scholarly journals Da macchina da guerra a “decoroso fondale”: la Cittadella di Torino nell’Ottocento

X ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Pozzati

From war machine to “decorous backdrop”: the Citadel of Turin in the nineteenth centuryThe citadel of Turin, built in the sixteenth century by the duke Emanuele Filiberto, became an expensive and obsolete object that hampered the enlargements during the nineteenth century. The Enlargement Plan for the capital designed by Carlo Promis (1851-1852) progressively reduced the military constraints facing the citadel. In 1856 the City Council decreed the demolition of the defensive structure. During the demolition one section of the building was spared: the donjon. In 1864 it became the urban background of the statue erected in honor of Pietro Micca, the “soldier mineworker” hero of the siege in 1706. Therefore, this project became an opportunity for the Municipality and the Ministry of War to discuss two central issues. On one hand, the need to set up a “decorous backdrop” to the Piedmontese hero, and on the other hand keeping the costs of the restoration project to a minimum. A well-known architect from Turin named Carlo Ceppi presented an accurate report about the choices of the “restoration” works. Finally, in 1892 the responsibility of the work was given to the engineer Riccardo Brayda, who was an expert in medieval and modern architecture.

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Reis de Goes Monteiro ◽  
Taiana Car Vidotto

The purpose of this article is to rescue, through documentary re- search, the establishment of the Brazilian Institute of Architects in Sa?o Paulo (IAB/SP) and the construction of its headquarters in the city, one of the leading examples of modern architecture, as well as the integration of architecture and other arts. First located in the basement of a modern building called Esther, its design, ob- ject of a contest, situated in the corner of Bento Freitas and Gene- ral Jardim Street, at Vila Buarque, had as winners and authors of the nal project the architects Abelardo Reidy de Souza, Galiano Ciampaglia, He?lio Queiroz Duarte, Jacob Ruchti, Miguel Forte, Rino Levi, Roberto de Cerqueira Ce?sar and Zenon Lotufo. It was built in the 1950’s, in a region that became a new urban center of cultural and artistic activities with new museums, libraries, cinemas, thea- ters, art galleries and bookshops and IAB/SP joined these spaces. As the building became part of a network of sociability among architects and other artists, it was possible to spread the values of the architects’ profession. Many politicians, young students, tea- chers, intellectuals and artists used and visited the building during exhibitions, music auditions, lectures and other events promoted by the Institute. Moreover, as a space of ideological exchanges, in 1964 with the Military Coup it became a symbolic site of struggle for freedom. Protected by the State Heritage body – CONDEPHAAT (Council for the Defense of the Historical, Archeological, Artistic and Touristic Heritage) in 2020, and in 2015 by CONPRESP (Sa?o Paulo City Council for the Preservation of Historical, Cultural and Environmental Patrimony) and IPHAN (Institute of National His- torical and Artistic Heritage), its restoration process predicted beyond the recovery of the physical structure of the building, the fac?ade restoration and the improvements in the use of some spa- ces. The renovation started and was partially completed, focusing on the structure of the external marquise and the reestablishment of the events space of the Institute, that returned to host events. Gradually, the street in which it is located has resumed its centra- lizing process of activities carried out by architects in the region. New young architects chose the same street for their o ces and a specialized architecture bookstore was installed on the ground oor of IAB/SP building. These spaces were a de nite boost to the resumption of the IAB/SP building as an important model of modern architecture in Sa?o Paulo, a local memory space and re- presentative of this professional segment. 


