
biblioteche, fabbriche e musei) realizzati a New York come a New Orleans, Pittsburgh e Gedda e co-
3 struiti nei centri delle città, nei sobborghi o in aperta campagna. Il riconoscimento dell’alta qualità
—Gordon Bunshaft, ritratto,
1958 ca. del suo lavoro è attestato dai premi conquistati nel corso della sua carriera, tra cui l’Arnold W. Brun-
—Gordon Bunshaft, portrait, ner Memorial Prize dell’American Academy of Arts and Letters (1955), la Gold Medal dell’American
ca. 1958
Institute of Architects (1984) e il Premio Pritzker per l’architettura (1988), per il quale, a quanto si rac-
conta, si autocandidò.
Nato a Buffalo, nello stato di New York, in una famiglia di immigrati relativamente modesta, Bunshaft frequentò il Mas-
sachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), dove conseguì la laurea e un master in architettura rispettivamente nel 1933 e nel
19352. Ottenne la Rotch Traveling Scholarship (1935–37) che gli consentì di visitare l’Europa dove ebbe modo di vedere di-
versi esempi della nuova architettura. Tornato a New York, iniziò a lavorare per SOM, diventando socio nel 1949 e, fatta ec-
cezione per il periodo della guerra (1942–46), rimase nello studio fino al 1979, anno in cui andò in pensione. La sua quaran-
tennale carriera si svolse parallelamente alla crescita di SOM: dal primo studio a Chicago (1936) a una partnership con più
sedi: quella di New York aprì nel 1937, seguita dagli studi di San Francisco (1947), Portland (1951), Washington (1967), Bo-
ston (1971), Los Angeles (1974), Houston (1976) e Denver (1977)3.
La formazione al MIT si svolse nell’ambiente relativamente moderno che più tardi avrebbe accolto Alvar Aalto. Bunshaft
non era né un gran lettore né un attento studente di storia dell’architettura, e neppure un disegnatore particolarmente do-
tato. Come lui stesso riconosceva: «Non sono un intellettuale. Sono solo una persona diretta»4. Le esperienze formative cru-
a cura di Chiara Baglione ciali furono legate ai compagni di studio e alla biblioteca. Riferendo una conversazione con uno dei colleghi di Bunshaft al
MIT, l’architetto Ambrose Richardson ha fornito un’indicazione utile sul metodo di progettazione che avrebbe adottato in se-
guito: «L’uomo mi raccontò: “Gordon era il tipo che se ne andava in giro –e mi sembra ancora di vederlo– a guardare i dise-

76 casa b e l l a 8 7 0 77
4 5 6 7 8 9

Drawings & Archives, Columbia

7 Courtesy Albright-Knox Art

6 Avery Architectural & Fine
Arts Library, Department of

Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Collection and Archives,
Buffalo, New York. © 2015
Gallery Digital Assets
University, New York

5 Avery Architectural & Fine Arts

Library, Department of Drawings
& Archives, Columbia University,
Drawings & Archives, Columbia
4 Avery Architectural & Fine
Arts Library, Department of

University, New York

New York

gni degli altri. Non rubava necessariamente la tua idea ma ru-
bava il meglio di ogni progetto”. E quando dico “rubava” cito
esattamente le sue parole. “Rubava il meglio di ogni progetto,
metteva insieme il tutto e vinceva il premio”. Gordon aveva una
straordinaria capacità di selezionare
4 gli aspetti migliori di un lavoro»5.
—Gordon Bunshaft, veduta del Bunshaft aveva bisogno dello
Pont Neuf, Parigi; acquerello, 1935
—Gordon Bunshaft, view stimolo degli altri e utilizzava quegli
of the Pont Neuf, Paris, spunti per valutare diverse alterna-
watercolor, 1935 tive. Sempre stando ai ricordi di Ri-
5 chardson, anche in seguito, nell’am-
—Gordon Bunshaft, veduta di San
Francesco, Assisi; acquerello, 1936 biente di lavoro: «Gordon ci usava
—Gordon Bunshaft, view come fossimo mani a sua disposi-
of San Francesco, Assisi,
zione. Era fantastico. Era una sorta di
watercolor, 1936
piovra. Lui si occupava dell’ideazione
6 York, 14 December 1961
—Gordon Bunshaft, veduta di del progetto e poi faceva eseguire a
Tarragona; sanguigna, 1936 noi giovani bei disegni o qualsiasi al-
—Gordon Bunshaft, view of
Tarragona, red chalk, 1936
tra cosa di cui avesse bisogno»6.
Ciò che contava per Bunshaft
erano l’ampiezza, la varietà e la mol-
teplicità degli spunti architettonici.
La Lever House, l’edificio grazie a cui Bunshaft con-
quistò la fama, cambiò la sua vita per sempre. Nathaniel A.
Owings (1903–84), socio fondatore dello studio, aveva vinto
l’incarico con una partita a dadi e aveva fornito il parti della
“perfetta torre per uffici” che Bunshaft aveva poi sviluppato7.
L’opera ebbe un successo straordinario: la Lever House rap-
presentava al contempo un imponente simbolo pubblicita-
rio per l’azienda di saponi e prodotti per la pulizia, una solu-
zione al problema delle strade buie e sporche della città e
un’opera d’architettura davvero notevole8. Benché la sua co-
struzione non fosse ancora ultimata, il suo plastico costituì
l’elemento centrale della mostra dedicata a SOM allestita al
Museum of Modern Art di New York9. Una volta completato, era diventato il punto di riferimento. E per quanto la sua ar-
l’edificio divenne un’attrazione turistica, soprattutto per il si- chitettura fosse più gioiosa e colorata (e solo di rado altret-
stema di lavaggio delle finestre con un ponteggio mobile. tanto coerente in senso estetico), anche Bunshaft fu etichet-
Dopo la clamorosa accoglienza riservata alla Lever House, tato come “miesiano”12.
le aziende si misero in fila per richiedere il lavoro di Bunshaft: Sulla scia del Seagram (e dei
la Manufacturers Trust Company Bank (1954), l’Hilton Hotel 7 nuovi edifici di calcestruzzo di Le
—Gordon Bunshaft, Seymour
(1955), la Connecticut General Insurance (1957), la Reynolds Corbusier), SOM e Bunshaft cerca-
H. Knox Jr. e Gordon M. Smith,
Metal (1958), la Pepsi Cola (1960), la Union Carbide (1960), direttore della Albright-Knox Art rono una nuova direzione. Nel gen-
Gallery, studiano l’ampliamento
la First City National Bank (1961) e la Chase Manhattan Bank della Albright-Knox Art Gallery di
naio del 1958, Nathaniel Owings di-
(1961). Grazie al progetto per la sede della Chase Manhattan chiarò in un’intervista: «Lo studio non
Buffalo; New York, 14 dicembre
Bank di New York, ancora una volta ottenuto con l’interme- 1961 è fermo allo “standard dell’acciaio
—Gordon Bunshaft, Seymour
diazione di Owings, Bunshaft e SOM diventarono gli archi- H. Knox, Jr., and Albright-Knox Art
inossidabile” come lo chiama la no-
tetti di riferimento della famiglia Rockefeller, una delle più Gallery Director Gordon M. Smith stra concorrenza. Ciò che ci interessa
study addition to the Albright- è la plasticità ed esploriamo tutte le
potenti (e ricche) degli Stati Uniti. Nei racconti sulla scelta
Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New
delle opere d’arte per il nuovo edificio, venne sottolineato strade per ottenerla»13. SOM assunse
il ruolo di Bunshaft10. Bunshaft diventò anche l’architetto 8 l’ingegnere di origini ungheresi Paul
dell’élite politica e fu incaricato di progettare la Lyndon Bai- —Gordon Bunshaft e Walter Weidlinger (1914–99) per una serie
Severinghaus, socio dello studio
nes Johnson Memorial Library della University of Texas (1971). di edifici originali di calcestruzzo a
SOM, osservano il plastico del
Cosa ottenevano i suoi clienti? Innanzitutto, avevano la Convention Center di New York, forma di scatola collocati su piccoli
certezza di un progetto originale e ben studiato. SOM era 1973 piloni di forma piramidale. Per rea-
celebre per la sua capacità di reinterpretare attività tradizio- —Gordon Bunshaft with SOM lizzare i nuovi edifici anche Bunshaft
Partner Walter Severinghaus
nali e ripetitive (come quella bancaria o assicurativa) dando study the model for the New York doveva in qualche modo rinnovarsi.
loro espressione con edifici originali e sempre degni di at- Convention Center, 1973 Le tecnologie dell’acciaio e del cur-
tenzione da parte della stampa. La sede della Manufacturers 9 tain wall di vetro non avevano segreti
Trust fu presentata sul «New Yorker» e sul «Saturday Eve- —Gordon e Nina Bunshaft con lo per lui, ma il calcestruzzo, che cono-
scultore Isamu Noguchi, 1969
ning Post»; l’edificio della Connecticut General Insurance —Gordon and Nina Bunshaft with sceva molto meno, lo obbligava ad
comparve su riviste come «Time», «Newsweek», «Business the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, 1969 andare coi piedi di piombo. Negli anni
Week» e «Fortune» e sul «Saturday Evening Post». Il grat- Cinquanta Bunshaft era solito riman-
tacielo della Chase Manhattan Bank fu pubblicato pratica- dare la consultazione con gli ingegneri fino a quando il pro-
mente ovunque11. Più specificamente, i clienti ottenevano getto non fosse in fase piuttosto avanzata. Negli anni Ses-
un’opera architettonica perfettamente in linea con l’estetica santa e Settanta, però, preferiva anticipare il coordinamento
del dopoguerra, improntata all’efficienza e alla modernità con Weidlinger: «Sapevamo di poter fare di tutto con il cal-
per le quali Mies van der Rohe, grazie al Seagram Building, cestruzzo… ma avevamo bisogno di studiarlo bene. Non ap-
Courtesy of SOM
pena avevamo buttato giù qualche idea, il progettista senior,
Paul e io –soprattutto Paul e io– ci consultavamo»14. Come
ricordano i colleghi, Weidlinger diventò “un vero collabora-
tore”, una figura di cui il giovanile Bunshaft non aveva avuto
bisogno fino ad allora. Anche il nuovo linguaggio architetto-
nico gli si rivelò congeniale; dalla collaborazione con l’inge-
gnere nacquero edifici importanti come la Beinecke Library
(1963), la Banque Lambert (1965) e la sede dell’American Re-
public Insurance Company (1965).
Come capita spesso con le teste coronate, gli ultimi anni
da SOM non furono facili. Una nuova generazione di proget-
tisti acquisì posizioni di potere all’interno dello studio e per
quanto le opinioni di Bunshaft fossero pungenti come sem-
pre, il suo stile non era più in sintonia con i tempi: le pru-
denti decisioni collegiali delle aziende misero fine alle ini-
ziative coraggiose dei capitani d’industria che lo avevano as-
sunto negli anni del dopoguerra. Il crescente disprezzo da
lui manifestato per le torri di uffici («Non sono neppure si-
curo che un edificio di uffici sia architettura. In realtà è solo
un calcolo matematico, un investimento tridimensionale…»)
era frutto di questi cambiamenti15. Gli capitò ancora di in-
contrare uomini forti convinti che valesse la pena spendere
tanto per l’alta qualità dei suoi progetti (per esempio l’im-
prenditore immobiliare Sheldon Solow per il grattacielo al 9
di West 57th Street, 1974), realizzò altri edifici pubblici (LBJ
Library, 1971; Hirschhorn Museum, 1974) e lavorò per nuovi
uomini potenti all’estero (National Commercial Bank, Gedda,
1983; the Hajj Terminal, 1981). Si trattava di costruzioni mo-
numentali e con strutture robuste, astratte e moderniste,
erette a mo’ di baluardo contro le prime manifestazioni di
postmodernismo. In quel contesto Bunshaft appariva fuori
luogo, un dinosauro proveniente da un altro mondo, un eroe
nell’epoca degli antieroi, un uomo d’azienda quando anda-

