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An Eye on Rome History Culture Lifestyle

An EYE on ROME from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

Rome is difficult to describe; one has to feel it through all the senses. Defined as “The Eternal City,” it implies that its past goes back to immemorial times, and yet, it is a city of an eternal present.

The accompanying documentary, An Eye on Rome, attempts to give the spectator a general idea of the city’s main components: history, culture, and people. It is presented from a personal viewpoint.

History

 The 2700 years old myth of Romulus and Remus, twin brothers abandoned on the banks of the river Tiber to die, fed by a she-wolf, and saved by the god Tiberius, tells us that they chose the location of the new city amid seven hills, but not why. The location is unique. The climate is temperate, and the Tiber River reaches the close-by Mediterranean Sea, allowing boats to come and leave without fearing storms. This means that the supply of goods is unimpeded. 

 Early Romans learned art and philosophy from the Etruscan and the Greeks but gave them a grandiose scale to reflect the power of a growing empire. They built not just palaces and temples but buildings for entertainment and celebrations: circuses, amphitheaters, thermae, markets, and commemorative arches and columns.

 Despite its military power, the Roman empire collapsed from within. It was conquered by a new ideology, Christianity, which was brought to Rome by enslaved people from Judea. When the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (AD 306-337) adopted the nascent religion, the church was born as a physical institution.

The film shows some turning points of architectural evolution in the city, from Ancient Roman to Early Christian, Renaissance, Baroque, and Contemporary. The Pantheon, a temple of all the gods, remains a great example of Roman creativity. First founded by Marcus Agrippa, it was designed in 114 by Imperator Trajan’s architect, Apollodorus of Damascus. A sphere of approximately forty-three meters in diameter (142 feet) defines its geometry. The large expanse of its roof is made of concrete, a Roman invention. The building’s only light source is the nine-meter diameter oculus on the top. In 609 AD, it was turned into a Catholic church.

 Santa Sabina (483 CE) tells us about the new directionality given to the Roman basilica. At one extreme, the entrance; at the other, the altar. Four centuries later, Santa Maria in Cosmedin became an elaborated typology of a church, with a tall campanile or bell tower as part of it. In the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere (1140-43), the campanile is already of Romanesque style. The interior is decorated with late 13th-century mosaics.

 In 1503, Donato Bramante (1444-1514) was the first to conceive St. Peter’s Basilica. After his death, several architects tried to continue the project: Giuliano da Sangallo, Raphael, and Baldassare Peruzzi. Almost forty years later, in 1547, long after painting the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo was pressured by Pope Paul III to become in charge of St. Peter’s Basilica. He was by then seventy-two and worked on it until his death at eighty-eight. His most important contribution was the simplification of Bramante’s plan. He devised four massive piers to support the dome instead of the many columns of Bramante’s plan. He also redesigned the dome, constructed of two shells of brick. As it stands today, St. Peter’s has been extended with a nave by Carlo Maderno, who also designed its façade. 

 Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s (1598-1680) first work at St. Peter’s was the baldachin, a massive spiraling gilded bronze canopy over the tomb of St. Peter. When commissioned to design the piazza, he created two massive semi-circular colonnades, resulting in an oval shape within which a gathering of citizens could witness the Pope’s appearance.

 The architectures of Borromini (1599-1667) and Bernini remain magnificent contributions to the city. Both being of almost the same age, they were fierce competitors with different characters. Borromini was melancholic and quick in a temper. Bernini was a charming courtier in his pursuit of important commissions. 

 In 1634, Borromini received his first major independent commission to design San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, also known as San Carlino. The church is considered by many to be an exemplary masterpiece of Roman Baroque architecture. Later, from 1640 to 1650, he worked on the design of the church of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza. The structure’s geometry is a symmetric six-pointed star; from the center of the floor, the cornice looks like two equilateral triangles forming a hexagon.

 Besides being an architect and a city planner, Bernini was an extraordinary sculptor. In his twenties, he created masterpieces such as Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascarius (1619;) Rape of Prosperina (1621-22;) and Apollo and Daphne (1622-25.) He created the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (1651) and the Four Rivers Fountain in Piazza Navona in his fifties.

 Another genial artist preceded Borromini and Bernini: Caravaggio (1571-1610.) He lived most of his artistic life in Rome. Besides his skills in the dramatic use of chiaroscuro, he is considered the first independent artist to define subjects by himself. He vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring violent struggles, torture, and death. Caravaggio’s influence can be seen in the works of Rubens and Rembrandt. He died aged thirty-eight.

Culture 

 Italian culture is the amalgamation of thousands of years of heritage and tradition. It is steeped in the arts, family, architecture, music, and food. Family is a significant value within Italian culture. Their family solidarity is focused on extended family rather than the West’s idea of “the nuclear family,” of just a mom, dad, and kids. Italians have frequent family gatherings, often celebrating around food. 

 For Italians, food isn’t just nourishment; it is life. Italian cuisine has influenced food culture worldwide and is viewed as an art form. Wine, cheese, and pasta are essential parts of Italian meals. Family gatherings are frequent, and the extended networks of families.

 Italy takes dressing very seriously. It is home to a number of world-renowned fashion houses, including Armani, Gucci, Benetton, Versace and Prada, Valentino, Ferragamo, and Dolce e Gabbana. Italians are also great designers of automobiles and household furnishings.

People

 Italians think differently. The concept of “azerare,” thinking anew, combined with a deep knowledge of history, is one of the basic components of Italian creativity. Italians are also great communicators. Their body language is frequently more important than their verbal one. Their self-deprecating humor makes it difficult for someone to feel offended by a negative comment.