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Jorge Latorre ◽  
Jesús Sola

<p class="Abstract"><em>Gijón, also known as Xixón, is an important city that rivals Oviedo, the historical capital of the Autonomous Region and Principality of Asturias (Spain), in historical demographic and economic terms. It has traditionally been a port and, more recently, an industrial city, which experienced very rapid population growth and with little planning. After the industrial crisis of the 80s, the city wanted to become a tourist location more than an industrial harbor. Both its privileged location and the historical urban heritage that still remain are corner stones to make this change possible. However, the late and strict legislation (improvised to protect the last remains of a previously uncontrolled development) impeded a necessary urban re-design in order to shelter the new touristic supplies. This paper proposes some urban solutions to selectively modify the catalogue according with the cultural and touristic potentials of the city. These solutions were agreed by the working group set up by Gijón City Council and ERDU (Estudio de Renovación y Desarrollos Urbanos -Urban Renovation and Development Studio).</em></p><em><em><br /></em></em>


2011 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 347-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Fair

When it opened in March 1958, the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, was the first new professional theatre to be constructed in Britain for nearly two decades and the country’s first all-new civic theatre (Figs 1 and 2). Financially supported by Coventry City Council and designed in the City Architect’s office, it included a 910-seat auditorium with associated backstage facilities. Two features of the building were especially innovative, namely its extensive public foyers and the provision of a number of small flats for actors. The theatre, whose name commemorated a major gift of timber to the city of Coventry from the Yugoslav authorities, was regarded as the herald of a new age and indeed marked the beginning of a boom in British theatre construction which lasted until the late 1970s. Yet its architecture has hitherto been little considered by historians of theatre, while accounts of post-war Coventry have instead focused on other topics: the city’s politics; its replanning after severe wartime bombing; and the architecture of its new cathedral, designed by Basil Spence in 1950 and executed amidst international interest as a symbol of the city’s post-war recovery. However, the Belgrade also attracted considerable attention when it opened. The Observer’s drama critic, Kenneth Tynan, was especially effusive, asking ‘in what tranced moment did the City Council decided to spend £220,000 on a bauble as superfluous as a civic playhouse?’ For him, it was ‘one of the great decisions in the history of local government’. This article considers the architectural implications of that ‘great decision’. The main design moves are charted and related to the local context, in which the Belgrade was intended to function as a civic and community focus. In this respect, the Labour Party councillors’ wish to become involved in housing the arts reflected prevailing local and national party philosophy but was possibly amplified by knowledge of eastern European authorities’ involvement in accommodating and subsidizing theatre. In addition, close examination of the Belgrade’s external design, foyers and auditorium illuminates a number of broader debates in the architectural history of the period. The auditorium, for example, reveals something of the extent to which Modern architecture could be informed by precedent. Furthermore, the terms in which the building was received are also significant. Tynan commented: ‘enter most theatres, and you enter the gilded cupidacious past. Enter this one, and you are surrounded by the future’. Although it was perhaps inevitable that the Belgrade was thought to be unlike older theatres, given that there had been a two-decade hiatus in theatre-building, the resulting contrast was nonetheless rather appropriate, allowing the building to connote new ideas whilst also permitting us to read the Belgrade in terms of contemporary debates about the nature of the ‘modern monument’.


Urban History ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 632-647
Author(s):  
Jelten Baguet

AbstractThe composition of the political elites in sixteenth-century Ghent, one of the political and economic centres of the county of Flanders, changed from a relatively open elite group that included representatives from the craft guilds into a compact, aristocratic class. This article analyses the reasons for this transformation. First, the number of office-holders in the city council declined and power was increasingly concentrated in the hands of a smaller political elite because of interventions in the urban political framework by the Habsburg authorities in the wake of a fiscal rebellion (1537–40) and a Calvinist takeover of power (1578–84). Secondly, the once dominant position of the craft guilds on Ghent's two benches of aldermen was weakened by institutional reforms, a Catholic backlash against Calvinism and an economic recession. Thirdly, the growing wealth gap between rulers and the ruled, coupled with an influx of noblemen into Ghent City Council, gave urban politics a more aristocratic character. Consequently, a series of interconnected changes gave rise to a trend towards oligarchy and aristocracy on the city's benches of aldermen.


