Not Existentialist, but Existential. Leonardo Ricci and the Philosophical Thought of Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Enzo Paci

Was Ricci actually an ‘existentialist architect’? And if so, was he existentialist ‘in the manner of whom’? Was his thinking influenced by the phenomenological approach? And in particular, how and why his research deals with the key theme of the ‘architectural form’? This essay focuses specifically on Ricci’s theoretical attitude, with the aim of contextualize it in its contemporary philosophical currents. His writings are compared with some of the most important texts of French existentialism, that influenced him during his stay in Paris in the early fifties, in particular those of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, especially focusing on his idea of ‘the absurd’. In addition, a particular consideration is given to the affinities between the thought of Ricci and that of Enzo Paci, the Italian philosopher who, perhaps more than any other at that moment, dealt with the themes of architecture in his articles published on the magazine Casabella-Continuità: Paci’s ‘positive existentialism’ develops concepts such as ‘relationality of experience’, ‘permanence and emergence of forms’ and considers architecture as a ‘relational field’ continuously mutable in a temporal evolvement. Those ideas are particularly relevant if confronted with Ricci’s way of looking at the architectural form as a consequence of the ‘potential for vitality’ inherent within the object designed, that should respond to the basic needs, or acts, of the users, which must be re-examined case by case to understand the ‘existential’ reasons of the project. The analysis of those theoretic themes, if considered in addition to the exceptional results of Ricci’s architectural practice, seem to give other compelling grounds for his reinstatement as a central figure in the architectural context after Second World War, and precisely in the present moment, when a re-foundation of the architectural discipline is needed as a consequence of environmental and social urgency.