On October 9, 2010, the International Center for the Documentation of Mosaic (CIDM) of the Museum of Art of the City of Ravenna (MAR) organized a conference entitled Talks about Mosaic: Architecture and the Mosaic. The conference was dedicated to the complex relationship between architectural design and mosaic art in contemporary culture, with particular attention to Ravenna’s experience in the 20th century. The event, organized by Claudio Spadoni, the director of the museum, and Michele Tosi, art historian and lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts of Ravenna, was enthusiastically received by a very diverse audience. The participating speakers were: Michele Tosi, Art Historian; Antonella Rinaldi, Superintendent of Architectural and Landscape Assets of the Province of Ravenna; Linda Kniffitz, Curator of the International Center for the Documentation of Mosaic; Sergio Bianchini, Architect; Massimiliano Casavecchia, High School Director of Studies on the City and its Territory; Paolo Coretti, Architect and Designer; and Ugo La Pietra, Architect and Designer.
In the afternoon, a round table discussion was organized. There, the speakers of the day were joined by other experts, exchanging opinions about the current and future possibilities of mosaic. The discussion generated interesting ideas to promote the dialogue between the culture of architecture and the culture of mosaic art. The meeting was attended by: Maria Rita Bentini, Coordinator of the Academy of Fine Arts of Ravenna; Alberto Giorgio Cassani, Professor of Architecture and Urban Elements, Academy of Fine Arts of Venice and Ravenna; Gianroberto Galleri, National President of the artistic and traditional CAN; Gabriele Gardini, Head of Culture of the Province of Ravenna; Gabriele Lelli, Architect; Danilo Naglia, Architect; and Gioia Gatta Morta, Order of Ravenna’s Architects, among others.
Mosaic decoration in Ravenna in the 20th century: memory, workforce commission
Linda KniffitzRavenna bases its relationship with mosaic not only upon the great witnesses of its distant past, but also – as is true of the 20th century – on the rediscovery of the discrete modes of making mosaic, first by means of restoration and then by an increase in the number of its workshops. Three conditions, although not completely sufficient, are necessary in order to obtain the reaffirmation of an artistic tradition. First, the memory of a great past, which stimulates the desire for knowledge. This willingness to understand then leads, secondly, to know-how and thus to a workshop, and eventually the workshop itself necessarily requires a commissioner.
Memory
Ravenna, the once-imperial city, has kept significant record of her extraordinary history: her mosaics, unique for their abundance, extension and stylistic consistency. Between the fifth and sixth century, the city fully experienced the transition between the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, and saw the gradual affirmation of Christian doctrine. At the end of this development, long after the time of the city’s greatness, there were still 250 religious buildings in Ravenna in the 11th century, many of them decorated with mosaic surfaces.
At a time when no sufficiently-defined and ecumenical canon had yet seized the upper hand, the patronage of such works was obviously a matter for public institutions. The commissioner [of mosaic] wanted to leave a highly visible, reiterated mark of doctrine that had to be immediately replaced by a new one that would be equally strong after each political and/or religious upheaval. The first commissioner was, of course, Galla Placidia (Regent until 437, died in 450) who, motivated by religious fervor, ordered the construction of basilicas and mausoleums, including the churches of Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Cross (San Giovanni Evangelista and Santa Croce) and the adjacent, so-called Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. In addition, she also founded a convent. Her son, Valentinian III (Emperor from 425 to 465) supported the iconographic-doctrinal renewal program of Bishop Neone, completing the construction and decoration of the Cathedral, the Neonian Baptistery and the Church of the Holy Apostles, now Saint Francis. Theodoric (King of Italy from 493 to 526), built numerous religious buildings for the Aryan worship services exercised by his people, including the Palatine Basilica, dedicated to Christ the Redeemer. Under his reign, the Bishop’s Palace and the Chapel of St. Andrew’s were completed. In the years 547 and 549, Bishop Maximian, the long arm of Justinian (Emperor of the East from 527 to 565), completed the construction and decoration of San Vitale and Saint Apollinaris in Classe. After the final defeat of the Arians, Bishop Agnello re-consecrated the Church of Christ the Redeemer to the Catholic cult in 561. Parts of the church’s decoration were both eliminated and re-covered with mosaics and the church was then dedicated to St. Martino coelo aureo. Since the 9th century the church has been dedicated to Saint Apollinaris. In all of these splendid monuments, wall mosaics appear not only as the companion to profane antique mosaic, and not even as a mere offset to the floor mosaics: on the contrary, they become the first choice of a didactical and doctrinal message. Their status is rooted in strongly intentional choices: from the beginning, wall mosaic is perceived as the sublime medium par excellence, due to the distinguished character of its patronage, the preciousness of its materials (which required substantial funds) and its fine technical achievement, which implied a group of artisans with varied responsibilities. In other words: it was nothing less than a strong symbolic investment.