78 Gordon Bunshaft 1/5 casa b e l l a 8 7 0 79

 10 11
esto / ezra stoller
vano di moda gli individualisti e soprattutto un vecchio in una
società che aveva deciso di non credere più in chi aveva su-
perato i trent’anni.
Bunshaft era un uomo complicato. Famoso, famigerato
persino, per il carattere e le opinioni taglienti; ma questo suo
modo di essere nascondeva delle insicurezze: non amava
parlare in pubblico, si rifiutava di scrivere di architettura,
si scontrava spesso con i clienti. Pare che si trovasse vera-
mente a proprio agio solo con gli artisti. Il lungo carteggio
con Jean Dubuffet (1901–85) e Henry Moore (1898–1986),
conservato alla Avery Library della Columbia University, è al-
legro e arguto al tempo stesso, descrive piacevoli conversa-
zioni e rivela una persona del tutto diversa. Bunshaft fu ge-
neroso con l’Albright-Knox Museum di Buffalo (era un caro
amico di Seymour Knox, il fondatore). Lasciò la casa di Long
Island, la cosiddetta Travertine House (1963), e gran parte
della sua collezione d’arte al Museum of Modern Art di New
York, non dispiaciuto, a quanto pare, che la casa venisse
venduta e la collezione dispersa.
Per questa serie di cinque saggi ho scelto alcuni de-
gli edifici meno noti tra quelli realizzati da SOM sotto la di-
rezione di Gordon Bunshaft. Le opere dimostrano la va-
rietà di cui era capace e attestano la sua attenzione per le
linee ampie e i particolari eleganti, per la monumentalità e
l’astrazione, per lo humour e i materiali. Oggi che gli archi-
tetti guardano di nuovo con interesse alla ricca tradizione
del movimento moderno, il lavoro di Bunshaft va conside-
rato con maggiore (e non minore) attenzione. Bunshaft fu,
senza vergognarsi di esserlo, un architetto commerciale che
lavorò negli ambienti più commerciali e tuttavia riuscì a im-
porsi con un'identità propria, ricercando i livelli qualitativi
più elevati, tanto nella progettazione quanto nella costru-
zione dei suoi edifici.
Traduzione italiana di Irene Inserra
per Scriptum, Roma.
80 Gordon Bunshaft 1/5
esto / ezra stoller
Note
1 Carol Krinsky, Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, MIT Nicholas Adams
Press e Architectural History Foundation, Cambridge e New York 1988, è l’autore del libro
Esto, Ezra Stoller
pp. 335-338. Conto altri ventidue edifici in cui si nota l’influenza di
Bunshaft precedenti al 1962. Vedi Nicholas Adams, Gordon Bunshaft:
What Convinces is Conviction, in «SOM Journal», 9, 2014, pp. 8-19.
2 Suo padre, David Bunshaft, vendeva uova all’ingrosso. Nel 1946 12 13
lasciò un considerevole patrimonio di 51,236 dollari alla moglie Yetta 14
(vedi «Buffalo Courier Express», 20 luglio 1946). La famiglia viveva in
una semplice casa unifamiliare di legno al 55 di Manchester Place.
3 Successivamente altre sedi furono aperte a Londra (1986) e Shanghai
(2001). Gli studi di Portland, Boston, Houston e Denver sono stati chiusi.
4 Oral History of Gordon Bunshaft, intervista di Betty J. Blum, Art
Institute, Chicago 1990, edizione rivista 2000, p. 209.
5 Oral History of Ambrose M. Richardson, intervista di Betty J. Blum, Art
Institute, Chicago 1990, p. 160.
6 Oral History of Ambrose M. Richardson, cit., p. 78
7 Nathaniel A. Owings, The Office Building of Tomorrow, in «Skyscraper
Management», 32, novembre 1947, pp. 10-11 e 24-27; A Radically New
Conception of Tomorrow’s Office Building, in «National Real Estate and
Building Journal», gennaio 1948, pp. 28-29; The Ideal Office Building–A
dream boat speech by Architect Owings, in «Architectural Forum», 91,
agosto 1949, pp. 75, 164, 165. La Lever House fu recensita per la prima
volta nel giugno del 1949.
8 Vedi la relazione di J.E. Drew, direttore delle pubbliche relazioni della
Lever Brothers presentata durante un incontro sul tema “Economic
Values of Design”, tenutosi nell’ambito della AIA Annual Convention a
New Orleans nel giugno del 1959. Una copia è conservata nella
divisione marketing di SOM a New York.
9 Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architects, U.S.A., in
«Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art», 18, autunno 1950.
10 Vedi Art at Work: The Chase Manhattan Collection, a cura di Marshall
Lee, E.P. Dutton, New York 1984.
11 Showcase in The Talk of the Town, in «The New Yorker», 30, 2 ottobre
1954; Jack Alexander, The Bank That Has No Secrets, in «Saturday
Evening Post», 30 novembre 1957, pp. 36, 105-106; sul Connecticut
General, vedi Office Building Gets Trial Run, in «Business Week», 20
agosto 1955, p. 48; For Corporate Life ’57, in «Newsweek», 16 settembre
1957, pp. 114-115; Building with a future, in «Time», 16 settembre 1957, pp.
Esto, Ezra Stoller
86-91; A Dramatic New Office Building, in «Fortune», settembre 1957, pp.
J. Alex Langley
164-169 e 228-229; Joe Alex Morris, It’s Nice to Work in the Country, in
«Saturday Evening Post», 5 luglio 1958, pp. 21, 70-72. «Architectural
Forum» dedicò ben ventinove pagine alla Chase Manhattan Bank
(Chase, portrait of a giant; report on the biggest office building in
Manhattan in 25 years, in «Architectural Forum», 115, luglio 1961, pp. 66- 10 12 14
95. L’edificio fu pubblicato sulle principali riviste d’architettura, d’arte e di
—Gordon Bunshaft (SOM), Pepsi- —Gordon Bunshaft (SOM), —Gordon Bunshaft (SOM),
arredamento d’interni americane, francesi («Architecture Aujourd’hui», 6,
dicembre 1961, pp. 82-91; «L’Oeil», 87, marzo 1962, pp. 80-87) e Cola Corporation, sede mondiale, Lever House, New York, 1952 Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript
tedesche («Bauen und Wohnen», 11 aprile 1957, pp. 122-123; 16 gennaio New York, 1956–60 —Gordon Bunshaft (SOM), Library, Yale University, New Haven,
1962, pp. 9-21; «Baukunst und Werkform», 15, 1962, pp. 30-36,
—Gordon Bunshaft (SOM), Lever House, New York, 1952 1963
supplemento 2-4).
Pepsi-Cola Corporation, World —Gordon Bunshaft (SOM),
12 Nicholas Adams (con Nicola McElroy), Column and Frame: Mies van
13
der Rohe and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, in La Colonne: Nouvelle histoire Headquarters, New York, 1956–60 —Gordon Bunshaft (SOM), Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript
de la construction, a cura di Roberto Gargiani, Presses polytechniques et
universitaires romandes, Lausanne 2008, pp. 484-493. 11 Manufacturers Trust Company Library, Yale University, New
13 Vedi The Architects from Skid’s Row, in «Fortune», 57, gennaio 1958,
—Gordon Bunshaft (SOM), Bank, New York, 1954 Haven, 1963
pp. 137-140; 210, 212, 215. Citazione a p. 215.
14 Krinsky, Gordon Bunshaft, cit., p. 138. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, —Gordon Bunshaft (SOM),
15 Citato in Walter McQuaid, A Daring New Generation of Skyscrapers, nuova ala, Buffalo, 1958–62 Manufacturers Trust Company
in «Fortune», 87, febbraio 1973, p. 81.
—Gordon Bunshaft (SOM), Bank, New York, 1954
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Extension, Buffalo, 1958–62
casa b e l l a 8 7 0 81

