Vassilis Colonas: Italian Architecture in the Dodecanese between tradition and modernity

Forlì, 13-15 giugno 2013

L'architettura, i regimi totalitari e la

memoria del '900

Contributi alla nascita di una Rotta Culturale Europea

Architecture, totalitarian regimes and memory in the 20th century

Contributions to the birth of a European Cultural Route

L’architettura, i regimi totalitari e la memoria del ‘900

Contributi alla nascita di una Rotta Culturale Europea

Architecture, totalitarian regimes and memory in the 20th Century Contributions to the birth of a European Cultural Route

a cura di Claudia Castellucci

Veronica San Vicente Capanaga

Cristina Vallicelli

con il contributo di Patrick Leech

Ulisse Tramonti

traduzioni degli abstract realizzate da Studio Blitz sas

Immagine di copertina

Archivio ATRIUM foto Luca Massari

Progetto grafico, Art Director

Giuseppe Tolo, Casa Walden Comunicazione

Impaginazione ed editing

Casa Walden Comunicazione

Coordinamento editoriale

Chiara Bonoli, Casa Walden Comunicazione

Veronica San Vicente Capanaga

Stampa

Litografia Fabbri, Modigliana FC

tiratura 500 copie

Casa Walden Editrice, Forlì

codice ISBN: 9788890927409

Venerdì 14 giugno 2013

ATRIUM

Architettura dei Regimi Totalitari del XX Secolo nella Gestione Urbana

Architecture of totalitarian regimes in the 20th century in urban management

Ulisse Tramonti

Micaela Antonucci

Cesare Valle

Vassilis Colonas

Ezio Godoli

Eleonora Berti

ˇ

Marián Potocár

Tibor Kuslits

Armand Vokshi

Alexandru Beldiman

Tadeja Zupancic e Sonia Ifko

Italian Architecture in the Dodecanese, between tradition and modernity1

Vassilis Colonas

Italy’s colonial policy permeated all aspects of social life in the Dodecanese islands: the administration, the economy, the judicial system, and all institutions and social activities. Italy also carried out a series of measures intended to develop and modernize urban centers and create new settlements in rural areas. The buildings constructed in accordance with Italian wishes reflect the spirit of public administration and define new landmarks in the island. Overall, the architecture of public buildings exemplifies colonial policy and presents, in addition to being different from previous types and styles, an impressive stylistic unity associated with the governorships of Mario Lago (1924-1936) and Cesare Maria de Vecchi (1936-1941). Both of the governors were highly active but held diametrically opposed views about architecture. Immediately after he arrived in the Dodecanese, Mario Lago announced the program of works the Italian authorities intended to undertake. They included archeological excavations, surveys and restorations of medieval monuments, urban planning interventions in the historical centers, new rural settlements and extensive construction of public buildings (Rhodes, Kos). Lago also took special measures for the reconstruction of Kos after the 1933 earthquake and founded the naval air base and the new town of Porto Lago on Leros. Mario Lago’s first major initiative was to commission the architect Florestano di Fausto to draw up a master plan for the rehabilitation and expansion of the city of

Rhodes. The basic aims of this plan were to expand the city, incorporating the existing Greek neighborhoods outside the city walls, to position the public buildings, and to define new residential areas for Italian settlers. Italian town planning policy in the Dodecanese was not exclusively colonial in character as it was in the Italian cities of North and East Africa. Only in Rhodes, because of the decision to preserve the historical character of the walled city, can one distinguish between the traditional city nucleus and the wider city outside the walls. Florestano di Fausto, along with his proposal for , the city’s new administration center, would be constructed. In this area,

along the western coast, the first Italian administration buildings on the island were built according to di Fausto’s designs defining a unified seafront similar to those of Kos and Benghazi and Tripoli in Libya, becoming (in this way) the trademark of Italian territories in the Mediterranean. In his first works on Rhodes, di Fausto attempted to transpose Novecento, the prevailing architectural style of his homeland. His main references in many of the first Italian public administration buildings in Rhodes were to Renaissance, mannerism, and neoclassicism.That

fig. 1 - The Foro Italico in Rhodes

(Photo Alinari, Rhodes Archeological Service photographic archives) fig. 2. - The Post Office of Rhodes (Fl. Di Fausto, 1927-29)

(Photo Allinari, Rhodes Archeological Service photographic archives)

these buildings are not earlier

fig.1 fig.2

than, but contemporary with, buildings incorporating local traditional elements supports the view that the Italians had no clear positions on this issue and in no case could these buildings be considered examples of the policy of the «conqueror» comparable to those built by the British in India or the French in Indochina and North Africa. Because of its late involvement in European colonial imperialism, Italy was not in a position to follow the architectural policies of other countries.