The Workforce
The origin of the craftsmen of late antiquity can only be traced with a certain probability: they were Italic and Byzantine workers, some of them from Ravenna. We cannot say with certainty whether there existed a mosaic school in Ravenna at that time, yet there is no doubt that Ravenna did have its own unique style in the first half of the 5th century, a style that was different from the art of mosaic-making carried out in the two leading centers from which Ravenna’s workers probably came: Rome and Constantinople.
In Rome, the apse mosaic of Santa Pudenziana from the early 5th century, which depicts the heavenly Jerusalem – perhaps the earliest evidence of a Christian wall mosaic – displays a solemn scene, almost a series of sculptures set within a city. The style of the figures clearly shows classical design. In Santa Maria Maggiore, also in Rome, the decorations of the Sistine Chapel (early to mid-5th century) display a largely original style, frenetic, epic and untraceable to previous models, except perhaps to the military repertoire of the imperial iconography. In Constantinople, the narrative wall mosaic of the 5th and 6th century was probably not widespread. Some mosaic decorations may have been destroyed by iconoclasts, but we certainly know that the apse of Santa Sophia and Sant’Irene displayed a large cross on a gold background as their only mosaic decoration. We can therefore infer that, while certainly parallel to that of other mosaic centers such as Rome and Constantinople, the development of mosaic decoration in Ravenna during the era of Gala Placidia, Theodoric, and Justinian is also independent in terms of style and iconographic choices, as well as in terms of the kind of images that were displayed in the way of an epiphany or a narration. We can therefore rightfully speak of a «Ravenna style» which evolved over two centuries, and likely included a circle of local artists. After the end of the Exarchate, no substantial mosaic works were executed in Ravenna for a long time, with the only exception being some pavement sections in Saint John the Evangelist, built in 1213 by master craftsmen of Ravenna. The tradition of mosaic continued in other cities, such as Istanbul, Rome, Venice, Palermo and Kiev. Yet after an interruption of several centuries, two events in the late 19th century turned the tables: a shift in the taste and perception of art, as the emergence of symbolism revived interest in a strongly iconic style such as that of Late Antiquity and the Medieval age; and a need to preserve the excellent artwork of the past as a factor of cohesion within the new Kingdom of Italy. The campaign to restore the local mosaic artwork of Ravenna revealed the need for a local workforce, leading Vittorio Guaccimanni to open the Course of the Mosaic at the Academy of Fine Arts of Ravenna in 1924. A group formed – the «Mosaic Masters», as they were labeled by Severini – that could now be fully identified as their own distinct school, both in terms of the high quality of their work, as well as their loyalty to the ancient technique, learned on the scaffolding in the restoration of mosaics. In the years after the Second World War, the decision was taken to expand the students’ educational possibilities, with the establishment of the still-extant Institute of Mosaic Art Gino Severini in 1959. In 1984, the School (nowadays High School) for Mosaic Restoration of the Superintendency of Ravenna, affiliated with the Workshop of Hardstones (Opificerie di Pietra Dura) in Florence, was opened. Apart from these state institutions, other professional training courses in the art of mosaic opened in Ravenna – among others, the Vocational Training Centre Albe Steiner, which was active from 1983 to 1998, until the Ministry of Education changed the laws for vocational schools, both for lack of funds as well as lack of enrollments, leaving the school in a predicament.