Personal

 An Eye on Rome looks at the city as an insider and an outsider. As one who had lived in Rome for seven years, studying architecture, its monuments, its arts, and interacting daily with its people, I am aware of some aspects of the city hidden behind its facades. We have also brushed the world of cinema, not just as spectators, but also with encounters – and friendship – with some of its makers.

 As an outsider, Eternal Rome remains for us a source of inspiration.

ZEVI – Our Story A Partially Autobiographical View of Bruno Zevis Genius


ZEVI – Our Story from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

Poster of the documentary ZEVI – Our Story

Bruno Zevi (1918-2000) NOW – WHY? 

 

This is a time of major transformations: scientifically, technologically, demographically, and politically. Climate change has already reached a point where the question is not if but how we will cope. Bruno Zevi, an architect, historian, critic of architecture, writer, publisher, and politician, continues to be a source of inspiration for the invention of the future.

 

The documentary that leads this blog is partially autobiographical. It shows some samples of how ideas and a rich cultural environment such as that of Italy in general, and of Rome, in particular, can impact the minds of young people, as it did to us. It gives the audience a visualization of how a charismatic intellectual influenced his generation’s best architects and thinkers. Besides his knowledge of history, Zevi’s primary source of inspiration was Frank Lloyd Wright, the greatest thinker-architect of at least the last five hundred years. 

 

Zevi was one of the few critics of architecture that Wright respected. Still, many other architects in Europe, the United States, and Latin America admired him. Also, politicians listened to him, even those who disagreed with his premises. His capacity to communicate ideas and inject enthusiasm into architects of all ages – and not only to architects – was unique. At the base of his exuberance was a passion for questioning “assumed truths.” He brought to the surface what was meaningful about a particular place, time, culture, and architecture. He believed that culture and politics should be intimately related, with culture leading politics and not the other way around.   

 

While supporting the positive aspects of the 20th Century’s Rationalist architecture – the Bauhaus’ architects, Le Corbusier, and his followers – he acknowledged their limits. He knew that Frank Lloyd Wright’s principles of Organic Architecture were long-lasting because they were based on nature and history’s essentials. 

 

Zevi’s writings, like Wright’s, must be read. You can’t read Zevi’s books lying on a couch. They have to be studied. Similarly, the monthly magazine he published for fifty years, L’Architettura, was filled with content on projects of relevance. Architect John Lautner once said it was the only architectural magazine he read.

Zevi and Us

 

Our relationship with Zevi spanned over thirty years. To tell the many stories surrounding our bond through letters and one-to-one discussions would take many pages. Still, a few paragraphs can give an idea.

 

As a teacher, Zevi demanded to visit at least once all the important architectural monuments in Rome and many other across Italy. That meant intense traveling, photographing, writing notes, and drawing. 

 

In 1971, when we made our “Wright pilgrimage” across twenty-five states, Zevi introduced us to Edgar Kaufmann Jr., then the director of the Industrial Design Department at MOMA, who facilitated for us exclusive access to Fallingwater. 

In 1975 we won the first prize in a conceptual design competition on high density in Israel. He wrote about our project in an article published in L’Espresso magazine. When we finished our first tiny apartment in Tel Aviv, he climbed ten floors – the elevators were not functioning – to visit us. He asked me to send him photographs of it and a project for a memorial in Golan Heights, which we had not won. Over the years, he published several of our projects: our house in Westwood, which was the first on record to have had solar panels and a vegetable garden, and our Senior Housing project in Jaffa.

 

We met Zevi for the last time in 1998 when returning from a three-week workshop in Palermo between Italian, Israeli, and Palestinian architects. The news of his passing in January of 2000 reached us in Los Angeles while on a short visit at the turn of the millennium. When we returned to Tel Aviv, I wrote “Pronto Professore.” The poem was later on read at the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles by poet-actor Jack Grapes. 

Sample of letters received from Bruno Zevi between 1973 and 2000.

Jack Reads Pronto Professore 2000 to 2021: Poet Jack Grapes recorded soundtrack of his Pronto Professore poem

Jack Reads Pronto Professore from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

January 2021. At the beginning of a new post-pandemic and post-Trump era, we are framed between the barbarian actions on January 6 and a new beginning on January 20. The world’s main agenda needs to focus on healing and growth. Furthermore, we need to reinvent the human condition.

While evaluating past achievements and failures, I rediscovered a long poem I wrote during May 2000, Pronto Professore. In November, the Italian Institute of Culture in Los Angeles sponsored a memorial to honor Professor Bruno Zevi. Since I was living in Tel Aviv and could not come to L.A. for that occasion, Jack Grapes volunteered to read the poem publicly in my stead. During the event, my friend Nathan Shapira recorded Jack’s reading and subsequently sent me a copy. It remained in a drawer for almost twenty years.

In 2018, while editing the documentary ZEVI, I inserted two segments of Jack’s reading and illustrated them. The video that accompanies this writing brings the public at large, for the first time, those two segments and the entire soundtrack. It seems to me that it remains actual.

Pronto, Professore

 

Pronto, Professore, can you hear me?