Britain and France, in their efforts to establish their presence in every aspect of public life during the first period of their rule, imposed the architectural ideals of the home country on their colonies. Later on, reduced competition among the colonial powers and the gradual replacement of the military phase by an economic and political phase changed attitudes about the cultural heritage of the colonies. This change was evident in the style of the «protector», which replaced the style of the «victor» or «conqueror», as can be seen in the incorporation of local architectural elements into the architecture of new public buildings2. After these early examples of academic architecture, Italian architects, first di Fausto and later Pietro Lombardi, systematically began to incorporate elements from the island’s various historical periods in their designs, particularly those periods that offered a wide range of choices or were more closely related to the Italian presence on the islands. Gradually, public buildings began to incorporate elements from the city’s Byzantine, Crusader, or Islamic past, with particular emphasis, of course, on the period of the Knights of St. John, of which there are many examples inside the walled city. In the same way local vernacular architecture (with particular reference to Lindos houses), folk art, and even echoes from the architectural tradition of Middle Eastern countries, became the starting points of a quest for a new architecture, reflecting the policy of the “protector,” the role the moderate governor Mario Lago wished to play. At this point we should mention that the Italians, in their quest to find the architectural expression of their colonial policy in the Dodecanese, rejected a specific aspect of local tradition as a source of inspiration: neoclassicism. In Rhodes, even the Ottoman administration buildings - in contrast with other cities in the empire - were in neoclassical style as were many houses owned by distinguished members of the Muslim community living in the old city. Greek schools, community and religious institutions, and many private houses owned by members of the Greek Diaspora were built in the

neoclassical style, reflecting all phases of Athenian neoclassicism. It was obvious that Greek communities, which served ideologically as agents of modernization in the empire, were directly linked with the Greek national center, Athens, one of the most important cradles of neoclassicism in Europe, under the influence of the Bavarian architects and the young King Otto. The fact that the Greeks constituted the overwhelming majority of the population of the Dodecanese and were the most active social group opposing Italian occupation could be one of the reasons that led Italian architects to ignore neoclassical architecture, which was the only living and evolving sector of an architecture following Western models and could have provided them with the stylistic continuity they so persistently sought to establish in the islands.

The use of stylistic loans from the island’s Western and Eastern architectural traditions can particularly be detected at the Rhodes (1926) and Kos (1927-29) administration headquarters by Florestano di Fausto. In these two buildings Eastern and Byzantine traditions return to the Dodecanese, filtered through the post-Gothic and Renaissance architecture of Venice, to establish continuity with the wounded image of the period of the Knights of St. John.

For the Rhodes Administration Headquarters, di Fausto adopted a two-part Venetian architecture, neo-Gothic on the side facing the city and neo-Renaissance on the side facing the sea. It is, in fact, an imitation of the Serene Republic’s Palazzo Ducale, symbol of

fig. 3 - Rhodes Administration Headquarters (Fl. di Fausto, 1926). Photo by Y. Yerolymbos

fig.3

2 These terms were first used in French publications of the period and were employed by François Beguin in his book, Arabisances (Dunod, Paris, 1983).