1998 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lizanne Lyons ◽  
Anthony D. Vivenzio

Without fiscal pressure, but with a clamor for re-engineering and service reform reverberating, the usually progressive Seattle began an improved labor-management relations effort through a series of project teams sponsored by departmental joint-labor management committees. The aim was to save costs and improve service. Unlike the other examples in this issue, Seattle didn't start with bargaining improvement or conflict resolution in mind, nor did it begin with a large and visible project like health care or a civic arena. Seattle started with a simple but ambitious plan, sponsored by labor and management, to create the capacity to set up well-structured ad hoc joint teams to attack potential savings and improvements under the umbrella of joint committees in each department. Cost savings and improvements came from such diverse services as the electric utility, the parks department, fleet maintenance, the municipal court and animal control. The resulting Employee Involvement Committees can discuss any issue, other than wage and benefits, that relates to services improvement. A citywide oversight committee helps to share lessons and to help put issues relevant to bargaining into play in the proper forum. With the help of a U.S. Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) grant, Seattle and the coalition of unions jointly built training and administrative capacity to ensure success. The grant and the city support expanded the number of management and union leaders involved with constructive problem solving. Over two dozen involvement committees were launched and made progress within a year, and many departmental joint committees were started or revitalized. The results of the EICs and related arrangements led to and created enthusiasm for expansive changes in the labor-management relationship. These innovative arrangements were also expected to affect the bargaining climate and a broader range of workplace, service and cost items. In a dramatic broadening of these early efforts, the city formed a city-level Labor Management Leadership Committee with key representatives from the city council, the mayor's office and cabinet department. The Seattle example, partly an alternative to managed competition, shows the possibilities in starting small, building capacity, focusing on service through joint efforts, and seeing the expanded trust moving to other aspects of the relationship and creating greater opportunities for improvement. This jointly authored perspective brings insight to understanding how the EICs became a successful event and an effective catalyst for broader change.


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 447-471
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Lavenia

The article investigates the relations between Neo-Stoicism and the model of the Christian soldier developed in the military catechisms which were invented after the Council of Trent. After bringing out how the concept of the just war had been Christianized over the centuries, it shows that in the sixteenth century the discussion concerning the legitimacy of conflicts, particularly in the Iberian Peninsula, became a matter of conscience in which theologians had a major voice and a political role. Increasingly, however, thinking about how to behave during a war became more and more important, at the expense of the traditional questions concerning the ius ad bellum. This was also possible thanks to the development of fixed military chaplaincies, like those that set up by the Society of Jesus in Flanders. Finally, a number of texts appeared in the seventeenth century in which theological-moral casuistry, catechism, and military penal law converged to discipline the conscience of soldiers.


1967 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl C. Christensen

In early October 1526 Albrecht Dürer dedicated the greatest of his paintings, the two panels commonly known as the ‘Four Apostles,' to the city council of his native Nuernberg. Although the work was accompanied by a letter explaining the reasons for the gift, modern scholars nonetheless have continued to speculate as to the full intentions of the artist. The subject matter of the painting, as well as the Biblical passages incorporated as an inscription at the base of the work, has turned the attention of most commentators to the contemporary religious scene, i.e., the recent establishment of the Lutheran Reformation in the free imperial city. One can also, however, consider this problem profitably from a different perspective, taking as a point of departure the question of art patronage and the art market in the early sixteenth century. Existing evidence, when viewed in this manner, not only sheds new light on this particular donation but also serves as an interesting commentary on the economic situation of the artist of the period.