I can hear you well,

as if you were just around the corner,

as if it were yesterday

when we used to dissect on location

the interior space of the Pantheon,

the interrupted rhythm of Santa Maria in Cosmedin,

the central split of Santo Stefano Rotondo,

the link between the interior and the facade of San Carlino,

the ascendant spiral of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza,

as if it were yesterday

when we listened to your lectures at the faculty’s auditorium,

the darkened room, the students occupying every available step,

lights and cigarettes’ smoke projected over three screens:

the Parthenon on the left, a drawing of young Le Corbusier on

the center, a photograph of Ville Savoye on the right,

you, walking up and down along the isles, a Muratti between your

fingers,

your other arm gesticulating,

arguing with history, arguing with yourself

like a Talmud student interpreting and reinterpreting

what does that choice mean rather than the other,

what is the relationship between form and content,

where does that space come from, is it ancient or modern,

how do we live a building, how do we possess light,

what does all this mean for us today,

what was the language of the time and its relationship to society,

how were matter, space-time and technology used,

why is that window there and not there,

why, why?

 

Pronto, Professore, can you hear me?

I can hear you well

We need your help, give us your hand,

we are drowning in ignorance,

we are drowning in the drunkenness of power,

we are drowning in the mud of mediocrity,

we are drowning in the blindness of bureaucracy;

You left us a surgeon’s knife to operate on a patient

that barely breathes;

We injected on him with shots of asymmetry and dissonance,

of antiperspective tridimensionality and of cantilevered

structures,

but he does not react,

he is intoxicated by television,

he is intoxicated by yellow newspapers,

he is intoxicated by technological gadgets,

he is intoxicated with hyper-sex

with hyper-tourism,

with junk food,

with junk-music

with junk-houses

 

the patient doesn’t read anymore, doesn’t write anymore,

he speaks with fifty words,

he escapes towards hedonism or Messianism,

he lost his site,

he lost his vision

he lost his trust in the future,

he lost his trust in humankind,

he lost his trust in himself.

 

Pronto Professore, can you hear me,

I can hear you well.

I turned to Michelangelo for help

but his urbanism is too complex for today’s planners;

I called Borromini, but the public doesn’t want tormented souls,

the public wants “happiness”;

I talked to Wright…are you kidding!

His language is incomprehensible; the universities

must produce graduates fast and at a reasonable price,

what is necessary is formulas, slogans,

“how to do this, how to do that”,

a page by Wright is too charged, makes you waste time,

it is much easier to copy from fashion magazines;

I called the poets – Gaudi, Scarpa, Bruce Goff, John Lautner;

I called the visionaries – Fuller, Soleri, Pellegrin…

 

You say that one must remain optimistic

in spite of the periodic regressions of history;

You think that after 1988 there is light at the end of the tunnel

in the rebellious adolescence of the Deconstructivists,

in the recycling of kitsch, banality and trash, but

what shall we do of the abyss that exists between

quantity and quality?

 

As we talk the world’s population continues to grow

one hundred and sixty six human beings per minute,

ten thousand per hour

two hundred and forty thousand per day;

 

We need,

more houses,

more schools,

more factories,

more sports centers,

more cultural centers,

more power plants,

more parking structures,

more freeways,

more airports,

more prisons,

more cemeteries.

 

What shall we do, Professore

shall we produce one hundred Guggenheims per hour?

shall we produce “readymade” pseudo Venice, clean, odorless,

like the one made in Las Vegas,

or shall we leave it all to the “do it yourself” suburbs, happily mediocre?

 

Who shall take care of the Leonardo’s subtleties that you quote:

the fog,

the mist

the rain

the ungrateful climate,

the heat,

the clouds,

the shadows and the transparencies,

the smells and the perfumes,

that is, the matter-less materials of architecture?

 

And then, let’s take a good look at this patient,

who is he, what does his face look like?

It is not an architect, Unknown Soldier of the existential battle;

Our patient is the captain of industry that produces nano-technologies,

our patient is the minister that makes decisions of billions with our money,

our patient is the real estate speculator that sells houses as merchandise,

is the bank director that lends money to old projects,

is the lawyer that knows how to convince us that black is white and

white is black,

is the general that considers a war plane more important

than four thousands apartments for the elderly,

is the mayor with a vision that doesn’t go beyond the next elections,

is the elite that proclaims itself as educated:

the judge,

the school director,

the accountant,

the physician,

the scientific researcher,

the fund-raising lady of the charity institution;

It is the public that flocks to concerts and to gallery-openings

and visits the world’s museums

but never heard of

the Johnson Wax Administration Building in Racine,

nor of the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp,

nor of the Einstein Tower at Potsdam,

nor of Aalto’s church at Imatra,

nor of Michellucci’s church of the Autostrada,

nor of Johansen’s Mummer’s Theater in Oklahoma City,

nor of the Brion-Vega Cemetery at San Vito di Treviso;

 

May be our real patient still frequents the elementary school,

or may be, actually, probably, he is still not yet born.

 

So, Professore,

what shall we prescribe to this patient, vitamins?

 

Let’s try a dose of

 

vitamin H, for the history of architecture,

vitamine V for the vision of the future,

vitamin W for the works of Wright,

vitamin Z for the writings of Zevi;

 

Shall we prescribe him interactivity,

particularly with painters, sculptors, poets, scientists and inventors?

Shall we prescribe him the drawing of trees,

to learn from their variety lectures of democracy,

to understand what is the continuity that links

earth, roots, trunk, branches and leaves to our solar energy,

to understand what is a cantilevered structure,

to understand the space-time relationship

between the permanent and the temporary,

to understand the functional aesthetics of flowers?

Shall we prescribe him with green, aaah, plenty of green,

green in the working spaces,

green in the stations of transportation,

green in the schools of our future citizens,

green, green, the green that links everything, saves everything,

idiocies, ugliness, crimes, monstrosities?

 

Shall we prescribe him convalescence in Venice, to learn

how can pedestrians’ movement be separated from the means of

transportation,

how can the rainwater of the block be recycled,

how can the arts be integrated into architecture

in houses, in piazzas, in campi?