Patronage
In the olden days, the patron of a mosaic artwork was the prince, and thus a person with a centralizing power that orchestrated the entire decoration of a building for political, religious and doctrinal purposes. Yet this situation had completely changed by the 20th century. The government and the public administration no longer – or only in some rare occasions – played the role of commissioner. Nowadays, the role of public administration is to care for the valorization of the artistic and productive conditions of the territory. On the occasion of the «Exhibition of Modern Mosaics» in 1959, the Group of Mosaicists (Gruppo Mosaicisti) created what is probably the most prestigious collection of contemporary mosaics on movable panel. At the same time, a conference on the «Art of the Modern Mosaic» was organized: one of the published talks, entitled «Mosaic and Architecture» was held by Paolo Portoghesi. The reflections of Portoghesi are still relevant today, as he recommends to architects to further the potential of mosaic, including it as a possible substantial element within their projects. In 1976, the Biennale of Modern Mosaic was held in Ravenna. It offered an overview of mosaic artwork in the city’s streets and squares and three indoor venues: the Museum of Art, the Franciscan Cloisters and the City Docks. On that occasion, the Belgian mosaic artist Claude Rahir created a large mosaic artwork, Untitled, entirely composed of natural stone. Today, that work is exhibited at the Art Museum of Ravenna. In 1980, two International Study Days on Contemporary Mosaic were held at MAR. On that occasion, and by the will of Isotta Fiorentini and Peter Fisher, the International Association of Contemporary Mosaic came into being. The Association created the so-called Peace Park in Ravenna, under the auspices of the European Parliament, the European Council and the UNESCO. The park was opened in 1987 with monumental works by artists from all over the world, including Aleksandr Kornoukhov. In 1988, two exhibitions, as well as a conference entitled «De Mosaico – About the Mosaic», were organized under the patronage of the Mosaicists Association of Ravenna. The first exhibition covered the work of Ravenna’s mosaic schools, while the second outlined new applications of mosaic in the realm of design, using the projects of the architects Dardi, Mendini, Studio Alchimia and Minardi. Some of these works can be found at the MAR: The Portrait of Mendini, The Head of a Warrior, the Solemn Piece of Furniture, the mosaic ‘altarpiece’ of the Solemn Chamber, and, since 1992, the work Musive, curated by Elisabetta Gonzo and Alessandro Vicari and exhibited in the Refectory of San Vitale, with the support of Pro.Mo and the Ravenna Festival. The artwork consists of seven fountains designed by seven different architects and carried out by seven mosaic laboratories. Then, in 1997 the Dora Markus Square in Marina di Ravenna was inaugurated, a tribute to Eugenio Montale and his lyric poetry: a square named after one of the writer’s poems, rather than the author himself. We find several mosaic panels placed in a semicircle as if they were street furniture, designed by six painters, Giosetta Fioroni, Emilio Tadini, Concetto Pozzati, Ruggero Savino, Bruno Ceccobelli and Klaus Karl Mehrkens, and created by twelve young mosaic artists.
In the essay at hand, we have not listed single mosaic artworks, but rather a summary of projects focused on the promotion of the union of mosaic and architecture, as well as projects that had been exhibited in public. In closing, though, I would like also to recall the works of mosaic design and mosaic execution carried out by the Association of Mosaics Artists of Ravenna, later Pro.Mo: the monumental sculptures, partly related to the poetic imagination of Tonino Guerra, created by Marco Bravura; the many works of urban design made by the Cooperative of Mosaic Artists; the elements of architecture and design made by Akomena, Mazzotti, Tinarelli and many others. Many projects were executed in collaboration with the CPFP- Albe Steiner and the Art Institute. Then came the end of the 20th century, which was characterized by a phase of reconsidering and reflecting on art and its relationship with new technologies and the market. This phase has been going on for a long time, involving also mosaic, and not least it has brought about ever- increasing difficulty in raising funds for arts and culture. Even today we are in a time of transition and crisis. Yet we hope that the crisis shall be beneficial and guide us to a new impulse.
