Chromatic gradation as a symbolic and spatial device in the European context. Piero Bottoni’s Cromatismi architettonici

In 1926, the young Piero Bottoni painted a series of watercolor studies entitled Cromatismi architettonici. They are almost unique in the Italian urban studies, proposing color gradations as a key to “symphonic” orchestrating the redevelopment of urban street fronts. This article puts Bottoni’s proposal in relation not only to Le Corbusier’s contemporary research, with whom he had a correspondence, but also to some contemporary experiences in Europe concerning the use of color gradations in architecture. Later, it analyzes the watercolor perspectives, the far-from-ideal city to which they were addressed and their potential illusory and regenerative outcomes. Finally, this article proposes a digital edition of the drawings, by means of a color interpretation procedure that provides the basis for an application of Cromatismi on a portion of the urban facades of Via Roma, Milan. This result, obtained through chromatic treatments of a photography, not only explicit the visual outcomes of Cromatismi in a photographic vision but it highlights a number of technical and operational issues that would have strongly affected the realization of such a color project. Nevertheless, time has proven that many of Bottoni’s intuitions were valid for the purpose of color plans, occasional redevelopment of slums and precise perceptual effects in architecture.