El despertar de la arquitectura moderna a orillas del Mediterráneo: debate y controversia en los contextos de Italia y España

Abstract

Arquitectos y teóricos españoles e italianos identificaron las nuevas tendencias arquitectónicas procedentes de Europa como elementos exógenos. Corrían los años 20 y se presentaba ante ellos el problema de encontrar razones locales que justificasen la adopción de las ideas y las formas de la nueva arquitectura. Para ello acudieron a la tradición que les era propia: la tradición mediterránea, clásica y vernácula. Dilucidar el papel que la arquitectura vernácula tuvo en un proceso de búsqueda común de un lenguaje arquitectónico propio es el principal objetivo de este artículo.

In the period studied ( 1920-1940), Italian and Spanish journals raised awareness of international architectural movements. Encouraging the dissemination of modern architecture in their respective environs, they became a key to its consolidation. The journals at issue include Architettura e Arti Decorative, founded in 1921 and later renamed Architettura ( Organo ufficiale del sindicato degli architetti), headed by Marcello Piacentini; Quadrante, with Pier Maria Bardi and Massimo Bontempelli at the helm ( 1933-1936); Casabella, managed by Edoardo Persico and Giuseppe Pagano; and Domus, founded in 1928 and run by Gio Ponti until the nineteen forties. In Spain, works authored by May, Taut, Gropius, Schumacher and others were published in any number of journals, such as Arquitectura, Órgano de la Sociedad Central de Arquitectos, Cortijos y Rascacielos, D’Aci i d’Allá, La Gaceta de les Arts, AC and Documentos de actividad contemporánea. The importance attached by these media to vernacular Mediterranean architecture, in connection in Italy with the debate around Mediterranean culture and in Spain with the national context, sheds light on the impact of the subject on architectural practice, irrespective of the positions adopted by the various journals and the opinions defended by their columnists. As a result of a revisionist approach to the Modernist Movement, a good deal of literature has appeared in recent decades on the development of modern architecture in the Mediterranean context. Drawing from those studies and focusing in particular on documentary sources, the primary aim of this article is to establish the role played by vernacular Mediterranean architecture in the appearance and unfolding of modern architecture in Mediterranean regions through a comparison of developments in Spain and Italy.