Mosaic, architecture, urban design: statements about the European culture of the city
Sergio Bianchini
At a conference in September 1984, the then-Mayor of Ravenna Giordano Angelini presented the project «Sign of peace and friendship among the nations», which eventually led to the establishment of the so-called Peace Park in Ravenna. The project was received with keen interest by myself and the international mosaicists invited to the event, who were pleased to create a significant artwork for the future of mosaic in Ravenna. The Peace Park, though not yet entirely complete or fully valued as «open air museum», still stands for a unique and modern idea, thanks to its interesting and artistically important mosaics. Taken as a whole, this public artwork gathers together the diverse artistic possibilities of the art of mosaic. In fact, the
works, placed within a single area designed to hold them, have different formal and functional characteristics. They range from «urban furniture interventions», like the fountain decorated by Claude Rahir, to the floor mosaic of the central square, made after a cartoon by Mimmo Paladino; from the three-dimensional works of Edda Mally, Jerry Carter and Alexandr Kornooukhov to the decorative walls by Margaret Coupe and the mosaic of Josette Deru, not forgetting also the great wall work of Bruno Saetti, San Michele, which crowns the small helical square. The park, located near a school building, is located in an area close to the historic city center and easily accessible by tourists. The area (11,000 square meters) was arranged so as to highlight its role as green space, specifically designed to meet the needs of the local residents. I have designed inner paths, parking areas and playgrounds and have also included green areas with tall trees. I created different levels of land on the originally-flat territory in order to allow new views. The renewed public interest in the park led to a collaboration between the City of Ravenna and the Superintendency for Architectural Heritage. This agreement led to the restoration of the mosaics by the School for Mosaic Restoration of Ravenna. The Town Council’s ambitious, but not impossible, goal to make our city an important center of European culture can be achieved primarily through mosaic, as an important part of the city’s cultural heritage. Among the opportunities to relaunch mosaic, the most representative is, in my opinion, the 2004 creation of the fountain Ardea Purpurea in the Piazza della Resistenza, near the city walls, by Marco Bravura. The interaction of mosaic and urban space, as displayed in this work, does not deserve to remain a single and isolated case. The work of this artist shows (like the similar mosaic project of Beirut in 1999) that the quality and art of a Ravenna-made mosaic is much appreciated all over the world. Another example is the mosaic tomb of the great Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev, a work carried out by the studio Akomena. Our artists are able to create a dialogue between the ancient art of mosaic and contemporary requirements of style, and they succeed brilliantly in integrating mosaic artifacts within each urban context. We should also remember the monument dedicated to the commemoration of the mayor Pier Paolo D’Attorre, designed by Mathias Biehler and carried out by Luciana Notturni, as well as the mosaic tower Heavenly Jerusalem (Gerusalemme Celeste) in the Speyer Gardens, designed by Enzo Pezzi. The idea that architecture and mosaic are opposed to each other has to be sharply dispelled. For quite some time now, the history of our city has been teaching the exact opposite. Imagining our churches without the mosaics or imagining the ancient mosaics without their architectural context would be a futile and misleading effort. Mosaic decoration and architecture have become a spatial unity and the existing examples we have offer us and speak in favor of both the study and teaching of a better application of mosaic within architecture and public space. When we talk of mosaic, it would be insufficient to speak only of urban furniture, as the applications of mosaic in the context of an urban building project can be manifold and varied: color
coatings (interior and exterior), floorings, three-dimensional works and the delimitation of urban areas are just some of the many possibilities inherent to mosaics, qualifying them for both public and private spaces. This is, without a doubt, the road to take in order to enhance the presence and visibility of the mosaic in both the city’s design and appearance, in its public spaces and buildings. When one thinks of a modern building related to the mosaic, the first thought undoubtedly goes to the work of Antonio Gaudi in Barcelona. Today, however, this direct relation between mosaic and architecture is often unfortunately lacking, and the awareness of the existence of a mosaic as an integral component of architecture almost always sets in at a later point. The right way to ensure a noticeable improvement in the quality of buildings, especially for public works, certainly lies in relying upon open competitions, both national and international, as they are the real studio in which the potential of individuals is measured. I think we can ensure optimum results by resorting to public competitions, which are especially important for enabling young architects to best express their abilities.