Shall we turn Verona’s Castelvecchio

into an intensive care center for buildings’ restorers

on how to infuse modernity into our historic heritage

with sensible and respectful imagination?

 

And what about prescribing intelligent structures

to last five hundred years

as an answer to a “sustainable architecture”

with less waste, better use of energy,

and better qualified spaces?

 

Our patient is in very serious condition,

simplicity is not simple.

 

Pronto, Professore, can you hear me

We can hear you well.

You opened an unfinished road

still to be explored,

still to be built,

still to navigate

towards the horizon,

towards the center of the Earth,

toward the expanding galaxies,

towards a new civilization where

science, vision and art,

space, matter and time,

and the spirit of man

become One, indivisible,

in the image of God.

 

Pronto, Professore,

we are listening

to you,

still.

 

 

Ricky Meghiddo

Tel Aviv, May 28, 2000

 

PELLEGRIN Buildings and Visions for Spaceship Earth

Luigi Pellegrin was a visionary architect way ahead of his time. He realized that the human settlement, as created 35,000 years ago, must be reset now at a geographic scale and become an integral part of the planet. I believe that bringing Pellegrin’s work to public awareness during a global illness and uncertainty is vital for the re-invention of a post-pandemic world. 

His vision transcended Wright’s philosophy of organic architecture both in scale and time. His fantasy was grounded on a prolific professional practice and experience in prefabricated technology. His territory was that of the Earth’s crust. His history was the history of the universe. 

Vision of integrated habitat

The 20th Century produced a large number of highly-skilled architects, yet few delivered a transformative message. Le Corbusier’s saw the detachment of buildings from the ground as a way of expanding green open spaces; Frank Lloyd Wright’s interpreted the laws of nature and translated them into Organic Architecture design principles; Buckminster Fuller transcended land use by proposing a planetary vision of geography; and Paolo Soleri attempted to demonstrate an alternative human habitat by creating a walkable, social city that could meet the needs of future societies. Pellegrin, the least known of this small group of visionary thinkers, believed in PROCESS, in open-minded architectural research based on trial and error, like in science.

 

WORK

 Pellegrin assumed his social commitment through the design of popular housing and schools. His first period, 1955-1965, is characterized by a poetically organic approach to low-budget design, using simple construction materials. His artistic creativity exploded in the design of the via Aurelia bi-family house in Rome (1964.) The traditional box is crushed. The round living room is suspended in space like a bridge that rests on two multi-functional pilasters. The bedrooms, enclosed within triangular prisms, are perforated by windows that direct views and light as needed. This is an organic architecture expression, not-mimetic of Wright’s style.

During the 1965-1976 period, Pellegrin focuses his social commitment on the design of prefabricated schools. From kindergartens to high schools, he laboriously invested most of his energy in the design of articulated interior spaces, even when, given limited budgets, he had to simplify the buildings’ exteriors.

The accumulation of knowledge and creativity in prefabricated technology generated a gigantic design-jump in 1969, with the International Competition for the Design of the New University of Barcelona. Pellegrin’s concept had no precedent. He designed the common areas, such as libraries, sports facilities, and cafeterias on the ground, and suspended from the top, above these, classrooms to be used by the students as a circuit. The project won second prize. The jurors were not ready for such an outbreak.

The spatial concept for the University of Barcelona leads to another revolutionary project in 1970. The subject was a design competition for the ZEN Cardillo neighborhood in Palermo. While the ground was dedicated to commercial, social and cultural activities intertwined with green areas, the housing for 17,000 inhabitants was suspended in the space 30 to 90 feet above it. The structure was defined by 30 hollow pylons supporting the housing above, and its total footprint was 35% of a conventional project for the same number of inhabitants.

The ideas for the Barcelona and Palermo projects found their way in a design competition of two unified schools in Pisa. The program was complex. His design concept included the roof as a ramp that would become an open space accessible to the neighborhood, flexible classrooms on the top, and at the ground floor all the common services that could be used by the neighborhood when the classrooms were closed. The design was way ahead of his time. It was misunderstood by its users. Conservative teachers and city authorities asked for its demolition which was fought by many committed architects.

During the twenty-five years that followed the Pisa school’s building, Pellegrin’s prolific production moved in three parallel directions:

1. He continued to design and build prefabricated schools. It is notable to observe that out of 300 built buildings he produced, 200 were schools, 72 of which were built in Saudi Arabia.

2. He focused his research on the industrialization and mobility of components (roofs, walls, column-beams, residential tubes, emergency housing units) in many materials (concrete, aluminum, steel, fiberglass, bamboo.)

3. He expanded his research on integral urbanization at a geographic scale (habitat, services, commerce, mobility) through multi-directional and multi-use “vectors.” These complex structures were elevated like freeways not only over country fields, mountains, and historic places without altering them but also over artificial islands in the sea.

 WHO WAS PELLEGRIN?

 Pellegrin’s architecture was an expression of his will to change the world from the bottom up throughout his professional life. His upbringing was modest. His father, Paolo Pellegrin, was a construction worker from Italy’s northern region of Friuli, which borders the Veneto region, Austria, and Slovenia. When Paolo got a building job in Courcellette, ninety miles northeast of Paris, he took his family with him for the duration of the project. Luigi Pellegrin was born there in 1925. Although technically he was French, he saw himself as a son of Friuli, an area with a strong sense of identity, where people speak a regional dialect, have a unique cuisine, and are proud of their way of life.

