Narrare la temporalita delle architetture sospese. Paesaggi analoghi di rovine contemporanee e opere incompiute d’autore

Overview

This doctoral research examines the architectural heritage of incomplete authored works from twentieth-century Italy, a category lacking systematic theoretical and methodological framing. The investigation employs the ruin as an interpretive analogy for understanding these unfinished structures. Despite occupying conceptually distinct temporalities—ruins representing what no longer exists and incomplete works representing what does not yet exist—both conditions share a temporal suspension manifesting through absence and expressing themselves within the landscape. The research positions temporality and landscape as primary analytical tools for attributing value to these suspended architectures and recognizing them as components of contemporary heritage. Authorship functions as a discriminating element that confers meaning and quality to incompleteness, paralleling the cultural recognition accorded to ruins. The incomplete authored work is treated as synecdoche for a concatenation of design choices that transcend formal qualities alone, assuming morphological valences—both spatial and temporal—that become determinative in contextual dialogue.

Methods and approach

The research methodology centers on a taxonomic collection of selected case studies subjected to comparative analogical analysis. Interpretative redrawing serves as the primary instrument for morphological reading. The investigation focuses on projects by Francesco Venezia, Roberto Gabetti and Aimaro Isola, and Costantino Dardi, selected for their explicit engagement with temporality and the role attributed to ruins and incompleteness within their design processes. The resulting taxonomic framework reworks the concept of ruin through systematic rules addressing the architecture-history relationship, the space-nature relationship, and interpretative principles, thereby generating theoretical and operational models. These models function as design research instruments applied experimentally to Villa La Favorita in Valdagno designed by Gio Ponti, an incomplete architecture. The research proposes temporary and ephemeral interventions as devices for narrating temporality, establishing a design modality capable of activating new forms of inhabitation.

Results

The taxonomic analysis produces systematic rules that reelaborate the ruin concept through three principal dimensions: the relationship between architecture and history, the relationship between space and nature, and interpretative principles. These systematic rules generate theoretical and operational models applicable to incomplete authored architectures. The experimental application to Villa La Favorita demonstrates how temporary and ephemeral projects can function as narrative devices for expressing temporality. The research establishes that incomplete authored works possess latent qualities manifesting through absence and finding expression within landscape contexts. The investigation identifies authorship as the critical discriminating factor that attributes sense and quality to incompleteness, functioning analogously to mechanisms of cultural recognition applied to ruins. The morphological reading enabled by interpretative redrawing reveals how design choices in these suspended architectures extend beyond formal considerations to establish spatial and temporal significance within their contexts.

Implications

The research provides a methodological foundation for recognizing and valorizing incomplete twentieth-century Italian architectural heritage as legitimate components of contemporary patrimony. By establishing systematic frameworks for understanding temporal suspension in architecture, the investigation offers operational tools for design interventions that respect and activate the specific qualities of incomplete works. The proposed approach through temporary and ephemeral projects presents a viable modality for engaging with these structures without forcing conventional notions of completion or preservation. The conceptual framework developed through analogical comparison with ruins expands theoretical understanding of how incompleteness functions within architectural discourse and practice. The research contributes to heritage conservation debates by arguing for recognition of incompleteness as a quality rather than a deficit, contingent upon authorship as a determinant of cultural value. The experimental methodology combining taxonomic analysis with interpretative redrawing establishes transferable approaches for engaging with other incomplete architectural works, potentially extending beyond the Italian context examined here.