Vittorio Giorgini architect and the iconic Casa Saldarini in Baratti

Vittorio giorgini architect and the iconic casa saldarini in baratti

Denise Ulivieri (ICOMOS Italia)

The Florentine architect Vittorio Giorgini (1926-2010) has dedicated his life to the experimental investigation of forms linked to nature. His archive, preserving about 130 projects and including drawings, models, photos, written reflections, travel notebooks and design objects, bear witness to Giorgini's scientific and design activity. All these materials attest his passion for drawing and making models. His notebooks represent the daily diaries in which he memorised the things he saw through his pencil. His photos depict the Mediterranean landscapes and details of lumpy succulent plants, rocks smoothed by wind and sea. The archive also preserves the preparatory drafts of his book “Spatiology. The morphology of the natural sciences in architecture and design” (1995). The archive is thus the architect's spiritual testament and reports on the experimental character of his design work. Thanks to the study of this documentation it has been possible to give him proper critical recognition.

During his formative years, the Florentine cultural environment was lively, but stiffened by the academic architectural language. So, in the late 1960s, Giorgini left Italy for the United States, where he became a lecturer at the Pratt Institute, New York. However, it was in the Gulf of Baratti, a marvellous stretch of Tuscan coastline, that Giorgini produced the two significant works, Casa Esagono (1957) and Casa Saldarini (1962), which best express his research. In the latter, Giorgini had the first real opportunity to study curved surfaces and experiment the structural and expressive potential of reinforced concrete. The house, indeed, is a continuous reinforced concrete membrane assuming zoomorphic form, raised from the ground on three points, with thickness of 8–10 cm. The sketches, project drawings, models and photos of the construction phases talk about the genesis of the work.