15
Museum of the City of New York
15
—Gordon Bunshaft, proposta per il
Padiglione del Venezuela, veduta
dall’interno del giardino incorniciato
da una mela, disegnatore John
Moss, 1938
—Gordon Bunshaft, proposal for
the Venezuela Pavilion, view from
interior to the garden framed by an
apple, John Moss renderer, 1938
82 Gordon Bunshaft 1/5
Gordon Bunshaft 
1/5
Il padiglione del Venezuela all’Esposizione Universale di New York del 1939
Nicholas Adams
L’Esposizione Universale di New York del 1939–40 fu la
prima fiera mondiale esplicitamente dedicata al futuro. L’o-
belisco Trylon, alto 185 metri, e la Perisphere progettati da
Wallace Harrison (1895–1981) e André Fouilhoux (1879–1945)
simboleggiavano l’entusiasmo per “il mondo di domani” che
animava la manifestazione. Seguendo il loro esempio, gli ar-
chitetti incaricati di realizzare i vari padiglioni si sentirono in-
coraggiati a proporre idee sperimentali e innovative. Il Futu-
rama di Norman Bel Geddes, con il suo sistema di percorsi
su più livelli e la simulazione del rumore di aerei che volavano
a bassa quota, fu una delle costruzioni di maggior successo.
Tra i padiglioni dei vari paesi alcuni erano interessanti, altri
meno. Quello italiano, firmato da Michele Busiri Vici, non era
particolarmente memorabile e presentava una statua della
dea Roma assisa su un piedistallo alto 60 metri, che si er-
geva su una fontana dedicata a Guglielmo Marconi. La rivi-
sta «Architectural Forum» lo descrisse come: «Una curiosa
perversione delle convenzioni classiche»1. Molto elogiati fu-
rono i progetti della Finlandia (Alvar Aalto), della Svezia (Sven
Markelius) e del Brasile (Lucio Costa e Oscar Niemeyer)2. In
genere, poi, le aziende commerciali cercarono di sfruttare la
situazione per dare risalto ai loro prodotti di punta, a disca-
pito dell’architettura dei loro stessi padiglioni. La Continen-
tal Baking, per esempio, volle replicare sull’esterno dell’edifi-
cio, progettato da Skidmore e Owings con John Moss, il mo-
tivo che decorava le confezioni del popolare “Wonder Bread”.
Skidmore e Owings (ai quali non si era ancora unito Mer-
rill) svolsero un ruolo importante all’Esposizione, sia come con-
sulenti sia come progettisti. Affiancati da John Moss, ottimo di-
segnatore, realizzarono nove padiglioni: Swift Premium Meats,
Continental Baking, Radio Corporation of America (RCA), il pa-
diglione delle Gas Industries, il padiglione Westinghouse, l’edi-
ficio Standard Brands, il Glass Building e lo stand dedicato alla
casa b e l l a 8 7 0
medicina e alla salute pubblica. L’unico padiglione nazionale
firmato dallo studio, il padiglione del Venezuela, era uno dei
progetti che Bunshaft non includeva tra i “pessimi”, o quanto
meno considerava “quasi buono”. Fu la prima opera su cui ap-
pose anche la sua firma3, cogliendo l’occasione per cominciare
a sperimentare la nuova architettura moderna che lo aveva
colpito durante i viaggi in Europa, compiuti grazie alla Rotch
Travelling Fellowship. Nella foto che accompagnava un articolo
pubblicato sul quotidiano della sua città natale, Bunshaft è raf-
figurato mentre osserva con attenzione un disegno del padi-
glione; nel testo viene citata una sua descrizione dell’Esposi-
zione come «un pallone sonda lanciato nel futuro»4.
Il padiglione del Venezuela fu un piccolo segnale della
ripresa delle relazioni diplomatiche tra gli Stati Uniti e l’A-
merica del Sud5. Nel 1933 il presidente Franklin Delano Ro-
osevelt aveva lanciato l’iniziativa “Good Neighbor” (“Il buon
vicino”) che stabiliva una nuova politica di non intervento
e non interferenza nell’area da parte degli Stati Uniti. Da
quel momento i rapporti con l’America del Sud sarebbero
stati improntati allo sviluppo economico e alla crescita de-
gli scambi commerciali. Uomini come Nelson A. Rockefeller
(1908–79) avevano tutto l’interesse a promuovere un’imma-
gine progressista e moderna dell’America Latina all’Esposi-
zione. A quanto pare l’intervento di Rockefeller –che aveva
lavorato per la Creole Petroleum in Venezuela e la cui madre
era tra i fondatori del Museum of Modern Art di New York–
ebbe un suo peso nell’assegnazione dell’incarico a Skid-
more & Owings (l’unico altro padiglione nazionale con pro-
getto americano fu quello del Cile, ideato da T. Smith-Mil-
ler, Sanders & Breck). Benché due anni prima a Parigi i ve-
nezuelani avessero presentato un padiglione neocoloniale
di loro progettazione (architetti Luis Malaussena e Carlos
Raúl Villanueva), gli americani pensavano fosse più oppor-
83
16
tuno rivolgersi a un architetto del posto6. È possibile, inol-
tre, che Rockefeller sia stato in qualche modo sollecitato
dai tanto ammirati progetti di Costa e Niemeyer per il padi-
glione del Brasile. Probabilmente Rockefeller e Bunshaft eb-
bero la possibilità di vederli (Co-
16 sta e Niemeyer erano entrambi
—Gordon Bunshaft, Padiglione del a New York nell’estate del 1938)
Venezuela, pianta
—Gordon Bunshaft, Venezuela in tempo sufficiente per rendersi
Pavilion, plan conto della necessità di proporre
qualcosa di moderno per i vene-
zuelani, un progetto che, sulla falsariga dell’idea brasiliana,
coniugasse l’architettura moderna e l’espíritu venezolano7.
Di conseguenza, pur includendo stand e allestimenti de-
dicati a prodotti come il caffè, il cacao e il petrolio «destinati a
rappresentare le grandi risorse del Venezuela», il padiglione
proponeva anche elementi di cultura moderna rappresentati
dalle decorazioni degli artisti venezuelani dell’epoca. Come
sottolineato dal console generale all’inaugurazione del padi-
glione, il governo del presidente Lopez Contreras «era l’incar-
nazione della democrazia più avanzata» e il suo paese era «tra
i più liberi del mondo»8. Come si leggeva sul muro del padi-
glione, inoltre, il Venezuela era un paese «senza disoccupa-
zione, né debiti né tasse». Bunsahft racchiuse la modernità
del paese in un volume di vetro dalla forma aerodinamica.
È possibile che i primi progetti siano stati disegnati in-
sieme a John Moss. Vi si osserva una copertura, simile a
un’ala, che si estende da ovest a est, con una spettacolare
inclinazione, sopra una semplice scatola di vetro. Nel lato est
del volume di vetro, coperti dalla parte più bassa di questo
tetto inclinato, si trovano la caffetteria e il ristorante. A ovest
la copertura è sostenuta da un solo pilastro libero, il più alto;
la veduta da sud-ovest ci regala l’immagine più caratteristica
dell’edificio. Altre vedute mostrano la scatola di vetro, raffor-
84 Gordon Bunshaft 1/5
«Furono preparati almeno diciannove 17
progetti diversi, tutti pessimi tranne
forse uno».
—Gordon Bunshaft
zata da travi a doppia T a flangia larga, lungo la facciata sud9.
Sul lato inferiore della copertura inclinata, Luis Alfredo López
Méndez e Miguel Arroyo dipinsero scene di vita quotidiana in
Venezuela, anticipando, secondo Joan Ockman, «l’elegante
integrazione di arte e architettura che segnò i lavori del do-
poguerra di Bunshaft»10. Orchidee racchiuse in sfere di ve-
tro punteggiavano il giardino antistante il padiglione e all’in-
terno decoravano delle installazioni simili ad alberi. Il tetto,
comunque, era il motivo architettonico dominante della fac-
ciata sud: la gioiosa connessione tra esterno e interno ri-
specchiava il clima tropicale del Venezuela, mentre la linea
astratta indicava la modernità in via di sviluppo del paese. Le
altre facciate erano meno rilevanti. Come rivelano i disegni
di Moss, visto da est e da ovest, l’edificio aveva le caratteri-
stiche di una moderna stazione ferroviaria o degli autobus, o
magari di un ufficio postale; richiamava persino il padiglione
d’ingresso progettato da Gunnar Asplund per l’Expo di Stoc-
colma del 1930. Bunshaft aveva particolarmente ammirato
Wurts Brothers, Museum of the City of New York
anche la fabbrica Van Nelle di Rotterdam realizzata da Brin-
kman e Van der Vlugt nel 1931: nell’opera di New York c’è un
ricordo della semplicità di quell’edificio, con i nastri traspor-
tatori esterni tradotti nel tetto inclinato.
All’interno del padiglione Bunshaft ebbe poco controllo
sul progetto. L’elemento centrale era il cosiddetto “Altar of
the Good Neighbor” (“Altare del buon vicino”, contenente una 17
—Gordon Bunshaft, Padiglione del
ciocca di capelli di George Washington appartenuta a Simon Venezuela, veduta da sud, 1939
Bolivar), intorno a cui erano esposti i prodotti tipici del paese. —Gordon Bunshaft, Venezuela
Interno ed esterno erano collegati dal vetro, ovviamente, e Pavilion, view from the south,
1939
dalla collocazione della scritta “VENEZUELA” che attraver-
sava la griglia di vetro del padiglione11. Un pannello curvili-
neo libero (un’eco del padiglione finlandese di Aalto?) faceva
da sfondo alle sculture di legno create sul posto da France-
sco Narváez (riflettendo a posteriori sull’esperienza, Bunshaft
casa b e l l a 8 7 0 85
 18 19
Museum of the City of New York

Museum of the City of New York

18 19
—Gordon Bunshaft, proposta per il —Gordon Bunshaft, proposta per il
Padiglione del Venezuela, veduta Padiglione del Venezuela, disegni
prospettica, disegnatore John della sezione, disegnatore John
Moss, 1938 Moss, 1938
—Gordon Bunshaft, proposal for —Gordon Bunshaft, proposal for
the Venezuela Pavilion, the Venezuela Pavilion, section
perspective view, John Moss drawings, John Moss renderer,
renderer, 1938 1938