The International Competition ‘Mosaic & Architecture’: a recent experience
Paolo Coretti
The «Mosaic & Architecture Award – International Competition for executed Works of Architecture» was launched in 2009 and 2010 by Pordenone Fiere SpA, by Arte & Architettura, a Cultural Association of Architects of the Region Friuli-Venezia- Giulia, with the support of the Province of Pordenone, the Province of Udine and the City of Spilimbergo. The reasons why an international competition dedicated to the use of mosaic in architectural works was organized is due to the conviction that mosaic is both appropriate and complementary to architecture, that it has the ability to speak in concrete terms and with equal force on the most varied surfaces, that it is able to withstand in time, that it knows how to beat the weather and, moreover, that it has the ability to improve architecture. Such a competition, aimed at reconnecting mosaic to architecture, is also due to the fact that public competitions, whenever they foresee the execution of small-scale decorative panels (sometimes also mosaics), do not consider the importance of the object’s placement. Thus, in the case of most newly-constructed public buildings, mosaic panels are not designed and implemented together with the architecture of the building that is supposed to contain them. Journals of architecture and design show a disinterest in promoting the involvement of mosaics as an integral part of architectural design. With the exception of some rare cases
during the last forty years, even the Faculties of Architecture have never broached the subject of mosaics, thus disregarding all that is part of the culture of the so-called «applied arts». The competition was aimed at identifying what is happening across the world and emphasizing the best experiences in the field of the mosaic, thus assuming the commitment of bringing architects and mosaicists closer together in order to make new works, and make them well. The fact that the competition was projected in Friuli is in no way surprising. As is well-known, almost every family in the Friuli region has family members either directly involved in the building industry or in some way part of the «world of construction». And we also know that a considerable group of people, in a past not long ago, were working in the making of mosaics – and many of them still do. In the period between 1850 and World War I about 1500 shops of mosaic makers and floor tilers arose in Friuli, each of them helping to make the art of mosaic production flourish on the facades and floors of many Art Nouveau buildings in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. But the Friuli people also worked in Vienna, in Budapest, along the Baltic Sea and in the palaces of St. Petersburg, using the manners and style of the Secession. Perhaps few of them were real artists, but certainly all of them were involved in a constructive process that comprised the complementary relation between mosaic and architecture. It is perhaps due to the ability of hundreds of mosaicists that the Mosaic School of Spilimbergo was immediately granted the possibility of taking orders for works of international importance when it was founded in 1922. Even today, almost eighty shops of artisans and artists working in the field of mosaic are still active in Friuli. The seventy-eight works entered within the first edition of the competition in 2009 were made by authors not only from Italy and Europe, but also the United States, New Zealand and Japan. The committee awarded the Mosaic & Architecture Award to the Association d’une rive a l’autre di Grasse (France) for a collaboration realized with the help and contribution of the inhabitants of one of the city’s degenerated areas. The Award Mosaic & Architecture for Sacred Architecture went to the architect Alexandros Tobazis from Athens. He had realized the Church of the Most Holy Trinity of Fatima in Portugal, together with the artist Father Marko Ivan Rupnik. The committee also wanted to award a Prize for Lifetime Achievement, and granted it to the Viennese architect and artist Ernst H. Huss, as well as to the artist Christian Ludwig Attersee, whose great works greatly contributed to spreading the culture of the mosaic in the panorama of international contemporary architecture. The second edition (held in 2010) saw the presentation of twenty-six works from different parts of the world. The Commission, chaired by the architect Ugo La Pietra, among other prizes, awarded the Mosaic & Architecture Award to Marco Pellizzoli for his work entitled The Garden of the Giant; the Mosaic & Architecture for Residential Architecture went to the architect Dan Eitan, who had carried out a work called The Sculpture Garden in Tel Aviv, Israel, together with the artist Enzo Cucchi and the maestro Constantino Buccolieri. Furthermore, the Award for Lifetime Achievements was granted to the artist Ugo Marano. Today, the third edition is being prepared, which we hope will become, in addition to being an annual event of obvious importance for all those involved in mosaic and architecture, an opportunity for mutual exchange on the subject and a forum in which new topics of interest and new principles can be developed for the benefit of the world of culture, to unite all arts under one grand concept.
