"Between Renaissance and Modernism : tradition and innovative research in Gio Ponti's Scuola di Matematica"

On May 2002, presenting on The Sunday Times the exhibition "Gio Ponti : A World" at London's Design Museum, Hugh Pearman speculates on why an all-round Renaissance man –artist, architect, designer, poet and editor– such as Gio Ponti was not as well known as Le Corbusier or Frank Lloyd Wright. In Pearman's essay the historical model of the all-round Renaissance man is considered following the ideal of the Vitruvio's description of architect's competences (De Architectura, I, 1, 1-10). In fact, in the case of Gio Ponti, who was trained in the particular 'neoclassic' atmosphere which characterized Milan during the first years of the 20th century, historical models informed all his works, from the design of ceramics, influenced by ancient models, to his way of planning buildings. Ponti was inspired by the 'Novecento milanese', the artistic movement that proposed a moderate renewal of architecture based on an abstract purism derived from classicism. The principal instances of the classical design, the formal model of the Renaissance palazzo, the Baroque scenographical composition of the masses, as well as the elements and details taken from Renaissance repertory supported his architectural works. This paper will focus on the Scuola di Matematica of the Città Universitaria in Rome (1934), analysing its genesis and its models. In this case several classical models, such as the ancient theatre and the Renaissance palazzo, are used to create one of the most functional building of the Città Universitaria. The use of these models is evident in every detail, from structure to furniture. Here Ponri's taste for innovative structures, which later will bring Ponti to join forces with Pier Luigi Nervi for the Pirelli skyscraper, is flanked by the architect's interest for recent European research in the fields of construction, distribution, function, materials, as well as by his love for ornamentation. The Scuola di Matematica, studied in the context of the entire Città Universitaria and Ponti's works, demonstrates very appropriately how these historical models were indissolubly linked with modern and functional results, thereby illuminating the particular positions of Italian Modernism in the 1930's and the personal research of Gio Ponti.