“[…] I wish I could remain silent with a woman. […] Having a kind of relationship with her as with nature. […] In front of the sea, in the middle of a forest, what are you doing alone? You watch in silence. But without you noticing there is a dialogue. Speak, and answer. As if there was another person. The ideal woman for me is the one who identifies with this other person.
(Dialogue taken from the movie Identificazione di una donna, directed by M.Antonioni, 1983)
Death Instinct and Knowledge describes the emergence of human thought at birth as a reaction to the light stimulus. Man is born from a slap of nature. After this first moment, the inter-human relationship is fundamental for the harmonic physical-psychic development of the newborn through the various stages, up to puberty and beyond, when he will be able to be actively involved to transform the surrounding reality. “It is not evidently possible to creatively face the relationship with nature if the inter-human relationship has not been built at first. If the birth of man is not born first and does not develop.” (Fagioli, 2013, p.176). This connection highlights the only viable path. The inter-human relationship develops creativity which allows to act in regards to nature in a transformative way without being harmful. It is an extremely topical theme with very wide repercussions both in purely environmental terms, where the climate crisis forces us to make obligatory choices in the social, political, historical sphere, and in the world of Art that makes the relationship with nature and inanimate materials its preponderant activity. “To give shape to shapeless things is, in essence, to represent. It is man’s relationship […] with his own images, with his ability to represent.” (Fagioli, 2013, p.177). The relationship with images is essential and this is doubly true for the artists who have the task of representing them. Architecture deserves a specific discussion, which among the arts is the only one that relating to the inanimate presents a transformative relationship with nature. It is a discipline that by definition modifies the environment by eliminating what it is to propose a new layout that will be. In this process the creative dimension plays a decisive role. […] creativity is such when […] there is no split between body and mind, […] Then the disappearance of the present is not […] annulment but it is immediately creativity: the disappearance of the tree due to the appearance of the table, the disappearance of the hill due to the appearance of the house … the disappearance of the beast due to the appearance of the prince (Fagioli, 2013, p.176). So, we can have transformation without destruction. Not only. Specifically in Architecture, the creative dimension allows to synthesize and condense problems of a Technical, Logistic, Social, Historical nature into a unique answer, and at the same time to maintain a perfect and spontaneous relationship with the surrounding environment by adopting criteria and methods of intervention in harmony with it. Following these assumptions the result will also be satisfactory from the point of view of energy and material resources. This is the reason why an architecture “with a human face” is implicitly sustainable. A practical example is represented by the architecture of F.Ll. Wright, who since the beginning of the 20th century, without the aid of scientific data that we have today, was already attentive to the quality of the environments, exposure, geometry and use of renewable materials such as wood, and at the same time becoming a global interpreter of human needs, proposing spaces in which man could recognize himself. In this sense, organic architecture, the forerunner of sustainable architecture, represents a field of interest to be explored.
Going back even earlier in a time prior to the advent of electricity and plant technology, the buildings were extremely attentive to the surrounding nature as the only source of energy available. The surrounding context, the geometry, the distribution, the materials and the exposure of the buildings were meticulously studied in the technical aspect to exploit the environmental advantages at the most. A matter of survival. Even today in the most different places we find traditional construction techniques and methods living in deep symbiosis with the environment. Moreover in the early 1900s, with the advent of plant technology, man freed himself from this constraint, but risked neglecting contact with nature. This trend was counterbalanced in the early 1970s with the renewed attention to the environment and exhaustible resources, leading to research aimed at energy containment and sustainable use of materials, favoring low consumption and respect for the environment. It is no longer a matter of survival, now it is a specific need that unfortunately has turned into urgency in the last decade. This field, supported by technology, represents an additional tool to refine the symbiotic approach adopted by our predecessors, while avoiding the danger of reducing the relationship with the environment to software and mathematical logarithms to be applied automatically to obtain energy gain. Setting ourselves the goal of an architecture “on a human scale” means knowing how to respond creatively and at the same time to social, human and historical needs without neglecting physical well-being and the dialectical relationship with the environment.
Bibliography
- Benevolo, L. (1999). Storia dell’Architettura Moderna. (33rd ed.). Bari: Laterza
- Calvino, I. (1972). Le città invisibili. (3rd ed.). Torino: Einaudi
- Canese, S., Carlotto, U., & Ferri Bontempi, G. (2021). Clima in crisi: Una nuova socialità per la lotta al global warming. Roma: L’Asino d’oro
- Fagioli, M. (2017). Istinto di morte e conoscenza (14th ed.). Roma: L’Asino d’oro
- Fagioli, M. (2011). La marionetta e il burattino (10th ed.). Roma: L’Asino d’oro
- Fagioli, M. (2012). Teoria della nascita e castrazione Umana (10th ed.). Roma: L’Asino d’oro
- Fagioli, M. (2013). Bambino donna e trasformazione dell’uomo (8th ed.) Roma: L’Asino d’oro
- Herzog, T. (Ed.). (1996). Solar Energy in Architecture and Urban Planning, Munich: Prestel Pub
- Instituto Italo Latino Americano. (1998). El viaje : Documentos del taller de diseño urbano en Italia. Roma: Author
- Manfredi Nicoletti, M., & Gallo, C. (Eds.). (1998). Architettura ecosistemica: L’equilibrio ambientale nelle città. Roma: Gangemi
- Norberg-Schulz, C. (1998). Genius loci: Paesaggio ambiente architettura. (4th Ed.). Milano: Electa
- Pfeiffer, B.B. & Futagawa, Y. (Eds.). (1988). Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph [Special Issue]. GA Architects, (Vols. 1-12). Tokyo: A.D.A. Edita
- Ponti, G. (2018). Amate l’architettura: L’architettura è un cristallo. Milano: Rizzoli
- Rogers, R. & Brown, R. (2018). Un posto per tutti: Vita, architettura e società giusta. Milano: Johan & Levi
- Sala, M., & Ceccherini Nelli, L. (1993) Tecnologie Solari, Firenze: Alinea
- Santoro, F. (2021). Apprendista a taliesin : Una esperienza personale nella scuola di frank lloyd wright. Roma: Lettera Ventidue
- Tafuri, M. & Dal Co, F. (2018). Architettura contemporanea. (17th Ed.). Milano, Electa
- Tonietti, U. (2011). L’arte di abitare la terra. Roma: L’Asino d’oro
- Ventura, A. (2018). Il flagello del neoliberismo: Alla ricerca di una nuova socialità. Roma: L’Asino d’oro
- Wienke, U. (2004). Manuale di Bioedilizia. Roma: DEI Tipografia del Genio Civile
- Wright, F.L. (1998). Un’ autobiografia (3rd it. ed.). Milano: Jaca Book
- Zevi, B. (2010). Storia dell’Architettura Moderna. (Vols. 1-2). (20th ed.). Torino: Einaudi