‘Project culture’ for the renewal of the tradition in the applied arts: the mosaic
Ugo La Pietra
It has become ever more evident that the representatives of the «project culture» (e.g., architects, teachers of ornamentation, decorators, designers) have not attended the local workshops for too long a time. The applied arts, from ceramics to mosaics, from alabaster to wood, have only remained in the hands of craftsmen who have taken refuge in traditional techniques in order to survive. Thus, an operative area has been growing that is all too often incapable of renewing itself, excluded from both the systems of art and design. In recent years, we have become aware that the spread of globalization could, in some areas, wipe out all of what is left of the «diversities» that regard our different cultures, concepts, and ways of working. And indeed, it is this new evolution of society that invites us to look with renewed interest at the concrete material culture – the culture of «objecthood» – as an expression of the identity of a place and of the appreciation of the genius loci, thus opposing ourselves to the globally applied system of production. A greater attention to this phenomenon has made us understand to what extent the expression «Made in Italy» is too generic a label, since Parmigian cheese is not Italian, but Reggiano; pizza not Italian, but Neapolitan, and so on. Among the many expressions of the aforementioned «material culture» that we still belong to and have the privilege to call our own – for it is a tradition that has been passed on to this very day – we find also the use and production of mosaic, still very much alive in three production centers: Ravenna, Spilimbergo, and Monreale. In recent years, Ravenna’s craftsmen, still working within the tracks of tradition, have begun to embrace «the project» even outside their own work, thereby managing to impart a strong impetus to the whole system. It is true that in recent years, many artists have drawn nearer to this ancient art, and much has been achieved since Gino Severini, speaking of mosaic, said that «its more vivid colors, its wiser and bolder contrasts multiply the values of a picture and thus create a chromatic texture so complex and brilliant, so bright and so sound as to be likened to a symphony». Today, I think, the best way to strengthen this art form is to provide projects
that are closer to the craftsman’s mode of operation, to move beyond that «interpretative» phase of the 1950s and 60s where the mosaicist worked under the direction of the painter. What we need to offer is a «gentle» project that accommodates the daily practice of the craftsman, slowly but gradually moving his production towards new horizons. Already in the 1980s and ’90s, this attitude determined the development of styles that were new in comparison to the traditional compositions for floors and walls. New themes were developed for both home and public furnishings, and projects for the «three-dimensional construction system» of the mosaic were realized. In this way, new collections of objects that I have presented have been highlighted (with the participation of various designers such as Paolo Coretti) in various editions of the exhibition «Abitare il Tempo» in Verona, at the Fortezza da Basso in Florence, at «La Mia Casa» in Milan and in many art and design galleries. In order to develop this field, which aims at achieving new expressions that go beyond tradition and move ever-closer to our contemporary world, an intense and continuous cultural activity needs to be developed, as it was in the 1950s in Cantu, where a group of architect-designers (De Carli, Parisi and Zanuso) – through art shows, new collections, awards and the establishment of the exhibition «The Permament» – increased the «added value» of the furniture produced by a series of local artisan workshops. It is time for new cultural models to grow also in the city of Ravenna, time for new artworks and objects – I call them «craft-made» objects – that refer to the renewed tradition. This project commits us to strengthening the cultural identity of an area also by means of environmental interventions: from urban redevelopment to architecture. Above all, it is important to succeed in forming a new generation capable of demonstrating the added value of an artwork and of communicating the various factors that constitute the actual value of a creation. It is necessary that the various cultural institutions commit themselves to a corporate strategy to increase the value of artwork made here, to the point of creating a market composed of galleries, collections, and the rank of artisan workshops. All of this in order to create a «system» that allows and enables the mosaic to play an important role in sharing our excellence at an international level.
The excerpts of the speeches of some of the participants at the Round Table
«Is Frank O. Gehry dreaming of electric mosaics? New possibilities for a contemporary mosaic» Ugo La Pietra «The Monumento alla Balnearita (the Monument to Bathing Culture), which I made in the town of Cattolica, Italy, is a