86 Gordon Bunshaft 1/5 casa b e l l a 8 7 0 87

 20
espresse la necessità di mantenere il controllo su tutti gli
aspetti del progetto). Il «New York Times» descrisse la scena
come un insieme di «bellezza e affari». Particolari consensi ot-
tennero le orchidee che, stando al quotidiano, «facevano bat-
tere più forte il cuore di tutte le donne»12.
21 Benché il padiglione avesse un discreto
—Joseph Binder, poster successo –e contribuisse a rinsaldare il rap-
dell’Esposizione Universale di New
York del 1939–40 raffigurante il porto tra SOM e la famiglia Rockefeller, de-
Trylon e la Perisphere progettati da stinato a durare altri vent’anni– in Venezuela
Wallace Harrison e André Fouilhoux fu accolto con qualche polemica13. I costi
—Joseph Binder, poster of the
New York World’s Fair of 1939–40 elevati –sia di manodopera (artisti e musi-
depicting the Trylon and the cisti venezuelani, infatti, non erano iscritti
Perisphere designed by Wallace
ai potenti sindacati newyorkesi) sia di ma-
Harrison and André Fouilhoux
nutenzione– costrinsero il governo a chiu-
dere il padiglione dopo il primo anno. Pro-
babilmente anche gli architetti venezuelani non gradirono l’as-
Wurts Brothers, Museum of the City of New York
segnazione dell’incarico al giovane e inesperto Bunshaft. La
regola americana del non intervento e della non interferenza,
evidentemente, valeva solo per più importanti questioni diplo-
matiche. Solo quando il rappresentante venezuelano all’Espo-
sizione minacciò di dimettersi («troppi mal di testa») l’ordine di
chiusura fu cancellato per un breve periodo14. Nel maggio del
20 1940 il Venezuela si ritirò e stilò dei preventivi per la spedizione
—Gordon Bunshaft, Padiglione del del padiglione a Caracas dove, se il piano fosse andato a buon
Venezuela, interno, pannelli
espositivi per il petrolio fine, sarebbe stato adibito a centro turistico15.
venezuelano, 1939 Secondo «Architectural Forum» il padiglione di
—Gordon Bunshaft, Venezuela Bunshaft «non suscitava particolari emozioni»16. Considerata
Pavilion, interior, display panels
for Venezuelan oil, 1939 a posteriori, tuttavia, l’opera si distingue per essere stata il
primo lavoro indipendente di Bunshaft, il progetto in cui si ri-
velò il suo talento per quelli che lui stesso definiva «il fascino
e il divertimento», qualità che sarebbero emerse con forza
nei due capolavori del dopoguerra: la Lever House e la sede
della Manufacturers Trust.
Traduzione italiana di Irene Inserra
per Scriptum, Roma.
88 Gordon Bunshaft 1/5 casa b e l l a 8 7 0
21
Note
1 «Architectural Forum», 70, giugno 1939, p. 456.
2 «Architectural Forum», 70, giugno 1939, p. 459:
sono riportati i risultati di un sondaggio secondo
cui il padiglione preferito dal pubblico era quello
dell’Unione Sovietica di Boris Iofan e Karo S.
Alabian.
3 Carol Herselle Krinsky, Gordon Bunshaft:
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Architectural History
Foundation, New York 1988, p. 9.
4 «Buffalo Courier Express», 15 maggio 1939, p. 3.
5 Tra i paesi dell’America del Sud solo il Venezuela,
il Brasile, l’Argentina e il Cile avevano un loro
padiglione.
6 Vedi Lorenzo González Casas, Nelson A.
Ro c kef e l l e r y l a m o d e r n i d a d v e n e z o l a n a :
intercambios, empresas y lugares a mediados del
siglo XX, in Petróleo Nuestro y Ajeno: La illusión del
modernidad, a cura di Juan José Martín Frechilla e
Yolanda Texera Arnal, Universidad Central de
Ve n e z u e l a , C a r a c a s 2 0 0 4 , p p . 1 7 3 - 2 3 4 .
Ovviamente, tra gli architetti venezuelani c’erano
anche esponenti del movimento moderno come
Cipriano Domínguez, che aveva lavorato nello
studio di Le Corbusier a Parigi, Villanueva stesso e
Manuel Mujica Milán.
7 Vedi Zilah Quezado Deckker, The Brazilian
Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair 1939, in Brazil
Built: The Architecture of the Modern Movement in
Brazil, Spon, London 2001, cap. 3. Bunshaft
pensava che sotto il profilo qualitativo, il padiglione
venezuelano fosse secondo solo all’edificio di
Costa e Niemeyer. Vedi Krinsky, Bunshaft, cit., p. 9.
8 «New York Times», 27 maggio 1939, p. 9.
9 I francobolli per la posta aerea emessi dal
Venezuela in questo periodo raffiguravano un
velivolo in virata. L’immagine potrebbe aver
suggerito a Bunshaft la forma del tetto.
10 Joan Ockman, Art, Soul of the Corporation:
Patronage, Public Relations, and the Interrelations
of Art and Architecture after World War II, in «SOM
Journal», 5, 2007, pp. 170-186, in particolare p. 182.
11 Il passaggio di forme tra interno ed esterno,
attraverso il volume di vetro, fu utilizzato in seguito
nell’atrio-giardino della Lever House.
12 «New York Times», 30 aprile 1939, p. 128.
13 Successivamente lo studio Skidmore, Owings &
Merrill fu incaricato dalla Creole Petroleum di
progettare un insediamento residenziale e una
chiesa cattolica ad Amuay Bay. Vedi Permanent
Housing Project: Creole Petroleum Corporation,
Amuay Bay, Venezuela, S.A., New York, 1946.
14 «New York Times», 25 ottobre 1939, p. 18. Il
Venezuela aveva tentato di mandare muralisti,
musicisti e camerieri venezuelani a lavorare al
padiglione ed era poi stato costretto ad assumere
una squadra di americani (che non lavorò) che
affiancasse i venezuelani.
15 «New York Times», 4 maggio 1940, p. 17.
16 «Architectural Forum», 70, giugno 1939, p. 451.
89
 page 5
The intelligent and cultured application
of simplicity brings together the best
chefs and the most talented architects
Francesco Dal Co
Every year in the world 1.3 tons of food
end up in the trash bin. At the same
time, over 700 million people are under-
nourished. This chilling fact has prompt-
ed the project Food for Soul, organized
by Massimo Bottura. The first step coin-
cided with the opening of the Refettorio
Ambrosiano; an abandoned theater in
Milan was transformed into a soup kitch-
en for the poor, where the victuals were
prepared using leftovers from Expo 2015.
This initiative is now famous, but Food
for Soul has also launched other projects.
In 2016 they created Refettorio, a res-
taurant to recycle the surplus from the
Olympic Village during the period of the
games in Rio de Janeiro. The construc-
tion in the lively Lapa district in Rio was
completed in less than two months. It is
hard to imagine a better architecture stu-
dio than METRO to interpret the needs
and the spirit of the project supervised
by Bottura. Martin Corullon, Gustavo Ce-
droni, Helena Cavalheiro, Marina Ioshii,
Amanda Amicis, Gabriela Santana, João
Quinas, Luis Tavares, Manuela Porto, Ra-
fael de Sousa, Renata Mori are the archi-
tects who have worked with him. They
are all part of METRO, a studio based
in São Paulo founded in 2000, which on
english multiple occasions has collaborated with
one of the few great contemporary archi-
texts tects, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, absorb-
ing his lessons and standing out as one
of the most solid and interesting profes-
sional groups active in the world today.
Food for Soul does not only set up spac-
es to offer food to those for whom it is
in precarious supply. The kitchen in Mi-
lan has welcomed some of the most fa-
mous international chefs, artists and de-
signers to contribute to the process. In
the case of Rio de Janeiro, METRO creat-
ed a construction in an abandoned area
of 50 x 8 meters, adjacent to a small pla-
za that has now been revitalized, using
the most common materials. A polycar-
bonate skin wraps a steel structure. On
the side facing the plaza, the posts sup-
port translucent panels that open out-
ward; on the opposite site, the beams are
inserted in the masonry of the existing
building that determines the lot. On the
side of the kitchen, at the center of the
plan, stand the tables; the opposite end
contains a small flight of steps in wood,
to underline the fact that this space can
have different, multiple uses. The ma-
terials have been used in the most logi-
cal and simple, though not naive, man-
ner, as can also be seen by observing the
slight squared overhang that adds move-
ment to the front of the construction fac-
ing the street. There are no indulgent ep-
isodes in the design of the structure, the
enclosure, the furnishings, the kitchen,
and the entire project is a demonstra-
tion of the aesthetic advantages of pur-
suit of the essential. The cultured and in-
telligent use of the essential, after all, is
the earmark of the finest works complet-
ed by METRO, which like those of Pau-
lo Mendes da Rocha never succumb to
banality, which is the inevitable result
when the essential is no longer seen as a
means, but as a kind of cult. As a whole,
the backbone of the Food for Soul project
can be seen precisely in this intelligent,
erudite, essential approach.
94 en g lis h tex ts
page 6
Restoring dignity
Massimo Bottura
To care for food as you care for people:
the absolute responsibility of a chef. For
me the time has come to give back eve-
rything I have received in these years of
successes and honors, challenges and
hard work; likewise, chefs should get
out of their kitchens and make them-
selves available to the community, to lis-
ten to its needs and roll up their sleeves.
And together with chefs, everyone has to
be aware. Of what?
Of the fact that today they are about 800
million people suffering from hunger
or malnutrition. And that in the same
world, our world, one third of total food
production passes from supermarkets,
restaurants and homes directly into the
trash bin. The mission of chefs has to
go beyond the satisfaction of taste buds:
we have a moral duty to respect ingredi-
ents, to care for the planet and our com-
munities.
This is why, with my wife Lara, we have
decided to found the non-profit organi-
zation Food for Soul. With this associa-
tion, we are replicating the model of the
Refettorio Ambrosiano launched during
the Expo in Milan, in places where phys-
ical hunger goes hand in hand with the
need for culture. There, on the outskirts
of Milan, some of the world’s greatest
chefs cooked in a dining hall for disad-
vantaged people, starting with the food
surplus generated by the Expo pavil-
ions. We welcomed guests in a space en-
hanced by works donated by great con-
temporary artists and designers, also
making the value of beauty available to
our guests. And we served up tasty, nu-
tritious meals, right on the table, thanks
to 100 volunteers who responded to our
appeal.
We tried to shift the focus from the Uni-
versal Exposition to the outskirts of Mi-
lan, with my response to the theme of
the Expo: Feeding the Planet. In 2016 we
were able to do the same thing in Rio
de Janeiro, during the Olympic games.
The dream we have been developing
with David Hertz since his visit to Refet-
torio Ambrosiano has become reali-
ty: together we have built the Refettorio
Gastromotiva in Lapa. Gustavo Cedro-
ni of the studio Metro Architecture was
with us during all 55 days of the con-
struction; Vik Muniz oversaw the artis-
tic part, donating his works and involv-
ing other great artists in the project, like
JR and the street artist Pas. The Cam-
pana Brothers got into the spirit of re-
cycling we promote with Food for Soul,
making beautiful tables and chairs with
scrap wood. We invited chefs from all
over Brazil, Latin America and the world
to cook with the leftovers of the Olympic
Villages. At the end of the Olympics and
the Paralympics, we had provided over
20,000 meals.
But the mission of Refettorio Gastro-
motiva and Refettorio Ambrosiano, and
of the services we have activated in Bo-
logna and Modena, is not limited to of-
fering food: we want every space to be a
gathering place, a container of art and
music, a reference point for the whole
community. For this reason, we build
and outfit the dining halls so they can
operate for the duration of an event,
while also ensuring that the project can
continue over the long term, without an
expiration date. Food for Soul is not a
charity program: it is a cultural project.
So when I ask myself what I can do to-
day, what chefs can do, what anyone can
do, I respond:
Restore dignity.
To a spotty apple, an overripe banana,
stale bread. Talking about people, we
often say they have “inner beauty.” We
have to understand that food can also
have inner beauty. An imperfect piece
of fruit still has much to give in terms
of flavor, aroma, complexity. Chefs have
the responsibility of making use of
foods in every moment in their lifespan:
just baked bread, warm and fragrant,
with a crisp crust, can reach the table
just as it is. On the next day it will be
perfect for making pappa al pomodoro,
and a few days later it can be grated for
use in meatballs or passatelli.
Restore dignity.
To an abandoned theater, a suburb, a
derelict structure. Ethics and aesthet-