the historical Italian rule over the East. Italian architects also used elements from other Venetian palazzi, such as the Palazzo da Mosto, one of the most important Byzantine palaces in Venice and, of course, the Fondaco dei Turchi. After a process of transposition and recomposition, these elements were incorporated to become, on another scale and with less aesthetic cohesion, the new reference points for the architectural style of the “protector.” This architecture, however, was still fundamentally an architecture of the “conqueror,” if we agree to use these generally accepted terms, for the Italians did not essentially incorporate elements from local tradition, but drew inspiration exclusively from their own heritage. In fact, however, architects did not need to study local architectural traditions or the architectural tradition of neighboring countries for elements of “Islamic” architecture, since cultural exchange between the East and the West in Italian art date back to the Renaissance. When di Fausto incorporated this architecture into his works it was a return to the original source of inspiration, following similar paths taken by all orientalist movements exported from the West to their countries of origin (Turkey, Egypt, the Maghreb). Nevertheless, for some public buildings in Rhodes, di Fausto drew inspiration from Ottoman monuments in the city and along the neighboring coasts within the context of the broader interests of his time in the traditional architecture of the Middle East. The creative incorporation of Islamic art in the relief decoration on the stone façades of Lindos houses, the embedding of coats of arms into the walls of the houses of the Knights and the gates of the old city and the fountains of the Ottoman period all became sources of inspiration for this process. Italian architects restricted their search almost exclusively to the morphological and decorative elements of traditional architecture, those elements that would be recognized most easily, and not to the typology or the organization of interior spaces such as internal courtyards, half-open spaces and stoas. The New Market, a development of the traditional market building type in the Near East, obviously influenced by the mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, is the clearest example of this architecture, for it is an intermediate stage in the city’s image between the traditional city nucleus and the Foro Italico, while the Kallithea Baths (1928-30) represent the highest peak of the architecture of the Arabisances in terms of the project’s size, the quality of the architectural proposal and how well the buildings were set into the natural landscape of the springs.

Kallithea was the peak as well as the turning point for this architecture, which began to call for more minimalist forms, closer to the constantly increasing references to rationalist architecture coming from the home country. In 1935 A. Bernabiti, who worked with Lombardi on the Kallithea Baths, completed the sea baths at La Ronda (Elli). This work is a transitional stage in the island’s architecture. Typological rather than stylistic influences from Ottoman architecture prevail, paving the way for an even more abstract use of these loans and incorporating them into a common vocabulary with contemporary Art Déco style. The most important examples of this architectural coexistence are the aquarium of Rhodes (A. Bernabiti, 1934-35), and the Gelsomino Hotel (R. Petracco, 1928-29) in Kos.

De Vecchi, the second Governor of the Dodecanese (1936-1941), had been Governor of Somalia and Minister of Education under

fig. 5 - The Kallithea Baths (P. Lombardi, 1928-30).

(Photo Alinari, Rhodes Archeological Service photographic archives)

fig. 4 - The new Market in Rhodes (Fl. Di Fausto, 1925-1926) Photo by V. Colonas, 1986

fig.4

fig.5

Mussolini. He had full political and military authority over the Dodecanese and his sole ambition was to make Rhodes a province worthy of the new Roman Empire. While he was governor, urban design projects were cut back, giving way to a campaign of “purifying” his predecessor’s work and the extensive use of limestone he wished to impose as the modern expression of the architecture of the Knights. Purification of De Lago’s architecture took the form of stripping several public buildings of their arabesques and cladding the walls with limestone as a means of establishing iconographic continuity between the medieval and the contemporary «Italian» city.

Architecture during De Vecchi’s governorship mainly took the form of what was called “purification” (purificazione) as opposed to the stylistic pluralism of the previous period and the revival of Crusader architecture (architettura crociata) as a symbol of the Italian presence and the “return” of Christianity to the eastern Mediterranean. With the exception of the Courthouse, this “purification” process was beneficial for the majority of De Lago’s buildings, for it focused more on eliminating decorative elements than on emphasizing the monumental character of the buildings.

The Church of St. Francis (A. Bernabiti, 1936-39) and the buildings for the Military (1938-39) and Fascist Administration (Casa Littoria, A. Bernabiti, 1936-39) at the Piazza dell’ Impero, fig.7

The main characteristics of the new public buildings of Rhodes were monumental scale, rigid symmetry, and the co-existence of classical and modern elements. This “modern classicism” ensured stylistic continuity with ancient Rome by eliminating all historical periods in between, providing a straightforward version of the architecture of the “conqueror” in all public buildings constructed in the New Empire’s overseas territories.

