Interview with
Alessandro Mendini Casabella Editor in Chief 1970–76
Interview by Olympia Kazi Milan February 27, 2006 Olympia Kazi (OK): In Italy, unlike in other European countries—for example in France and England where little magazines like Archigram and Utopie were born—the phenomenon known as “Radical Architecture” found space in mainstream and architecture trade magazines. We could say that Domus— the first magazine to give space to the Radicals —was contaminated by them. In 1970, when you took over the reins of another mainstream magazine, Casabella, it too changed radically. It was, in some ways, hijacked by the Radicals. Alessandro Mendini (AM): The profound changes at Casabella were
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also due to changes in ownership. The magazine had belonged to the publisher [Gianni] Mazzocchi of [Editoriale] Domus. At a certain point Mazzocchi sold it to an attorney from Milan with a centrist political agenda: Luigi Bellini. Bellini, who would later become commissioner at the municipality of Milan, was an open-minded and dynamic figure. However, when he bought Casabella almost as a personal toy—he was a very wealthy person—he was completely blind to the world of architecture. So, when the great editor in chief [Ernesto Nathan] Rogers left, Bellini replaced him with [Gian Antonio] Bernasconi. Bernasconi, a somewhat agnostic figure, had the tremendous advantage of having designed the Olivetti building in Milan, which is a magnificent building. His main claim to the position of editor in chief of Casabella was having built this building. He was a gentleman, but not a man of culture. He did not know how to manage a magazine. He wasn’t an organizer. At one point, I was asked if I’d like to take over the magazine’s archives. I said yes, because I liked to play around with architectural literature and reporting. I began cataloguing all of the project files that were arriving from the world over, and I organized the archives. Then, they said to me: “Now we’d like you to write an article”; “Now we’re sending you to conduct an interview”; “Now you’ll be doing this, that, or the other.” After about a year and a half, now I can’t remember precisely, I became managing editor, then editor in chief, and then Bernasconi left the magazine. During my time as managing editor, graphic designer [Angiolo Giuseppe] Fronzoni profoundly transformed the magazine’s visual aspect. Fronzoni was a very radical figure and a hard-core Communist. Fronzoni and I worked in symbiosis. In the beginning, we did some moralistic, minimalist cleaning up. Then, Professor [Giovanni Klaus] Koenig from Florence took over as