Stones sinking like bones. Notes on Italian modern architecture into the desert sands

When we wander around the recently uncovered ruins of an ancient Roman outpost, or venture into a recently colonized area, in villages scattered along the Balbia, we can glimpse, here and there, fragments of Piacentini’s dream and we can imagine and perceive, by means of the debris, the wreckage and the actual ruins of that modern Italian Utopia, i.e. the familiar, essential features that make this dream the logical, material prolonging of an architectural idea that has been nurtured on the drawing table by several generations of young promising students (Muratore, 2001, p. XIII). Starting from these words by Giorgio Muratore we’d like to focus on Italian architecture in the “fourth shore” during the Thirties; most of it is now crumbling, but still inspiring with its aesthetical values and poetical meanings. These modern vestiges now appear to us as both metaphysical and romantic. A vision that had been built and then destroyed, but still visible, understandable and still speaking to us: De Chirico-like arches rarefied and enhanced by the African sun; buildings dazzled by history; peeled walls that unveil their entrails/innards. This is what remains of the Italian colonial villages of the recent past, blown away by the wars, someway deeply connected to Roman architecture. Di Fausto, Di Segni, Pellegrini, Rava and above all Limongelli, were not only building designers but also ruin designers, following John Soane’s example. The blinding light of the African Mediterranean glorifies these metaphysical architectures; we can perceive a totally unique attitude towards the modern, which is specifically Italian. This is what we can call an architectural approach seeking the Degree Zero of architecture.Bones sinking like stones in the desert sands. Stones sinking like bones into time and into the sun.