Brutalist Italy
Previous project Next project
Zoom
Roberto Conte and Stefano Perego
160x200 mm hardback
200 pages
Text in English and Italian
ISBN: 978-1-7398878-3-4
Published in 2023
Concrete architecture from the Alps to the Mediterranean Sea
Architectural photographers Roberto Conte and Stefano Perego (authors of Soviet Asia) have spent the past five years travelling over 20,000 kilometres documenting the monumental concrete structures of their native country.
Brutalism – with its minimalist aesthetic, favouring raw materials and structural elements over decorative design – has a complex relationship with Italian history. After World War II, Italian architects were keen to distance themselves from fascism, without rejecting the architectural modernism that had flourished during that era. They developed a form of contemporary architecture that engaged with traditional methods and materials, drawing on uncontaminated historical references. This plurality of pasts assimilated into new constructions is a recurring feature of the country’s Brutalist buildings, imparting to them a unique identity.
With an introduction by Adrian Forty, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.
Related publications
Reviews
FT Best books of 2023 — Architecture & Design
We know Italy for Roman ruins, the Renaissance, Venetian exoticism — every architectural style except Brutalism, it sometimes seems. But this little book is full of wildly inventive, sculptural buildings by architects who have escaped the classical legacy of fascism and the ubiquity of the historic.
Best of brutalist Italian architecture chronicled in new book
- Imaginative and disturbing: a portrait of brutalism.
- The curiosity aroused by this aesthetic is undeniable and has definitely had a strong impact on the country.
- Brutalist Italy sets out what was an exciting, uncontrolled drive to erect buildings according to that material free will provided by concrete.
Corriere della Sera
As well as London Estates Fuel have produced excellent books on Brutalist Italy and London Tube Stations in the same satisfyingly compact and pictureheavy format. The former has a great introduction by Adrian Forty, reflecting on what’s specific about how Italian architects used concrete, and concluding that they were unusually willing both to mix it with other materials and engage with its contradictory properties (is it modern or ancient? rough or luxurious? etc.).
C20 Magazine