 His humble origin and his contact with the proletariat of building sites molded his character and care for people’s needs, for excellent craftmanship, and for a sense of hard work to reach goals. Unlike many Italian architects and artists of his time, who manifested their concerns for social justice by joining the Communist Party, Pellegrin spent his mostly secluded life trying to elevate the people’s built environment with limited resources.

 He studied architecture at the University of Rome, but, fundamentally, he was a self-taught person, an acute observer of reality, visible or hidden, in the spirit of Leonardo Da Vinci.

 The one year he spent in New Orleans after graduation opened his horizons. He saw America as a land open to experimentation. When he visited Chicago and saw some of Sullivan and Wright’s works, he set his direction towards Organic Architecture. 

Back in Rome, he felt estranged from most architects but established an intellectual dialogue with Bruno Zevi, who had brought to Italy an awareness of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work. This relationship developed into a not so easy 50-year long discussion. Zevi was Italy’s best historian and critic of architecture, the only one that Wright respected. Over the years he published most of Pellegrin’s works in L’Architettura. Yet, in 1974, he lamented: “Pellegrin was born to be a great architect, but he reduced himself to become a technician.”

 Although Pellegrin respected Zevi, he felt misunderstood by the master critic. For him, Wright was not only a genial architect but also as a thinker that transcended the Judeo-Christian and Greek philosophies that dominated Europe. Wright understood Buddhism and Taoism, Japanese art, and pre-Columbian civilizations. He believed in exploring the potential of materials and technologies and would have understood Pellegrin’s innovative productivity.

With Frank Lloyd Wright in Rome, 1956

MODUS OPERANDI

 Pellegrin’s studio was located at the heart of Rome’s historical center. The 18th Century building belonged to the Aldobrandini family. It was placed halfway between the Trevi Fountain and the Gregorian University, just across a small 17th Century church denominated Santa Croce e Santa Bonaventura de Lucchesi. The street was pebbled and had no sidewalks. The entrance to the building was through a large portal, sized to allow access to carriages. A smaller door was cut within it to allow people’s access. As in many old palaces, the ground floor was defined by a court decorated with marble busts and sculptures. A broad stairway led to the second floor, twenty feet above the ground floor.

 His work habits were unusual. He arrived at the office after errands in the city around noon, met with clients and consultants in the afternoon, left for dinner with his family, and returned to the studio at around 10:00 pm. That was when his design-time started. Surrounded by young architects, he worked until 4:00 am, seven days a week. 

Pellegrin spoke out aloud while designing so that everyone could follow his thinking process. We listened attentively, with music (Albinoni, Aretha Franklin) playing in the background.

 When he was relaxed, he spoke critically about many subjects: nature, science, history, art, politics, philosophy, literature, fashion, cinema, food, soccer. He could talk with the same ease about Michelangelo, Bernini, Borromini, Raphael, and Caravaggio on the one hand, and about Wright, Buckminster Fuller, Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Siqueiros on the other.

 His teaching method was indirect, not explicit. He gave clues to stimulate self-discovery through hard work. He thought that artists, mainly those of American Pop Art, understood the world better than architects. While New York’s artists adopted “the crude, the acid and the non-finished” for their artworks, most architects were busy creating monuments for posterity.

PELLEGRIN AND US

The students’ revolt of 1968 in Berkeley, Paris and Rome marked an era and defined a generation. It was punctuated by demonstrations, general strikes, and the occupation of universities and factories. The protests spurred movements worldwide, with songs, imaginative graffiti, posters, and slogans such as “Imagination to Power.”

The revolt was a protest against consumerism, American imperialism and traditional institutions. There were over half a million troops in Vietnam, who in less than a month had killed 37,000 of the ill-supported enemy. There were a counterculture and a revolution in social norms about clothing, music, drugs, and sexuality, all amplified by the lyrics of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Paul Simon.

We were third-year students of architecture at the University of Rome. The school had been occupied. We were not part of the revolt, but we were actively becoming conscious of the times. The Club of Rome had been founded at the Academia dei Lincei by former heads of state, economists and business leaders from around the world. The world population, 3.6 billion at the time, was predicted to be 6 billion by the year 2000. It was 6.1 billion when the time came. Right on target.

 The view of the Earth from outer space generated a planetary self-consciousness. There was an acknowledgment of the world’s limited resources. Buckminster Fuller published a book under the title “Operating Manual of Spaceship Earth.” Marshall McLuhan’s “The Medium is the Message” predicted the internet 30 years before it was invented.  

In the summer of 1968 we made a two-month drive to Scandinavia, mainly to visit and photograph the works of Alvar Aalto in Finland. We had in mind to arrive to Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) but we were in Stockholm when the Soviets invaded Prague and decided to change our plans. On our way back we visited Le Corbusier’s RonchampLa Tourette and the Unite d’Habitation in Marseilles. The trip gave us a direct experience with great contemporary architecture, and we were eager to follow into the steps of masters.

During the course of our fourth year of architecture, we started to think about our graduating theses. We asked Professor Bruno Zevi to be our tutor. He accepted but said that we should have a co-tutor, a practicing architect. “Chose anyone you want,” he said. Whom shall we choose? We wanted someone “organic,” with an affinity for Frank Lloyd Wright’s ideas. After investigating the works of a dozen architects in Rome, we narrowed down our list to three: Lucio Pasarelli, Maurizio Sacripanti and Luigi Pellegrin. When we saw one of Pellegrin’s smallest projects in Rome, a pavilion for selling flowers, we chose Pellegrin.