ics are one and the same: Beauty with-
out Goodness isn’t beautiful at all. And
Goodness needs Beauty to communicate
its message.
Restore dignity.
To a homeless person, a struggling fam-
ily, an outcast. Putting them back at the
center of attention does not only mean
getting them away from the outskirts of
the city, from our everyday life. It means
giving them the opportunity to recreate
a social network, to have human contact
and exchange, making them feel wel-
come, included, part of a community.
Restoring dignity to people can happen
through food and its sharing, because
cooking is an act of love.
page 15
Towards the essential
Giovanna Crespi
From 7 in the morning to 8 in the even-
ing, a sequence of 12 shots taken each
hour documents the variations of light
inside the church of the Monasterio
Benedictino de la Santisima Trinidad de
Las Condes in Santiago, Chile, a work
from the 1960s by the architects Mar-
tin Correa and Gabriel Guarda. A photo-
graphic multiple shows, from the same
position, the corner apse of the altar ob-
tained by intersecting three inclined
planes along whose perimeter the light
enters and invades the hall. A visual pro-
gression that brings out the beauty and
dynamism of an impalpable and indis-
pensable material, in continuous, viv-
id renewal.
This is the eloquent image used by Eli-
sa Valero Ramos to introduce the first
pages of the book Light in Architecture.
The Intangible Material (RIBA Publish-
ing, London 2015; expanded and updat-
ed Spanish edition La materia intangi-
ble: reflexiones sobre la luz en el proyecto
de arquitectura, Ediciones Generales de
la Construccion, Valencia 2004). Shortly
before it, she includes a famous passage
from the Book of Genesis: «In the be-
ginning God created the heaven and the
earth. And the earth was without form,
and void; and darkness was upon the
face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters. And
God said, Let there be light: and there
was light. And God saw the light, that it
was good» (1:1-4).
Catholic, linked by background to fig-
ures of Latin American modernity and
a descendent, not only for geographi-
cal reasons, of Andalusian architectur-
al culture, Elisa Valero reveals the role
that has always been played by light in
her work, and by the need to make care-
ful, mature use of that element. «Light
changes without ceasing to be itself,
with a constant devotion to change.»
The awareness in her work of this una-
voidable condition is translated into an
economics of the necessary, into archi-
tecture capable of bringing out the ex-
pressive potential of each material while
at the same time controlling costs and
the use of available resources.
After years of work on the creation of ed-
ucation facilities –schools, daycare cent-
ers, colleges– as well as art spaces and
workplaces, assiduously documented
by «Casabella», starting with her own
studio (see no. 780, August 2009, later
joined by no. 809, January 2012 and no.
848, April 2015), Elisa Valero was com-
missioned by the Parrocchia di Nuestra
Señora del Carmen of Motril to design
her first church. The place of worship is
named for St. Josephine Bakhita, an Af-
rican nun belonging to the Company
of the Daughters of Charity, born in Su-
dan, who lived for many years in Italy
and was made a saint by Pope John Paul
II in 2000.
The land set aside for the church is at
Playa Granada, the southern part of
the city of Montril, south of the Sier-
ra Nevada, halfway between Malaga and
Almeria, and faces the Mar de Alborán,
the westernmost portion of the Mediter-
ranean between Spain and Morocco.
Punctuated by young palm trees, the
area has a slight slope that made it pos-
sible to place a direct access to the vol-
ume of the base to the north at the po-
sition of the crypt, and to the church
from the south by way of a few steps that
lead from the garden to the level of the
church hall. The planimetric and volu-
metric organization of the architectur-
al organism is clear and immediately un-
derstandable. Terse geometric volumes
have the task of conveying the religious
character of the building, whose dis-
tinguishing and recognizable features
are the steeple and the precisely placed
openings along the facades.
Light is the elective material in the pro-
ject, and through its abstract and es-
sential use Elisa Valero underlines the
concept of the trinity, cutting three
openings into the rough mass of the
building from which to watch the en-
try of the light in the hall set aside for
worship. The first is a skylight made in
the thickness of the roof, facing east,
where the sun rises, arranged cross-
wise between the end of the zone for
the congregation and the presbytery,
bringing indirect light to the altar; the
oblique evening light crosses the gaps
of an opening to the west, at the choir,
and projects the iridescent silhouette
of a cross on the altar; finally, light in-
vades the nave from the south, enter-
ing between the vertical parts of the jal-
ousie facing the garden and, beyond it,
the sea.
The materic identity of the church re-
lies exclusively on concrete. The use of a
construction system with double walls
in reinforced concrete containing ther-
mal insulation, previously applied for
the addition of the Cerrillo de Marace-
na school in Granada (see «Casabella»,
no. 848, April 2015), makes it possible
to achieve a terse architecture, reduced
to the necessary minimum, exploiting
the forceful tactile and visual expressive
qualities of the material. Once visitors
have entered the full-height hall through
the entrance compressed as a point of
transition between contraction and di-
lation of the space, they find a well-
proportioned chamber whose ceiling,
gradually bending towards the altar, im-
proves the acoustics inside the church
and displays a nudity that gains its only
ornamentation from the light: «Perfec-
tion is achieved, not when there is noth-
ing more to add, but when there is noth-
ing left to take away. It results from this
that perfection of invention touches
hands with absence of invention» (An-
toine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and
Stars, 1939).
page 25
A game of colors, light and memories
Jean-Marie Martin
In 1989 the Diocese of Milan, guided
by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Monti-
ni, assigned the New Churches commit-
tee chaired by Monsignor Giuseppe Aro-
sio the task of building 25 new churches.
Some of the commissions were assigned
by means of competitions, and therefore
Mauro Galantino, Giangiacomo D’Ardia
and Marco Contini had the opportuni-
ty to build the churches of San Ireneo
at Cesano Boscone, San Romano in the
Gallaratese district and Varedo. In a pe-
riod in which the Italian Episcopal Con-
ference, above all thanks to Monsignor
Giancarlo Santi, became one of the most
enlightened clients in the promotion of
professional assignments for Italian ar-
chitects, in 2001 a competition was held,
also open to European architects, for the
construction of the Pentecoste church at
Quarto Oggiaro, on the outskirts of Mi-
lan. The architects invited were Franc-
esco Cellini, David Chipperfield, Justus
Dahinden, Simo Paavilainen, Alfredo
Payá, Boris Podrecca and Eduardo Souto
de Moura. Podrecca was the winner, and
now the church he designed has been
consecrated.
The parish complex is organized in two
zones with different functional and
structural characteristics. A large con-
crete portal, with a length of 25 and a
height of 23 meters, frames the volumes
of the church and the weekday chap-
el, while in the open space, given their
different heights, a three-dimension-
al cross has been inserted. The church
has a rectangular plan measuring 30.3 x
15.7 meters, while the height of the hall
is 18.15 m. Not only the typological or-
ganization suggests that of the Turku
Cemetery Chapel in Finland designed
by Erik Bryggman (1938–41). Just as in
Bryggman’s church the basilica nave
that concludes in a flat roof supporting
a vaulted wooden covering is joined by
a lateral aisle, so it concludes in a wood-
en vault in the case of the church de-
signed by Podrecca. The spaces of differ-
ent heights, organized in keeping with
the memory of the chapel of Turku, are
connected and lit by the nimble inser-
tion of a blade of zenithal light that de-
scends from a skylight created the side
of the roof summit. Behind the altar a
large surface in alabaster-glass, a Pale-
ochristian “memory,“ spreads light and
functions as a backdrop for the proces-
sional cross. The baptismal font, a mon-
olith of quartzite enclosed by a metal
housing, and the confessional with ac-
casa b e l l a 8 7 0
cess to the weekday chapel, are at the
side of the main entrance. The walls,
50 centimeters thick, are in concrete,
while the roof is formed by a reticular
steel structure supporting a full plat-
form made with the use of slabs. Flank-
ing the church on the side towards the
street, lower volumes contain the week-
day chapel and the lateral aisle with the
altar of the Virgin. Both spaces are in di-
rect visual contact with the presbytery of
the hall. The weekday chapel has a trap-
ezoidal plan of 34.75 x 10.32 x 2.70 me-
ters, and a height of 7.05, with a struc-
ture similar to the one described above.
Along the southern side of the area a
longitudinal volume made with prefabri-
cated cementitious panels occupies the
entire length of the lot; it is connected
to the church by a glass atrium and con-
tains the oratory and the parish center.
The elevation, similar to an enveloping
ribbon, is shaped by two overlaid com-
positional themes: the rhythmical, reg-
ular and materic theme of the prefabri-
cated panels, and the other “liquid“ and
variable theme of the glazed portions. A
double-height external pergola in wood
completes the composition. The longi-
tudinal volume of the oratory has two
stories and contains the multifunction-
al space, a meeting room, auxiliary spac-
es and the side entrance to the parish
center. A long staircase with a handrail
in colored glass, dramatically placed in
the entrance atrium, leads to the up-
per level of the building where the cat-
echism rooms face onto a transparent
gallery. The roof of the atrium is made
with a light metal structure resting on
the walls of the oratory and the church.
The clergy house faces towards the play
area. This building with a limited height
(about 6.8 meters) has a traditional
structure with concrete pillars and slabs
and brick infill. In a limited zone where
the presence of an auditorium requires
large spans, the slabs are made light-
ened predalles. A large churchyard de-
signed to host community gatherings
and festive occasions leads to the parish
complex. The entrance to the main nave
is through a large bronze-color door set
into the main facade, whose panels con-
tain the smaller door for ordinary access
to the church. The large door is appro-
priately sized with respect to the church-
yard and the concrete portal that frames
the main building of the complex. As we
have seen, this also frames the lower vol-
ume of the weekday chapel, for which –
unlike what Podrecca imagined when
preparing the competition version of
his project– cladding has been applied
in panels identical to those used for the
volume connected to the church. Thus
the white elevation of the church stands
out powerfully from the volume, also
thanks to the chromatic dissonance pro-
duced by the coloring of the panels that
form the enclosure of the service vol-
ume that extends along one side of the
churchyard, beyond the footprint of the
church proper.
page 54
Simulation is not always falsehood
Marco Mulazzani
São Lourenço do Barrocal is located in
central Alentejo, a few kilometers from
the walled city of Monsaraz and the big
artificial lake of Alqueva, with an area of
250 km2, created in 1995–2002 after the
construction of the dam on the Guadi-
ana River along the border between Por-
tugal and the Spanish Estremadura.
On an estate of 780 hectares with vine-
yards, olive and cork groves, the settle-
ment takes its name from the barrocais,
granite boulders naturally protruding
from the ground, which the local pop-
ulace in ancient times selected for its
megalithic monuments. Built in the sec-
ond half of the 19th century in relation
to the agricultural development of the
lands around Monsaraz, São Lourenço
do Barrocal is a typical Alentejo “monte,”
a small rural village where the produc-
tion of cereals, legumes and wine, hunt-
ing and livestock raising ensured surviv-
al for a certain number of families (up to
about fifty) that lived there year round –
a population confirmed by the presence
of a chapel, an oven for baking bread,
and a small praça de touros. Abandoned