the «new» Foro Italico, redefined the city’s public space and became the new symbols of Italian rule over the Dodecanese. Although many stylistic changes were imposed during De Vecchi’s governorship aimed at expressing the new political and administrative aspects of the Imperium’s policy, there was still room for rationalist architecture to develop, more Mediterranean than Italian, sometimes closer to late Art Déco and similar to rationalist architecture in Libya and other Italian African colonies. The most representative example of this architecture is the Puccini Theater in Rhodes (A. Bernabiti, 1936-37), probably the

fig. 6 - Hotel des Roses before and after the transformations imposed by De Vecchi. (The Italian School of Archeology in Athens, photographic archives)

fig. 7 - Fascist Administration Headquarters (Casa Littoria) at the Piazza dell’ Impero (A. Bernabiti, 1936-39) Photo by Y. Yerolymbos fig. 8 - Puccini Theater in Rhodes (A. Bernabiti, 1936-37) Photo by Y. Yerolymbos

fig.6

fig.8

most important building of Italian rationalism in the Dodecanese together with the archaeological museum (R. Petracco, 1935) and the Fascist Youth building (Casa del Balilla, A. Bernabiti, 1934-36) at Kos. A crucial step in this direction was the designing of Porto Lago, where Mario Lago had determined that the architecture of the new town should be in modo razionale, in accordance with the regime’s policy, which had chosen rationa-

list architecture as the official architecture for its public image. It was fortunate for the architecture of the Dodecanese that in Porto Lago young and talented architects such as Rodolfo Petracco and Armando Bernabiti were allowed to create an entire new town “beyond the borders”, based on rationalist models and re establishing the archetypal relation between the modern and the Aegean. These similarities (white surfaces, cubic volumes, flat roofs, geometric domes) ensure a different path with regard to architectural continuity. With respect to the genius loci, far from a decorative interpretation of the island’s vernacular architecture - as was the case of the low income houses designed by Paolini in Kos - the church, the theater, the school, the hospital, the Customs house, the Regina Artillery Barracks, hotel, and, above all, the circular Market Hall in Porto Lago

constitute an exemplary, coherent architectural whole and the best example of Mediterranean modernism in Greece. The two periods of architectural creativity corresponding to the governorships of Mario Lago and De Vecchi still can be seen in the city of Rhodes, embodying the different viewpoints of “protector” and “conqueror” which have characterized all Italian colonial architecture. Rhodes and Kos were the first centres of tourist attraction in post-war Greece, and domestic movie producers used the rationalist buildings of the Italian era as an imaginary, almost exotic setting. All these buildings continue to be part of the architectural heritage of the Dodecanese and should be appreciated as such. Refraininig from destroying them and continuing, fortunately, to use them, however, is not enough. They must be brought, through a program of protection and development, to the level they deserve within the international post-World War II heritage of modernism. This heritage should be evaluated and preserved, in the same way as to any other cultures that has left its marks on the islands in the long durée.

fig. 9 - Aerial View of Porto Lago (Lakki) in Leros island (From the book L’Italia a Rodi, Instituto Polygrafico dello Stato, Roma1943) fig. 10 - The Market Hall in Porto Lago (R. Petracco 1934-36) Photo by Y. Yerolymbos

fig.9

fig.10

La politica coloniale italiana ha permeato ogni aspetto della vita sociale nelle isole del Dodecaneso: amministrazione, economia, sistema giudiziario e tutte le istituzioni e attività di tipo sociale. L’Italia definì una serie di misure per sviluppare e modernizzare i centri urbani così come per creare nuovi stanziamenti nelle zone rurali.

Gli edifici costruiti sulla base dei desideri italiani riflettono lo spirito della pubblica amministrazione e creano nuovi punti di riferimento nel paesaggio delle isole. In particolare, l’architettura degli edifici pubblici è un esempio della politica coloniale e presenta un impressionante unità stilistica, senza contare la sua diversità rispetto ai precedenti stili. Questi edifici sono contemporanei ad altre costruzioni che comunque incorporano elementi di tradizione locale: ciò corrobora l’idea che gli italiani non avessero chiare posizioni sulla questione e che in nessun caso questi edifici possano essere considerati esempi di politica di “conquista”, paragonabile a quella Britannica in India o Francese in Indocina e Nord-Africa.

Riassunto Architettura Italiana nel Dodecaneso tra tradizione e modernità