real experience that corresponds quite well to the topics covered today. It is a work that expresses – and possibly even enhances – the genius loci, the value and significance of the place (its social, environmental, cultural value, ecc). In fact, as Cattolica is renowned for its beach and bathing culture, it seemed right to me to create elements made of materials that express this local culture, such as mosaic (made by the Art Studio Akomena of Ravenna) and ceramics (made by the ceramists Bertozzi & Casoni and Fusella from Faenza and Imola). In addition to these references to the local ‘material culture’, I also introduced signs and symbols of the bathing culture of the Adriatic coast: in the Monument to Bathing Culture, I included a wave and a bather; in the fountain, Four Dancing Steps (Quattro Passi di Danza), I included the world of nightclubs, as well as various signs linked to the world of shopping. We must begin to perceive the public space as a space that needs to be furnished as we furnish our own houses. Indeed, we have to try to give an identity to the public places in which people live and work. «Residing means being at home everywhere.» With this slogan I already tried to direct attention towards public space in the 1960s, not only among citizens, but especially among those who work in the field of city planning and transformation. High-quality works can be an expression of both industrial and artisan processes: suffice it to look at the example Gio Ponti has left us through his projects, from the repetitive parts to the precious works created by skilled artisans. It is necessary to raise the level of knowledge about our material culture, and to know how to give the right value to a creation. Furthermore, in addition to the personal imprint expressed by the project designer and creator, it is necessary to distinguish the techniques, as well as the use of different materials and the artworks’ point of origin. If the question is: «industrial or artistic-artisan?» the answer is simple: both procedures may be used, but they both must be executed at a high level. Today’s industrially-produced mosaic is often associated with the low quality of decoration used in the paneling of bathrooms.» Paolo Coretti «I’m sure Frank O. Gehry is dreaming of electric mosaics, because some time ago I read an interesting interview featuring Gehry and Rem Koolhaas. Both spoke, albeit with different motivations, about the relationship between building sites and architecture. Koolhaas confirmed that, for him, the significance of a place was exclusively determined by its size and dimensions, adding that the project should not in any way be affected by the context in which the building has to be built. Gehry, however, uninterested in the units of project and their shape, reduced the relationship between architecture and a given building site to the thoughts which that site had evoked in him. Those random thoughts and memories, and these alone, would then become the information-giving elements of the project – and its relationship with its context – that would contain the future building. For both architects, the result of their projects would, in any case, be an object that is alien to the surrounding site; an object that could also be devoid of windows and space. What we
are dealing with here is a fantasy world in which most certainly even electric mosaics could have their right to exist, mosaics made of tesserae that would be luminous, interchangeable as well as editable and controllable in terms of Domotics. They would be indifferent to natural light and its colors. I think it is even superfluous to say that I disagree with all that. I do not agree with the mindset of these famous architects who are able to operate with the same «expressive grammar» at any latitude, who consider the planet as one single place where everyone speaks the same language, wears the same shirt and eats the same food. I myself am continuously linked to places and their specific characteristics: I cannot help thinking in Italian, but crying and singing in Friulian. I think that each construction and work and also each mosaic has to be made exclusively for a single place and with the materials of its ground. It has to vibrate with the light of the territory it has been set in. It has to be unique and unrepeatable. Natural and non-electric. With respect to the second issue that emerged during the debate this afternoon regarding the coveted emancipation of the mosaicist from architecture, I would like to reiterate that this emancipation would demean the work of the mosaicist. The work would be regarded as if it were any pictorial, graphic or plastic expression, free to be placed anywhere and, at the same time, the daughter of nowhere. This liberation or emancipation would deprive the mosaic artwork of the value of being an integral part of a building which is designed and built by the hands of the architect and the artist in a mutually beneficial act. Finally, concerning the possible relationships between industrial and artistic mosaic, and without wanting to examine the differences that distinguish the two techniques here and now, I do believe that one type does not exclude the other». Maria Rita Bentini«I want to begin my statement with the beautiful title of this panel discussion: the possibility, not only for architects, to think of an «electric» mosaic, a title that comes from the famous novel by Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which then became Blade Runner in its cinematic version. With my remarks, however, I want to shift the point of view and broaden the perspective, as I would like to bring in my own experience as contemporary art historian who has navigated the creative space that is particularly linked to the contemporary mosaic of the Academy of Fine Arts in Ravenna. Within the two- year specialization, whose task is to “form” and enable artists to also work with architects on urban projects that involve the use of mosaics, there is a course on Urban Design led by the architect Antonio Troisi (Studio MTA, Giancarlo De Carlo and Associates, Milan). In the past two years, as he has looked into urban topics, Troisi has been working together with Alessandra Andrini, an artist dedicated to public art. I personally believe that in Ravenna – in order to revive the relationship between architecture and mosaics in new terms – it is necessary to start with an experience that is now coming together in contemporary art. Here we are talking of public art rather than urban design, and thus of a project in which architects, artists, anthropologists