during the last quarter of the last centu-
ry, the Barrocal estate has been revived
in the first decade of this century based
on a transformation plan for non-inten-
sive tourism, organized in several phas-
es, the first of which called for the ren-
ovation of the complex of the “casas do
monte,” creating a hotel outfitted with a
fitness center, restaurant and winery.
Designed and built –apart from the in-
terior furnishings– by Eduardo Souto de
Moura from 2008 to 2016, the project is
interesting not only for its results, but
also due to a series of questions regard-
ing the very concept of historical her-
itage, the value we assign to it and that
defines its status, and the actions that
can effectively permit its conservation.
In Souto de Moura’s experience, no rec-
ognition of historical value can protect a
construction against the passage of time
that has shaped it; instead, it has to con-
tinue to be experienced and used «be-
cause only everyday life transforms it
into something natural and can grant it
the status of Heritage.» This transform-
ative approach can be seen in the recent
works of Souto de Moura like the con-
version of the Robinson factory at Porto
Alegre, the renovation of the Convento
das Bernardas at Tavira, and the Abate
Pedrosa municipal museum in Santo
Tirso («Casabella» no. 798, 2011; no. 817,
2012; no. 865, 2016): different projects,
because «each case is unique,» that share
an ability to investigate the past without
nostalgia, selectively taking every oper-
ation of renewal as the result of a pri-
or exercise of critical interpretation. The
same can be said of the “monte” of Bar-
rocal, where we can still observe many
particular features, starting with the ex-
ceptional charm of the “great and spir-
ited land” that surrounds it. The urban
character of the settlement is a clear fac-
tor, a sort of in miniature universe with
a clear hierarchy, with a main street –la
rua do monte– faced by the doors of the
homes and the public facilities, a small
plaza beside the manor house, a system
of courtyards open towards the moun-
tains, and service buildings towards
the outside: a value of memory and use
to be reinforced, because the “village”
is in any case designed to host a small
community, though it is one that is no
longer permanent but temporary. One
quality that is no less important is the
essential natural quality of the construc-
tions, based on the use of simple mate-
rials and of forms corresponding to the
utilitarian origin of the aldeia: a suita-
bility (a value and a goal that represent
the backbone of the work of Eduardo
Souto de Moura) that also has to be con-
served in relation to the lifestyle sought
by the new residents, namely the guests
of the hotel. For these reasons, the ru-
ined constructions of Barrocal have not
been taken as a vestige to be restored to
an impossible “original state,” but as an
opportunity to be grasped, making the
decision to continue the transforming
action of time through design, to make
the complex ready for use once again,
i.e. available for everyday activities, en-
abling it to become a shared “legacy.”
For the architect from Porto, the Barro-
cal thus becomes a sort of experimental
laboratory, configured on the one hand
as a process of discovery and knowl-
edge of its “style” and of its constructive
modes and materials, and on the other
has an ongoing search for solutions ap-
propriate to the challenge raised by the
necessary changes of the utilization of
the buildings – the olive press becomes
a lounge, the workers’ lodgings, store-
rooms and garages for agricultural vehi-
cles contain the fitness center and com-
fortable hotel rooms, the former manor
house and agricultural sheds become
small two or three-room apartments,
on two levels, the kennel becomes a res-
taurant… Each of the new functions has
been developed and positioned where
it is less “invasive” with respect to the
specific characteristics of the host con-
struction, but also more “convenient”
with respect to the overall configura-
tion of the settlement. Hence, for exam-
ple, the decision to slightly extend the
two wings of the residential block at the
eastern end of the village, to recoup the
alignment with the outer facade of the
new winery; and, at the same time, to
“shift” by one span the passage separat-
ing this construction from its neighbor,
bringing greater clarity to the relation-
ship between the volumes, the route and
the lengthened patio-garden placed be-
tween the winery and the intermediate
volume of the residences.
The images that document the work-
site clearly convey a sense of the difficul-
ty and complexity of the project, which
called first of all for the recovery of all
the existing materials that could be re-
cycled –roof tiles, bricks, sheets and
blocks of stone for thresholds, floors
and pavements– and for their supple-
mentation where needed – for exam-
ple, with bricks and tiles made by hand,
or recovered (as in the case of the roof
tiles) from other nearby constructions.
This does not mean that every building
was reconstructed “as it was” – an op-
eration that would also not have been
possible, due to the very nature of the
implemented transformations. Never-
theless, wherever possible the existing
load-bearing walls have been reinforced
and the vaults have been restored –as in
the building that contains the reception
area, cafe and lounge of the hotel, in the
fitness center, and on the ground floor
of the former manor house– while the
large masonry arches of the agricultur-
al buildings and garages have been con-
served; rugged outdoor stucco now coats
the existing brick surfaces as well as the
newly laid masonry, done with salvaged
bricks placed over the new walls in hol-
low brick, and the pillars and architraves
in reinforced concrete inserted where
required in the reconstructions. All the
casements have been replaced and rede-
signed for artisan production, conserv-
ing the thicknesses and proportions;
the new roof structures, not left visible,
are made with steel beams with a slight-
ly curved design – a sort of “advance”
deformation of the pitches, barely per-
ceptible in the descending profile of the
tiles from the peak to the eaves, in keep-
ing with a tradition that comes from the
Inquérito à Arquitectura Regional Portu-
guesa and which Souto de Moura shares
with his friends from Porto.
Undoubtedly the recovery of the “mon-
te” of Barrocal, in the words of Sou-
to de Moura himself, represents a pro-
ject «done on the razor’s edge,» because
it runs a dual risk: “to do too much” and
“to do too little”; nevertheless, the sur-
vey of the transformations done at Bar-
rocal and the decision to carry them out
by taking maximum care not to betray
the character of the place, restoring its
image, has turned out to be a winning
strategy. Upon closer consideration, we
can see that this is a theme found in all
of Souto de Moura’s work: to design sim-
ulation with great clarity, because “the
facade that is telling a lie tells the truth.”
page 69
Reinterpreting the Medina
Camillo Magni
Sometimes architecture is the happy re-
sult of the meeting of a client, a func-
tional program and an architect. The
contaminations that arise between those
who construct spaces and those who fi-
nance and inhabit them become the
project’s life’s blood. Observing the chil-
dren’s center built at Tadjourah in Dji-
bouti, the interaction and exchange be-
tween the different subjects is clear. The
sensitivity of the client regarding such a
special function corresponds to that of
the design towards the context, the en-
vironment and a program dense with
meanings. The client in this case is SOS
Children, a non-governmental organi-
zation that operates to protect children.
Founded in Austria in 1949 with the aim
of helping the orphans of World War II,
today it works in 132 nations, reaching
80,000 children each year and running
over 500 centers. The architect is the
Spaniard Urko Sanchez, who has always
been involved in projects of internation-
al cooperation, and moved definitive-
ly to Kenya to concentrate on projects in
the central-eastern area of Africa.
The project responds to the need to
build 15 residences for troubled families
and disadvantaged kids. Urko Sanchez
takes the historic Arabian city as the ref-
erence point for the organization of the
domestic spaces. This original choice is
the factor that sets the project apart and
distances it from the repetition of the
most widespread types of collective res-
idences that take the approach of lin-
ear row buildings. The project uses a
low, dense fabric that saturates the en-
tire lot bordered by a perimeter enclo-
sure. In this way the form of the build-
ing vanishes; there is no main facade,
no idea of the building itself. In its place
Urko Sanchez designs a village, a city
portion with an intricate maze of pedes-
trian routes, patios and plazas, in an ap-
parently disorderly layout for the fami-
ly lodgings. The composition focuses on
the almost obsessive repetition of regu-
lar volumes. Observing the plan, we can
see that every individual room is defined
by an autonomous volume, in group-
95
ings that form housing units and then
an entire village. This produces a sort of
disorientation in the visitor, where the
scale of reference of the building disap-
pears, replaced by a continuous land-
scape. This is the characteristic with the
greatest debt to the historical fabric of
the Medina. Nevertheless, the reinter-
pretation does not come from a reading
of the context, but from a more theoret-
ical process of abstraction. At Djibouti,
in fact, there are no Medinas: until the
last century the inhabitants were mostly
nomads, and the capital itself grew only
at the end of the 19th century through
the initiative of the French colonists
who introduced settlement models typi-
cal of colonial cities, using the figure of
the regular block and the grid of streets.
From this standpoint, Urko Sanchez
draws on very distant formal repertories
that refer to an abstract idea of an Islam-
ic city. The principle of “critical region-
alism” is interpreted in a wider, arche-
typal and –to some extent– formal way.
While in typological terms the project
does not have immediate links to the
context, from the viewpoint of climate
and environment it has profound im-
plications. In Djibouti the weather is
very hot, and in spite of the proximity
to the sea summer temperatures reach
levels above 40°C. The dense organiza-
tion of the dwellings stands up to this
heat, ensuring plenty of shade. The nar-
row streets and the lack of doors and
windows in the daytime zones facilitate
cross-ventilation, while windcatchers are
inserted inside the homes to provide nat-
ural cooling.
The 15 housing units are of the same
size, but have different orientations and
groupings to generate variations of plan
and volume. The unit is composed of
four rooms: a living room, a private pa-
tio, a kitchen and an entrance. The liv-
ing area has no doors or windows, and is
accessed through the patios and the typ-
ical device of the bayonet entrance that
guarantees privacy, while the bedroom
area is reached through the private spac-
es of the house. This arrangement of the
spaces, like the type of openings and
windows, responds to a precise cultur-
al need for family privacy that produces
–in compositional terms– an introvert-
ed building in which very closed external
elevations prevail, featuring large stuc-
co-clad walls in an almost abstract play
of volumes.
The communal space is formed by a sys-
tem of walkways that wind into the cent-
er, expanding in plazas and patios, nar-
rowing and widening as they go along.
These variations add value to the out-
door space, which like the constructed
part forms fluid zones for play, gather-
ings and circulation. The twisting pro-
gress creates a certain ambiguity of the
boundaries that separate collective and
private zones, and interesting contami-
nations emerge, in apparent contrast to
Islamic culture.
The project by Urko Sanchez at Djibou-
ti is one of the virtuous examples in
which the intervention of international
cooperation becomes a chance to rede-
fine the identity of places and to contrib-
ute to build a dialogue between the roots
of the past and the present. The project
combines historic forms and spatial ap-
proaches with a contemporary language,
without leaving room for picturesque or
vernacular rhetoric. The use of certain
historical features like the Moorish arch
96
is in balance with the contemporary fea-
tures. The result is a microcosm capa-
ble of calling forth ancient memories in
the visitor, while at the same time using
contemporary forms in a forceful, coher-
ent way to offer needy families a place in
