The dome in the churches’ projects by architect Gaetano Rapisardi

The architectural and urban culture in Italy in the 30s is characterized by a broad reflection on issues of "renewal". Particularly, in Roman's milieu, the main reference adopted is that of classicality, or rather of the "romanita’" revisited through renaissance’s models. In this direction, one possible solution is identified in the simplification of the masses, in the synthesis of volumes and shapes, in the abolition of decorative elements, in the gradual return to the pure geometric forms. Such a cultural reference, for example, is particularly effective in imagining new cities. Here the medieval symbolic apparatus is revisited, reviewed and then transformed through the syntactic-perceptual model of the central Renaissance’s perspective. Otherwise, this turns out to be adequate in the design of new urban monuments, expression of the modern state, that is the public buildings: schools, hospitals, courthouses, municipal buildings, local Fascist headquarters, etc.. For religious architecture, and in particular for the church's building, otherwise happen. In fact, satisfactory solutions, which could reconcile tradition and modernity, are hardly identified. Exemplary in finding a possible solution is the church of Cristo Re in Rome (1924-1933) by Marcello Piacentini. When the building is already well advanced, around 1931, the author abandons the first project, datable to the early '20s, developing a system in which put the dome in a favorable position, through the mediation between the Greek and the Latin cross. The reworking of the central Reinassance’s plant for liturgical requirements, the conjugation of modernity and tradition, is resolved with the possible variations of the dome’s theme. Therefore, in the Roman milieu this theme pervades and informs the research on church’s building type, finding realization especially after the war. In this background especially the paper proposed wants to report the activity of architect Gaetano Rapisardi, active in Rome from 1920 to his death’s year in 1988, faithful and invaluable collaborator of Marcello Piacentini, best known for the complex of Church and Piazza di San Giovanni Bosco at Tuscolano in Rome (1951-1959). In the documentation concerning the long and fruitful architect’s career, his production of worship buildings is very low before the war, whereas between 1945 and 1960 the documentation in this area becomes plentiful. In the activity of these years emerges a dominant interest: the need to identify a possible synthesis between the longitudinal plant, required, and the central plant, desired. The different solutions proposed in his various projects all revolve, almost obsessively, on the theme of the dome, whereby he spectacularly transforms also the soberest and shabbiest examples. Therefore, the paper seeks to dwell on the constant and detailed interest about the dome’s theme shown by Gaetano Rapisardi in his numerous churches’ projects developed between 1945 and 1960. This consideration will be conducted primarily through in-depth analysis of some of his original drawings, with the aim of identifying a possible evolution in the different solutions proposed.