Trying to reach him was another story. For two months, we called several times a week and we were always told: “the architect is not available.” Nobody would set an appointment for us, and he never returned our calls. One day, already frustrated, I made a call from a public phone at school. “Yes?” answered a grave voice. It was Pellegrin. I told him why I called, and of the strong impression, we had had visiting the flower pavilion that he had designed. “Come next Thursday at midnight,” he said, and without adding any comment, he switched the line to his secretary, who gave us directions on how to enter the studio.

Luigi Pellegrin’s studio was located at the very heart of Rome’s historic Center, in an 18th Century building belonging to Aldobrandini noble family, halfway between the Trevi Fountain and the Gregorian University, and just across a small 17th Century church denominated Santa Croce e Santa Bonaventura de Lucchesi . The street was pebbled and had no sidewalks. The entrance to the building was through a large portal sized to allow access to carriages, in which a smaller door was cut to allow for people’s entrance. As in many old palaces, the ground floor was defined by a court decorated with marble busts and larger sculptures. A beautiful stair led to the second floor, which was about twenty feet above the ground floor.

Pellegrin’s quarters were divided into two separate areas. On one were the drafting rooms. On the other, facing the floor lobby, was a private area that included a reception room, a conference room, and his office. That was where he met his clients and professional consultants.  

We arrived on time at midnight. His secretary received us, let us know that the architect had not returned yet and that he will be late. She invited us to wait. We started to explore walls and shelves, containing samples of his work.  

Pellegrin arrived at about 2:00 AM. His presence was powerful. He was thin, with deep green eyes, a chiseled face, and abundant hair, undulated and almost entirely white, despite being only forty-three years old. He was well dressed, wore a green jacket, dark brown pants, and a tie. We shook hands. He apologized for being late and asked us to follow him. We walked through a conference room filled with blueprints of works in progress and entered into his private room. There were books everywhere: on the walls, over his table, on the floor, resting on chairs. His desk was laid out diagonally, with his chair facing the entrance. The only source of light was that of a drafting lamp attached to his desk. He lowered it to one side below the desk’s surface and asked us to sit down. Then he remained silent, waiting for us to start. I felt like being in a psychologist’s room.

We told him about ourselves, about Zevi’s request. I had written a few pages about my goals and he read them. Ruth told him about her ideas. We showed him drawings of our first joint projects, a public library, and a condominium tower. He looked at them in silence. Taking a deep breath, he said: “They are extrusions, thought in plan only. The generator of architectural space is the section, and the section is not there. Organic architecture cannot be an extrusion nor an addition. The tower is both.” Then he continued: “I can read the inspiration from Wright but if you want to have and architectural education, you must study Wright for six months. Read him, analyze his work. Wright’s works are not extrusions or additions. They are spaces to be walked through, to be lived in.”

He asked some questions about our relationship to Israel. Why Israel? Although he never visited it, he spoke as if he knew everything about it. He then faced me and said: “You can write. Write an essay titled “California today and Israel in the year 2000.” To Ruth he said, “start drawing.” “How do you know I can draw?” Ruth said with a humorous tone. “It is written on you,” he answered without smiling. During the two hours we spent with him, he never smiled. By 4:00 AM we felt a deep sense of connection. He shook our hands once again, walked us to the floor’s lobby, and continued towards the drafting rooms’ area.

We started to go periodically to Pellegrin, to get reviews on our theses. He was a harsh critic. Ruth’s subject was an integrative center for the arts in Jerusalem. Mine was a university in Eilat, specialized in oceanology. Since he had decided to participate in an international competition for the design of the University of Barcelona’s new campus, a subject related to both our theses, he offered to both of us to come and work at his studio through the competition’s design process. We were thrilled.

He gave Ruth a small room adjacent to his office. Handing her a rough schematic of “dwelling units suspended in space” drawn with thick colored markers (the genesis of many future projects,) he asked her to put it to scale. Then he took me to his conference room and, pointing at a mountain of books piled over the table, he said: “All these are related to the design of campuses and university buildings. Read them, and when you are done, summarize for me what you learned and what is relevant for the competition.” When I did, a month later, he said: “you have not understood a thing.” In his eyes, the old concept of campus with separate buildings for each faculty had become obsolete.

His submission to the competition was revolutionary. The classrooms were suspended in space, with all the common facilities on the ground. He won the second prize. The jurors were not ready for such an innovative project.

In 1972, when we returned from our Wright pilgrimage and stopped in Rome on our way to Israel, we went to visit him. He proposed for us to stay “for a while” and join him. There were many projects going on: a dozen prefabricated schools, a development for the island of Goree in Senegal and the country’s presidential residence, studies for prefabricated hotels, and continuous research on habitats. Our “shortstop” lasted for sixteen months. A lifelong impacting experience. 

One day he convened some consultants and the office’s architects at 10:00 PM. We all sat in the conference room. He said: “During the last year I lost several design competitions for schools. The deadline for the competition on the design of two unified schools in Pisa is in ten days. I decided to submit an entry.”

 It seemed “mission impossible.” The project was large, and the program complex. He presented his concept: The roof as a ramp that would become an open space accessible to the neighborhood; the flexible classrooms on the top, and the servicing areas on the ground floor, so that all common services could be used by the neighborhood when the classrooms were closed.

 Discussions followed until 6:00 AM. When the meeting was over, he called Ruth and me, handed us a set of keys and a big bag containing an expensive Hasselblad camera with interchangeable lenses, and said: “Take my car, photograph the site in Pisa (220 miles away,) come back and leave the negatives for development at the photography laboratory. I’ll see you tonight.”