which to live with dignity.
page 77
Gordon Bunshaft (1909–1990)
Nicholas Adams
There are certain architects whose names
speak clearly of place and time: we can
visualize their world instantly. The Ameri-
can architect Gordon Bunshaft is one such
figure. It’s post-war New York City experi-
menting with abstract expressionism, domi-
nated by great American corporations, and
with a soundtrack of cool jazz. There too
are the skin-and-bone modern buildings
of Gordon Bunshaft: Lever House (1952),
Manufacturer’s Trust (1954), Chase Manhat-
tan Bank (1961). And there too is Bunshaft
himself: sharp-tongued, laconic, brusque, at
ease with the corporate captains of the day
and thoroughly comfortable with modern
assembly-line production. He is at home at
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), one of
the largest architectural firms of the day.
Though he took responsibility for only
thirty-eight buildings, from 1939 to 1983
his hand is visible in countless others.1 He
was the acknowledged leader of architec-
tural design at SOM from his return after
the war until ca.1962 when others (Bruce
Graham, Walter Netsch, Chuck Bassett)
rose to prominence within the firm and
even thereafter his influence continued to
be felt. He built a range of building types
(houses, libraries, factories, and museums)
from New York to New Orleans and Pitts-
burgh to Jeddah and he built in city centers,
in suburbs, and on open country sites. Dur-
ing his lifetime he was acknowledged for
the high quality of his work as the recipient
of the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize of
the American Academy of Arts and Letters
(1955), the American Institute of Architect’s
Gold Medal (1984), and the Pritzker Archi-
tecture Prize (1988) for which, it is said, he
nominated himself.
Born in Buffalo, NY to a relatively modest
immigrant family Bunshaft attended Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where
he took two degrees, a B.Arch (1933) and
an M.Arch (1935).2 He was awarded a Rotch
Traveling Scholarship (1935-1937) that ena-
bled him to see the new architecture in Eu-
rope. On return to New York, he went to work
at SOM where he became a partner in 1949,
and with the exception of wartime service
(1942-1946), worked there until his retire-
ment in 1979. His forty-year career parallels
the growth of SOM: from a single office in
Chicago (1936) to a multi-office partnership:
New York opened in 1937 was followed by
San Francisco (1947), Portland (1951), Wash-
ington (1967), Boston (1971), Los Angeles
(1974), Houston (1976), and Denver (1977).3
Bunshaft’s training at MIT was in the
moderately modern environment that later
welcomed Alvar Aalto. Bunshaft was not a
great reader or an attentive student of archi-
tectural history, or even an especially talent-
ed draftsman. He freely admitted, “I’m not
an intellectual. I am just straightforward.”4
His critical educational experiences came
from his studio classmates and in the library.
A remark, recollected by the architect Am-
brose Richardson (who reports a conversa-
tion with one of Bunshaft’s MIT classmates)
provides a key insight into his subsequent
design method:5
en g lis h tex ts
He said, “Gordon was the kind of guy
that would walk around” –and I can just see
him– “and look at everybody else’s scheme.
He didn’t necessarily steal your scheme, but
he stole the best of every scheme.” When I
say “stole,” I use his words. “He stole the
best of every scheme, and then he’d put it
together and win the prize.” Gordon had this
wonderful knack for sifting out.
Bunshaft required stimulation from oth-
ers and used that stimulation to toggle be-
tween alternatives. Later, in the office envi-
ronment, Richardson reports:
Gordon used us as hands really. It was
wonderful. It was just like he was an octo-
pus. He could do all the thinking, and he had
all of us young guys do these beautiful draw-
ings for him or whatever he needed done.6
What counted for Bunshaft were
breadth, variety, and multiple architectural
stimuli.
Lever House changed Bunshaft’s life
forever and became the building that made
his reputation. Founding partner Nathaniel
A. Owings (1903–1984) had won access to
the commission in a game of craps and had
provided the parti for an “ideal office tower,”
that Bunshaft developed.7 Its success was
spectacular: Lever was simultaneously a
massive advertising symbol for the soap and
cleaning company, a solution to the problem
of the dark grimy canyons of the city, and a
notable work of architecture.8 Even incom-
plete, its model formed the centerpiece
for an exhibition of the work of SOM at the
Museum of Modern Art in New York.9 When
completed the building even became a tour-
ist attraction –visitors came to watch the
windows being washed from its movable
scaffolding.
In the wake of the tumultuous reception
for Lever House, corporate clients lined up
for Bunshaft: Manufacturers Trust Bank
(1954), Hilton Hotel (1955), Connecticut
General Insurance (1957), Reynolds Metal
(1958), Pepsi Cola (1960), Union Carbide
(1960), First City National Bank (1961), and
the Chase Manhattan Bank (1961). With
Chase Manhattan in downtown New York
City, again brokered by Owings, Bunshaft
and SOM became associated with the Rock-
efellers, one of the most powerful (and rich-
est) families in the United States. Accounts
of the selection of art works for the new
building highlighted the role of Bunshaft.10
Bunshaft was architect for America’s politi-
cal elite as well –selected to design the Lyn-
don Baines Johnson Memorial Library at the
University of Texas (1971).
What did his clients get? First and fore-
most, they received a well-programmed
original design. SOM was famous for its
ability to reinterpret traditional repetitive
activities (like banking or the processing
of insurance) in original ways to make their
buildings newsworthy. Manufacturers Trust
was written up in The New Yorker and Sat-
urday Evening Post; Connecticut General
was featured in Time, Newsweek, Business
Week, Fortune, and the Saturday Even-
ing Post. Chase Manhattan seems to have
been published everywhere.11 Looking more
closely their clients received an architecture
that seemed fully engaged with the larger
post-war aesthetic of efficiency and moder-
nity for which, after Seagram Building, Mies
van der Rohe became to be the defining
figure. Though Bunshaft’s architecture was
more playful and more colorful (and rarely as
aesthetically consistent), he too received the
label “Miesian.”12
In the wake of Seagram (and with the
new concrete buildings of Le Corbusier),
SOM and Bunshaft sought a new direction.
In January 1958, Nathaniel Owings assured
an interviewer: “This firm is not stuck with
the ‘stainless-steel standard,’” as our com-
petition calls it. We’re interested in plasticity,
and we’re exploring every avenue to get it.”13
They engaged the Hungarian-born engineer
Paul Weidlinger (1914–1999) for a series
of original box-shaped concrete buildings
placed on small pyramidal pylons. The new
buildings required a new Bunshaft. The
technologies of the steel and glass curtain
wall had been well known. Concrete –with
which he was much less familiar– obligated
him to adopt the interrogative. In the 1950s,
Bunshaft postponed extensive consultation
with engineers until the design was well
advanced, but with Weidlinger in the later
1960s and 1970s, he recognized the desir-
ability of early coordination: “We knew we
could do all sorts of things using concrete…
but we needed education. As soon as we got
some rough ideas, the senior designer and
Paul and I –mostly Paul and I– would get
together.”14 Weidlinger became, as associ-
ates recall, “a real collaborator,” something
the youthful Bunshaft had not needed be-
fore. In this new idiom Bunshaft still thrived:
Beinecke Library (1963), Banque Lambert
(1965), the American Republic Insurance
Company (1965) are the results of this col-
laboration.
The last years within SOM –as is so of-
ten with crowned heads– were not easy. A
new generation of SOM designers moved
to positions of power within the firm and
though Bunshaft’s opinions were as sharp
as ever, his style no longer matched the
times: prudent collective corporate deci-
sions put an end to the manly industrial
captains who had hired him post-war. Bun-
shaft’s growing disdain for office buildings
(“I’m not sure office buildings are even ar-
chitecture. They’re really a mathematical
calculation, just three-dimensional invest-
ments….”) reflected those changes.15 He
still found the occasional strongman who
thought the high quality of Bunshaft’s de-
sign worth paying for (for example, the real
estate developer Sheldon Solow at 9 West
57th Street, 1974) and he built more for the
government (LBJ Library, 1971; Hirschhorn
Museum, 1974) and there were new strong-
men from abroad (National Commercial
Bank, Jeddah, 1983; the Hajj Terminal, 1981).
They are all monumental structures, big-
boned, abstract, and modernist, built like
bulwarks against the first waves of post
modernism. In the context of the times, Bun-
shaft seemed out of place, a dinosaur from
another world, a hero in the age of the anti-
hero, corporate when the fashion was for
the individual, old, as society decided not to
trust anyone over 30.
Bunshaft was a complicated man. Fa-
mous –infamous even– for his temper and
his sharp opinions –he seems to have been
most at home among artists. The exten-
sive correspondence with Jean Dubuffet
(1901–1985) and Henry Moore (1898–1986)
at the Avery Library, Columbia University, is
both playful and witty, describing cheerful
conversations, and revealing a wholly dif-
ferent person. He was generous to the Al-
bright-Knox Museum in Buffalo (and a good
friend to Seymour Knox, its patron). He left
his home, the so-called Travertine House on
Long Island (1963) and much of his personal
art collection to the Museum of Modern Art
in New York –quite content, it seems, to see
the house sold and the collection dispersed.
For this series of five essays I have se-
lected some of the lesser-known buildings
built under the direction Gordon Bunshaft
at SOM. They demonstrate the rich vari-
ety of which he was capable and exhibit
his attention to broad line and fine detail,
to monumentality and abstraction, to hu-
mor and materials. As architects today
look again at the rich traditions of modern-
ism, the achievement of Bunshaft needs
more (not less) attention. He was, without
shame, a commercial architect working in
the most commercial of environments, and
yet –against the odds– he established a
distinctive identity always insisting on, and
building to, the highest standards of design.
Notes
1 Carol Krinsky, Gordon Bunshaft of Skid-
more, Owings & Merrill (Cambridge and New
York: MIT Press and the Architectural History
Foundation, 1988), p. 335–38. I count an ad-
ditional twenty-two Bunshaft-influenced
buildings not acknowledged by Bunshaft
prior to 1962. See Nicholas Adams, “Gordon
Bunshaft: What Convinces is Conviction,”
SOM Journal 9 (2014), 8–19.
2 His father, David Bunshaft, was a whole-
sale egg dealer. In 1946 he left a consider-
able estate of $51, 236 to his wife, Yetta. (see
Buffalo Courier Express, 20 July 1946.) The
family lived at 55 Manchester Place in a sim-
ple single-family wooden house.
3 Offices have opened later in London
(1986) and Shanghai (2001). The offices in
Portland, Boston, Houston, and Denver have
closed.
4 Oral History of Gordon Bunshaft, inter-
viewed by Betty J. Blum (Chicago: Art Insti-
tute, 1990, revised edition, 2000), p. 209.
5 Oral History of Ambrose M. Richardson,
interviewed by Betty J. Blum (Chicago: Art
Institute, 1990), p. 160.
6 Oral History of Ambrose Richardson, p. 78
7 Nathaniel A. Owings, “The Office Building
of Tomorrow,” Skyscraper Management 32
(November 1947), pp. 10-11; 24-27; “A Radi-
cally New Conception of Tomorrow’s Office
Building,” National Real Estate and Build-
ing Journal (January 1948), pp. 28-29; “The
Ideal Office Building –A dream boat speech
by Architect Owings,” Architectural Forum
91 (August 1949), pp. 75, 164, 165. The first
discussion of “Lever House,” occurred June
1949.
8 See the lecture of J.E. Drew, the Public
Relations director for Lever Brothers deliv-
ered to a session on the Economic Values of
Design at the AIA Annual Convention in New
Orleans in June 1959. A copy is located in the
Marketing Division, SOM, New York.
9 “Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architects,
U.S.A.,” Bulletin of the Museum of Modern
Art, 18 (Fall 1950).
10 See Art at Work: The Chase Manhattan
Collection, ed. Marshall Lee (New York: E.P.
Dutton, 1984).
11 “Showcase,” in “The Talk of the Town,” The
New Yorker 30 (2 October 1954); Jack Alex-