2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miroslav Glavičić

In the third volume of the collection of Latin inscriptions Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum an inscription was published under the number 1745. It was written on a base of a monument which was set up in the first half of the 2nd century in honour of an Epidaurum notable P. Aelius Osillianus. The inscription was found in 1856, when two interesting articles about the find of that inscription in Cavtat were published in the Zadar newspaper Osservatore Dalmato (nos. 79 and 96). They were written by Mato Vodopić and Šime Ljubić. The author presents a transcript of the published articles (Appendix I and Appendix II) and comments on their contents, mentioning also basic biographical information about their authors. Mato Vodopić was a theologian, writer an natural scientist, who became a bishop of Dubrovnik by the end of his life (Fig. 1). Šime Ljubić was a writer, historian and an archaeologist, who is rightfully esteemed as one of the founders of modern archaeology in Croatia due to his self-sacrifying and above all professional work (Fig. 2). On the basis of epigraphic and onomastic analysis the author presents his own comment on the text of the inscription CIL III, 1745 (Fig. 3). P. Aelius Osillianus was an Epidaurum notable who probably originated from an autochtonous Romanized family from the colony territory or nearby inland. Namely, as his naming formula indicates, his family obtained citizenship during the Emperor Hadrian, and as early as the first half of the 2nd century it had risen significantly in the social scale band belonged to the highest aristocracy in Epidaurum. This is evident from the inscription text, since due to family's reputation, and his personal achievements, the entire city council honoured P. Aelius Osillianus and determined the place for raising the monument by unanimous vote. All activities regarding the construction of the monument and organizing accompanying ceremonies, which implied covering the costs as well, were managed by Ossilianus' mother Novia Bassila and grandmother Iustilla. When the monument was inaugurated, they gave appropriate gifts (sportulae), to the members of the city council, augustales and seviri, and for their fellow-citizens they organized boxing matches. The inscription CIL III, 1745 is exceptionally important since it documents almost entire procedure of paying respect to a deserving citizen during the first half of the 2nd century in Epidaurum.


2022 ◽  
pp. 67-76
Author(s):  
Imre Gábor Nagy

The purpose of the study. To show the role of pastoral animal husbandry in dualism in a large Hungarian city where the majority of the population lived from industry, trade, mining and transport. How did the city assembly approach the maintenance of the pasture that made up part of the land. Applied methods. We examined the archives of the Baranya County Archives of the Hungarian National Archives, the archives of the city assembly and the city council, the accounting office, the economic supervision, the city regulations and cadastral maps, documents and maps, and we reviewed the local press. Literature and statistical data were compared with the opinions of contemporaries. Outcomes. Research has convincingly demonstrated that pasturage was essential to the lifestyles of the poorer, more self-exploiting suburban residents in particular, and even in the 1910s, most cattle were driven out to Megyeri and Szigeti suburban pastures. In our period, however, the area of pastures decreased significantly due to the conversion of pastures into arable land and meadows, the expansion of the city, and the needs of the military (training ground, shooting range).


Author(s):  
F. Mariano ◽  
M. Saracco ◽  
L. Petetta

Built in the years between 1915 and 1918, and located on the west bank of the “Varano” Lake, a bay running along the village of “Cagnano Varano”, the “Ivo Monti” seaplane base was erected on a pre-existing medieval settlement which belonged to the Benedictine Monks from the town of “San Nicola Imbuti”. <br><br> During WWI, this seaplane base was turned, from a simple water airport, into a strategic military base for floatplanes. As a matter of fact, the large lagoon could be used as landing spot for the planes sent off to patrol the dalmatic coast, one of the historical regions of Croatia, then controlled by the Austrians. <br><br> After WWI, after the seaplane became an outdated technology, the “Ivo Monti” base was progressively dismantled and then totally abandoned at the beginning of the 1950s. <br><br> In 2014, considering the historical relevance of this site and the unmistakable architectural value of its elements, a research framework agreement was signed between the “DICEA” Department of Marche Polytechnic University and the city council of the town hosting the site, aimed at the development of shared scientific research projects revolving around the study, the valorisation, and the restoration of the military complex in question, which had been in a complete state of decay and neglect for too long. <br><br> The still ongoing research project mentioned presents two main missions: the first is the historical reconstruction, the geometric mapping, and the robustness analysis of the ruins, by studying and faithfully representing the state of deterioration of the building materials and of the facilities; the second is the identification and the testing of potential architectural solutions for the conversion and the reuse of the site and of its facilities.


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