Architecture as a Living Act: Leonardo Ricci

(Paperback)

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This book, the first monograph on Leonardo Riccis work, uses archive materials, some of which have never been published, to investigate the entire range of his activity by examining some of his most interesting projects, and putting them into the context of the current architectural panorama.

His professional activity in the passionate climate of post-war reconstruction in Italy, his communitarian projects and experimental family residences, his book Anonymous (20th Century) in which he analyzed with an existentialist approach his work in the areas of painting, architecture, and urban planning, his visionary projects for Earth-City macrostructures, his innovative approach to the spatial organization of public institutions in his last projects, every step of Riccis work was always coherently connected to a basic aim: to translate into an architectural form the dynamism of phenomena and the incessant flow of life.

The book investigates Leonardo Ricci's practical and theoretical approach to architectural design, giving this exceptional figure the recognition he deserves within the panorama of Italian and international architecture following the Second World War.

Reviews

"Leonardo Ricci's extraordinary inventiveness; his deep conviction of the collective and social role of architecture, both as habitat and symbol; his ability to respond to the natural environment; his innovative approach to the spatial organization of public institutions; and his genuine sense of the end of the era of "stars," all combine to resonate with our present concerns, and impel his reinstatement as a figure neither too early nor too late but timely, precisely in this time of environmental and social urgency." --Anthony Vidler

Author Bio

Maria Clara Ghia is Assistant Professor in History of architecture at Sapienza University in Rome. She holds two PhDs in Architecture theory and design and in Philosophy. For her studies on Leonardo Ricci, she won the Bruno Zevi International Prize in 2011 and the Enrico Guidoni Prize in 2019.