and others re-think the sites and above all the non-sites of the city in order to reach the point at which they can propose an intervention that reconstrues that very site within the energy flow of the contemporary city. This is a project discourse in which mosaic can have a strong impact upon color, due to its particular feature of light and of hue, due to its preciousness and due to its reproducibility. In our modern times where everything intermingles, we should not be Manichaean any longer (hand/ mind, craftsmanship/reproducibility or similar considerations). For the city of Ravenna, it is important to start establishing hypotheses with new coordinates and to firmly leave behind the old idea of decoration. The city has to organize public competitions that call for projects related to public spaces, in which both architects and artists would propose works in which the mark of «mosaic» is present. I was really fascinated by the way in which the city of Milan has planned the building of a new city gate, a magical and immaterial threshold, at the Malpensa Airport. The artist Alberto Garutti won the competition, together with the architect Pierluigi Nicolin. In this context, not only could Garutti’s conceptuality find its place, but in fact all different artistic expressions and languages could be called in, including mosaics, according to a project whose central idea constitutes a «reflection on the place given» in order to regenerate it. A project in which the artistic work has the goal of providing new meaning, that is: beauty. This way, the perception of places can be activated with different expressions. Among those, we find also mosaic, may it be linked to the precious materiality of Ravenna’s tradition, or may it be even «electric», as it has evolved not only through industrial reproducibility, but also through the aid of the new technologies that now touch all expressions and «languages» in contemporary art.» Alberto Giorgio Cassani «As I have been teaching for a few years in the two-year specialization course in Mosaic Art at the Academy of Ravenna, I often reflect upon the relationship between architecture and mosaics – a relationship that, as everyone knows, has seen moments of extraordinary symbiosis (Paleochristian-Byzantine Art, Catalan Modernism, the 1930s in Italy) – yet which has declined in the current situation of architecture. There is a brilliant aphorism from Marcel Schwob (from the Vies imaginaires from 1896) in which he says: «every building is made of fragments». Thus each kind of architecture is composed of different parts that the project somehow must hold together. There is another affirmation of the mosaicist Alberto Melano that goes into the same direction: «everything that is (a) fragment is (a) mosaic.» These two quotations can help us solve the problem of the relationship between architecture and mosaic today. If architecture is a fragment, as Schwob claims, it is in some way a «mosaic». Instead of thinking of a mosaic subsequently applied to architecture, or a mosaic that was even designed together with an architect, and as I have been reviewing some images of contemporary architecture, including several buildings by Jean Nouvel and by Dutch architecture studios such as Neutelings Riedijk Architects and MVRDV – works that are «true» and real
mosaics made of colorfully shining, elevated tesserae – I thought that these projects might indicate a possible way to respond to that relationship: the answer could lie in the perception and consideration of a «metaphoric» use of mosaic, rather than in the use of traditional mosaic. It is architecture herself that «becomes» the mosaic. Therefore, mosaic is no longer simply the application of tiles on the skin of an architecture, made of tesserae that are either artisan or industrial. In my opinion, we will see entire walls made of architectural «tesserae-panels» that shine brightly in the night. This is the direction in which architecture must align herself in order to reconceive her relationship with mosaic. It is in this continuing approach towards the «metaphor of the mosaic» that mosaics and architecture can live with equal dignity without the first becoming a mere embellishment of the second. This continued desire to subjugate mosaic to architecture has led Henri Lavagne to invite us to free the mosaic – after having overcome its dependence on painting (the mosaic as «painting for eternity») – also from its dependence on architecture, and to even invoke the conquest of design by mosaic. But it is not always architecture that runs the risk of putting the latter in second place. The reverse case can be found in the case of Picassiette, the maniac mosaicist who believes the mosaic to be the opus magnus, up to the point of wanting to cover almost anything with fragments, even his own wife. Frankly, I think these two ways are no longer viable. A third way was indicated by Paolo Portoghesi at a conference in Ravenna in 1959. He maintained the necessity of uniting technology and aesthetics. Another representative of this «equalitarian» conception (and of the view of the mosaic as metaphor) is Alessandro Mendini. In the 1980s, he suggested a possible relationship between architecture and mosaic based on the idea of «pixels». Referring to television, Mendini spoke of pointillism; at that time we had not yet entered the era of the picture element, the triumphant «electronic square» (and the industrial mosaic, I think, responds perfectly to this similarity). Thus, in my opinion, the challenge for architecture consists in architecture becoming «mosaic», using new materials that refer back to the classical tesserae, though not in size, as they will have to be larger. Not even architecture can abscond from today’s philosophy, that the world is an immense Tower of Babel, made of billions of separate pieces which we have to try to put together over and over again in order to give sense to the world. Even our way of thinking and writing is paved with fragments, with ‘cut and paste’, with ‘discrete’ reasoning and hypertexts. Therefore, also our modern way of writing and thinking is nothing else than an expression in «mosaic style.»
SoloMosaico Magazine 2012
SoloMosaico Magazine 2011
Solo Mosaico Magazine 2010
Solo Mosaico Magazine 2009