 Twelve hours later we were back in Rome, took a nap (after 32 sleepless hours,) and returned to the studio at 10:00 PM. During the following days, two shifts of architects and drafting technicians worked 24 hours a day to prepare drawings for the competition. A month later, we found a handwritten paper stuck at the entrance of the studio that read: “This studio of incompetent designers won the First Price at the Pisa Competition.”

We went back to Israel in April 1973 and started our own practice in September, one month before the Yom Kippur War. In December of 1974 we won a conceptual competition for a 5,000 dwelling-unit neighborhood influenced by Pellegrin’s ideas.

During the years that followed, we maintained periodic contacts by phone, and during our visits to Rome. Our last encounter was in August of 1998. He made arrangments to have lunch together for five consecutive days. We were in California when we got notice of his death, on September 15, 2001. His ashes rest in Domanins, San Giorgio in Richinvelda, Friuli, at his father’s grave.

It took me almost twenty years to decide to make this documentary, during the Convid-19 pandemic. Pellegrin’s message for the re-design of the world has become more tangible now than ever before. We have all to contemplate a radical transformation of life on Earth. The young generation of architects and those following them will benefit from studying Pellegrin’s work, not as a template to copy but as a way of thinking. 

Filmmaking Resume Segments of Documentaries Shot over the Course of Several Years

This documentary is titled Filmmaking Resume as a reference to short bits of architectural footage shot over the course of several years, and published in Architecture Awareness, Cultural Weekly and in this website.

 

Although I have also created short films on art, politics, and cultural events, my focus here is on architecture-as-space, the essential language of architecture. This short documentary illustrates fragments on the works of twenty recognized contemporary architects. As such, it expresses how good design can resonate on a much deeper level and lead to a higher quality of life.

 

In dealing with the human condition in the 2020 decade, some of my future films are likely to focus on topics such as housing, sustainability, and open urban spaces.

Doc Snippets Selected Documentary Segments

On a recent event at U.C.L.A., the 43rd Congress of the Romanian Academy of Arts and Science, I was invited by its Interim President, Prof. Ileana Costea, about what I do as an architect-filmmaker. I decided to edit “an extended trailer” of selected segments from my films. I called it “Doc Snippets.”

Beyond some short notes on my architectural practice and of my passion for film since I was a student, I saw the question “Why are architectural documentaries important?” as the most relevant. Why?

The transformation of the planet to accommodate 10 billion people by 2050 will demand the active input of all its inhabitants, which would include self-help. Architecture awareness is critical to confront planetary challenges such as climate change, sustainability, population growth, mobility, food production, conservation of natural spaces, visual pollution, and over-crowding.

My films, most of them on architecture-related subjects, try to inform the viewer about the relationship between quality-space and human scale, and about meaning in the configuration of spaces.

As We Saw It – Part 7: Emotional Rome Streets, People, Architecture: A Personal Journey

Coming back to Rome is always emotional. It triggers pleasant memories of our days as students of architecture, of lifelong friendships, of great teachers, of great art, architecture, lifestyle.

To link the central theme of “As We Saw It,” ‘what makes a city great,’ with what we chose to document through film and photography, we focused on ‘the city’s emotional intelligence’ and its connection to our own emotions. To do that, we decided to record streets and piazzas rather than buildings, with few exceptions, such as the Pantheon, the MAXXI and the church of Sant’Andrea Della Valle.

View of Rome – Piazza di Spagna

Piazza navona

Formative Past: Architecture and Cinema

We were “adopted” by Bruno Zevi soon after we joined his History of Architecture class. Besides tutoring our theses, he also invited us to his home to have lunch with Carlo Scarpa and connected us with Edgar Kaufmann Jr. in New York, who opened for us the gates of Wright’s Fallingwater.

Our relationship with Pellegrin was also unique. He co-tutored our theses, and we worked for him on important projects: many competitions for schools, the University of Barcelona, Goree Island’s master plan in Senegal, Palazzo Aldobrandini’s restoration in Rome, and research on futuristic habitats.

Professor Bruno Zevi – Photo: Elisabeth Catalano

Architect Luigi Pellegrin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we moved to Rome to continue our studies in architecture, going to the movies was an essential way of learning Italian fast. We were also lucky. In the vicinity of where we first lived, in the Parioli neighborhood, there was a cinema club at a church that showed every week movies followed by a Q&A with the directors. Among many others, we treasure having listened to Roberto Rossellini (Rome, Open City; Paisan; Stromboli ) and Gillo Pontecorvo (The Battle of Algiers; Kapò; Burn!)

After graduation, we moved to Rome’s Historic Center, minutes away from the Trevi Fountain and from Pellegrin’s studio. Our same-floor neighbor was Adriana Chiesa, who, at the time worked at La Medusa, one of Italy’s leading film distributors. We were friends when Adriana met and fell in love with cinematographer Carlo Di Palma (Divorce Italian Style, Red Desert, Blow-Up, Hanna and her Sisters, Radio Days.)

Carlo had a rich experience with directors like Michelangelo Antonioni (he shot Antonioni’s first color film, Red Desert) and with Woody Allen. He also worked for Bernardo Bertolucci, Lucchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, Francesco Rosi, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. I remember his comments about Igmar Bergman (“he worked like a scientist”) and about Federico Fellini (“a magician; he ‘hypnotized’ his actors, shooting without sound and talking to them while shooting.”)

The MAXXI – Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo

Coincidentally with our visit, Zaha Hadid’s-designed MAXXI held two exhibitions that we wanted to see: one dedicated to Zevi’s 100th birthday, titled “Zevi’s Architects. History and Counter-History of Italian Architecture 1944-2000.” The other, “Tel Aviv the White City,” dedicated to the Bauhaus architecture in the city.