ander, “The Bank That Has No Secrets,” Sat-
urday Evening Post, 30 November
1957, pp. 36, 105-106; on Connecticut Gen-
eral, “Office Building Gets Trial Run,” Busi-
ness Week, 20 August 1955, p. 48; “For
Corporate Life ’57,” Newsweek, 16 Sep-
tember 1957, pp. 114-115; “Building with a
future,” Time, 16 September 1957, 86-91;
“A Dramatic New Office Building,” Fortune
(September 1957), 164-169; 228-229; Joe
Alex Morris, “It’s Nice to Work in the Coun-
try,” Saturday Evening Post, 5 July 1958, pp.
21, 70-72. Chase Manhattan received a
twenty-nine page spread in Architectural
Forum (“Chase, portrait of a giant; report on
the biggest office building in Manhattan in
25 years,” Architectural Forum 115, July 1961),
pp. 66-95 as well as publication in the ma-
jor American architectural, interior, and art
magazines. It was also featured in French
(Architecture Aujourd’hui 6, December 1961,
pp. 82-91; L’Oeil, no. 87, March 1962, pp.
80-87) and German (Bauen und Wohnen,
11, April 1957, 122–123; 16, January 1962, pp.
9-21; Baukunst und Werkform 15, 1962, pp.
30-36, sup. 2-4).
12 Nicholas Adams (with Nicola McElroy),
“Column and Frame: Mies van der Rohe and
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill,” in La Colonne:
Nouvelle histoire de la construction, ed. Rob-
erto Gargiani (Lausanne: Presses polytech-
niques et universitaires romandes, 2008),
484-493.
13 See, “The Architects from Skid’s Row,”
Fortune 57 (January 1958), pp. 137-140; 210,
212, 215. Quotation from p. 215.
14 Krinsky, Gordon Bunshaft, p. 138.
15 Quoted in Walter McQuaid, “A Daring
New Generation of Skyscrapers,” Fortune 87
(February 1973), p. 81.
page 83
Gordon Bunshaft 1/5
Venezuela Pavilion,
New York World’s Fair, 1939 (destroyed)
Nicholas Adams
«They did about nineteen different projects,
all of them lousy except maybe one.» Gor-
don Bunshaft
The New York World’s Fair of 1939–40 was
the first international fair explicitly dedicat-
ed to the future. The 610-foot obelisk Trylon
and spheroid Perisphere, designed by Wal-
lace Harrison (1895–1981) and André Fouil-
houx (1879–1945) were symbols of the Fair’s
enthusiasm for “the world of tomorrow.”
Following their lead the pavilion architects
were encouraged to be experimental and
innovative. Norman Bel Geddes’s Futurama
was one of the most popular displays with
its multi-level system of motorways and
simulated sounds of low-flying aircraft. The
international pavilions were a mixed bag.
Italy’s pavilion by Michele Busira-Vici was
unmemorable with a statue of the goddess
Roma seated on a 200-foot high pedestal
over a water pool dedicated to Guglielmo
Marconi. Architectural Forum described it
as “a curious perversion of classical prec-
edent.” 1 Those of Finland (Alvar Aalto),
Sweden (Sven Markelius), and Brazil (Lucio
Costa and Oscar Niemeyer) were especially
praised.2 Typically, commercial firms sought
to capitalize on their product design in their
pavilions to the detriment of their architec-
ture: Continental Baking (Skidmore and
Owings with John Moss) used the wrapper
design for their popular product “Wonder
Bread” as exterior cladding.
Skidmore and Owings (they had yet to
be joined by Merrill) had a significant pres-
ence at the Fair, as consultants and as de-
signers. They teamed with John Moss, a not-
ed delineator, and produced nine pavilions:
Swift Premium Meats, Continental Baking,
the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), the
Gas Industries Pavilion, the Westinghouse
Pavilion, the Standard Brands Building, the
Glass Building, and a Medicine and Public
Health display. The one national pavilion the
firm undertook, the Venezuela Pavilion, is
the one building of the group that Bunshaft
called not “lousy,” or at least, “semi-good.” It
was the first work he acknowledged.3 Here
he was able to begin his experimentation
with the new modern architecture that had
absorbed his attention on his travels in Eu-
rope as a Rotch fellow. In an article in his
hometown newspaper he is pictured look-
ing intently at a rendering of the pavilion and
quoted as calling the Fair a “trial balloon into
the future.”4
Venezuela’s pavilion at the Fair was
casa b e l l a 8 7 0
a small sign of diplomatic rapproche-
ment between the United States and Latin
America. 5 In 1933 President Franklin De-
lano Roosevelt’s “Good-Neighbor” initia-
tive had established non-intervention and
non-interference as the new policies of
the United States for the region. Economic
development and reciprocal trade would
now mark United States relations with the
south and men like Nelson A. Rockefeller
(1908–1979) had a significant interest in
the presentation of a progressive up-to-
date image of Latin America at the Fair.
Rockefeller, whose mother was a founder
of the Museum of Modern Art in New York,
and who had worked for Creole Petroleum
in Venezuela, seems to have had a hand in
advancing Skidmore & Owings as designers
for the Pavilion. (The only other pavilion with
an American design was that of Chile by the
team of T. Smith-Miller, Sanders & Breck).
Though the Venezuelans had designed their
own neocolonial pavilion two years earlier in
Paris (architects Luis Malaussena and Car-
los Raúl Villanueva) the Americans thought
a local architect would be advisable.6 Rock-
efeller may also have been stimulated by the
much-admired designs of Costa and Nie-
meyer for the Brazilian Pavilion. Rockefeller
and Bunshaft would have had the chance to
their designs in sufficient time (both Costa
and Niemeyer were in New York through the
summer of 1938), to realize the need to push
through something modern for the Venezue-
lans –something that, echoing the Brazilian
entry, united modern structure with el es-
píritu venezolano.7
Thus, though the Venezuelan Pavilion
included displays dedicated to products
such as coffee, cocoa, and oil, “designed to
represent the potential wealth of Venezuela,”
there was a strand of modern culture, with
contemporary Venezuelan artists provid-
ing the decorations. The administration of
President Lopez Contreras, as the Consul
General pointed out at the inauguration of
the Pavilion, was “the very incarnation of
the most advanced democracy,” and the
country was “among the freest countries in
the world.”8 It was a country too, as was em-
blazoned on the wall of the Pavilion, “where
there is no unemployment, no debts, and no
taxes.” Bunshaft encapsulated the country’s
modernity in an aerodynamic glass box.
Initial plans may have been drawn up
together with John Moss. They show a dra-
matically angled wing-like roof sweeping
through a simple glass box from west to
east. To the east side of the glass box under
the lower end of the sloping roof are cafete-
ria and restaurant facilities. To the west the
roof is supported by a single detached pier,
the tallest, and the view from the southwest
provided the most characteristic view of the
building. Views show the glass box stiffened
by wide-flange steel I-beams along the
southern façade.9 On the underside of the
roof, Luis Alfredo López Méndez and Miguel
Arroyo painted scenes of daily Venezuelan
life, prefiguring, according to Joan Ockman,
“the elegant integration of architecture and
art in his postwar work.”10 Orchids in glass
globes dotted the garden in front of the
Pavilion and inside they decorated tree-like
displays. The roof was, however, the domi-
nant architectural motif on the southern
façade –its playful inside-outside connec-
tion reflecting Venezuela’s tropical climate
and its sweeping abstract line its develop-
ing modernity. The other facades were less
prominent. From east and west, as revealed
in the Moss drawings, the building had the
characteristics of a contemporary train or
bus station, or possibly a post office –even
Asplund’s entry pavilion for the Stockholm
Exhibition (1930). Bunshaft was also great World’s Fair 1939,” in Brazil Built: The Archi-
admirer of Brinkman and van der Vlugt’s tecture of the Modern Movement in Brazil
van Nelle factory, Rotterdam (1931) and here (London: Spon, 2001). Bunshaft thought the
too is a recollection of the simplicity of that Venezuela Pavilion second in quality only to
building with the glass conveyor belts trans- that of Costa and Niemeyer’s building. See
lated into the sloping roof. Krinsky, Bunshaft, p. 9.
On the inside Bunshaft had little control 8 New York Times, 27 May 1939, p. 9.
over the design. The central feature was an 9 Venezuelan airmail stamps from this pe-
“Altar of the Good Neighbor” (containing a riod show a banking aircraft. That image
lock of George Washington’s hair that had could have suggested the roof form to Bun-
been owned by Simon Bolivar) and there shaft.
were displays of natural resources. Inside 10 Joan Ockman, “Art, Soul of the Corpora-
and outside were drawn together through tion: Patronage, Public Relations, and the
glass, of course, and by the placement of Interrelations of Art and Architecture after
the name VENEZUELA both inside and out- World War II,” SOM Journal 5 (2007), pp.
side the glass grid.11 A freestanding curving 170–186, see p. 182.
screen (echoing Aalto’s Finnish pavilion?) 11 The passage of forms between inside and
provided a backdrop for wooden sculptures outside across the glass envelope was later
created on site by Francesco Narváez. (Re- used in the garden atrium at Lever House.
flecting on the Pavilion later, Bunshaft ex- 12 New York Times, 30 April 1939, p. 128.
pressed the need to maintain control over all 13 Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (as they be-
aspects of design.) The New York Times de- came) subsequently received the commis-
scribed the scene as “beauty and business” sion for a housing development and Catholic
on display. The most popular part of the church for Creole Petroleum at Amuay Bay.
Pavilion were the orchids that, as the news- See Permanent Housing Project: Creole Pe-
paper observed would “make any woman’s troleum Corporation, Amuay Bay, Venezuela,
heart beat faster.”12 S.A. (New York, 1946)
Though the Pavilion was a popular one 14 New York Times, 25 October 1939, p.
–and helped seal a relationship between 18. Venezuela had attempted to bring Ven-
SOM and the Rockefeller family that lasted ezuelan muralists, musicians, and waiters
another two decades– in Venezuela there to the Pavilion and had been forced to hire a
was controversy.13 High costs –both labor non-working American team to shadow the
(since the Venezuela artists and musicians Venezuelan.
were not members of the powerful New York 15 New York Times, 4 May 1940, p.
labor unions) and continuing maintenance– 16 Architectural Forum, 70 (June 1939), p.
led the government to close the Pavilion af- 451.
ter the first year. Venezuelan architects, too,
may have felt slighted by the awarding of the
contract to the young, unproven, Bunshaft.
American non-intervention and non-inter-
ference, it seemed, applied only to larger
diplomatic issues. Only when the country’s
representative at the Fair threatened to re-
sign (“too many headaches”) was the order
briefly rescinded.14 In May 1940 Venezuela
withdrew and prepared estimates to ship
the Pavilion to Caracas where, had the plan
been followed through, it was to have found
its home as a tourist center.15
Bunshaft’s Pavilion, in the opinion of Archi-
tectural Forum, was “not too exciting.”16 In
retrospect, however, it stands out as his first
independent work and a work that revealed
his talent for what he called “fascination and
fun,” qualities that would emerge promi-
nently in his two post-war successes: Lever
House and Manufacturers Trust.
Notes
1 Architectural Forum, 70 (June 1939), p.456.
2 Architectural Forum, 70 (June 1939), p. 459
reported that an opinion poll designated the
Soviet Union pavilion (Boris Iofan and Karo
S. Alabian) as the popular favorite.
3 Carol Herselle Krinsky, Gordon Bunshaft:
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (New York: Ar-
chitectural History Foundation, 1988), p. 9.
4 Buffalo Courier Express, 15 May 1939, p. 3
5 Only Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and
Chile among South American countries had
their own pavilions.
6 See Lorenzo González Casas, “Nelson A.
Rockefeller y la modernidad venezolana: in-
tercambios, empresas y lugares a mediados
del siglo XX,” in Petróleo Nuestro y Ajeno: La
illusión del modernidad, ed. Juan Jose Martin
Frechilla and Yolanda Texera Arnal. Caracas:
Universidad Central de Venezuela, 2004, pp.
173–234. There were, of course, Venezuelan
modernists such as Cipriano Dominguez
who had worked in Le Corbusier’s studio in
Paris, Villanueva himself, and Manuel Mujica
Milán.
7 See Zilah Quezado Deckker, chapter 3,
“The Brazilian Pavilion at the New York
97
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