As a historian and critic of architecture, Zevi’s influence in Italy during the second half of the 20th Century was impacting. He published several pivotal books, such as Architecture as Space, The Language of Modern Architecture, A History of Modern Architecture, Erich Mendelsohn, was the editor of the magazine L’Architettura for over fifty years, taught history of architecture in Venice and in Rome, and was militant in the Radical Party, which he represented in the Chamber of Deputies from 1987 to 1992.

Zevi brought Frank Lloyd Wright’s ideas of Organic Architecture to the Italian peninsula, which influenced many architects, such as Carlo Scarpa, Luigi Pellegrin, Paolo Soleri, Marcello D’Olivo, Giovanni Michelucci and Aldo Loris Rossi, to name just a few.

The exhibition on Tel Aviv’s Bauhaus architecture, although very compact, provided an idea of the city’s rich past, which includes over 1500 buildings of the period.

Rome’s beauty is the ultimate urban beauty because it has been shaped by time, uninterruptedly, over more than two thousand years.

ZEVI Bruno Zevi on Architecture, Culture and Politics

MAXXI’s celebration of Bruno Zevi’s 100th birthday with an exhibition on his prolific production as a historian and critic of architecture, who influenced many of the world’s best architects of his time, poses an important question: can Zevi’s ideas, today, help young people to become finer architects in the creation of a better tomorrow? The video that accompanies this blog tries to give, through Zevi’s own words, a visual answer.

Zevi as Zevi

 Zevi’s capacity to communicate ideas and inject enthusiasm into architects of all ages – and not only to architects – was unique. At the base of his exuberance was a passion for questioning “assumed truths.” He brought to the surface what was really meaningful of a particular place, time, culture and architecture, such as the human scale of Greece, the static space of Rome, the complexity of Gothic space, the movement of Baroque’s space and the “free plan” and organic space of the modern era. He believed that culture and politics should be intimately related, with culture leading politics and not the other way around.
While supporting the positive aspects of 20th Century ‘s Rationalist architecture – the Bauhaus’ architects, Le Corbusier and followers – he acknowledged its limits. He knew that Frank Lloyd Wright’s principles of Organic Architecture where long-lasting because based on nature and history’s essentials. His first books “Towards an Organic Architecture” and “Saper vedere l’architettura / Architecture as Space,” both published when he was in his early thirties, had a powerful impact in  Italy and around the world as well.
You can’t read Zevi’s books lying on a couch. They have to be studied. Similarly, the monthly magazine that he published during fifty years, L’Architettura, was filled with content, not about the on-going fashions, but on projects of relevance.  John Lautner once said that it was the only architectural magazine he read, and Wright himself considered Zevi one of the few critics he had respect for. When we facilitated the connection between Bruce Goff and Zevi, he published an entire issue on one of Goff’s works.

Zevi and Us

Our relationship to Professor Bruno Zevi spanned over thirty years.  To tell of the many stories that surrounded our long relationship through letters and one-to-one discussions would take many pages, but a few paragraphs can give an idea.
  • As a teacher, Zevi demanded to visit at least once all the important architectural monuments in Rome, and many other across Italy. That meant intense traveling, photographing, writing notes and drawing. We made many trips throughout Italy and across Europe together with our French friend Bernard Lege in his Citroën 2CV (“deux chevaux.”)
  • Occasionally, Zevi and his wife Tulia invited us to have lunch with distinguished guests. One of these was Carlo Scarpa and his wife, who told us about his recent visit to Louis Kahn’s office in Philadelphia. 
  • Zevi was the tutor of both our graduating theses, and  Luigi Pellegrin was our co-tutor. When we first met him, at midnight in his studio, we had a two-hour conversation. We remained in close contact with him until Pellegrin’s death, in 2001.
  • In 1971, when we made our “Wright pilgrimage” across twenty-five states, Zevi introduced us to Edgar Kauffmann Jr., then the director of the Industrial Design Department at MOMA, who facilitated for us exclusive access to Fallingwater. We spent there three days walking in and around, observing and photographing.
  • In 1975 we won the first prize for a conceptual design competition on high density in Israel. He wrote about our project in an article published in L’Espresso magazine. When we finished our first small apartment in Tel Aviv, he climbed ten floors – the elevators were not functioning – to visit us. He asked to send him photographs of it, and also of a project for a memorial in the Golan Heights which we had not won. Over the years he published several of our projects: our house in Westwood, which was the first on record to have had solar panels and a vegetable garden; and our Senior Housing project n Jaffa.
  • For New Year’s Eve of 1988, we visited Rome with our daughter Gabby, who was then eight years old. As it rarely happens in Rome, the city was covered with snow. It was a unique event. Tulia Zevi invited us for lunch.  As Professor Zevi was playful with our daughter, she shot a memorable photograph of him.

Zevi by Gabby Meghiddo, age 8, January 1, 1988,

Letter to Gabby

  • We met Zevi for the last time in 1998, when returning from a three-week workshop in Palermo between Italian, Israeli and Palestinian architects. The news of his passing, in January of 2000, reached us in Los Angeles, while on short visit at the turn of the millennium. When we returned to Tel Aviv, I wrote “Pronto Professore.” The poem was later on read at the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles by poet-actor Jack Grapes.
On writing upon his death, Thomas Muirhead wrote in The Guardian (February 29, 2000:) “Zevi was a major architectural scholar and polemicist. With his passing, suddenly everything has gone flaccid; it is a disaster.”

It is now time to go back and learn from Bruno Zevi “How to Look at Architecture.”