Leonardo Benevolo

Architecture historian and critic, Italy
Leonardo Benevolo is one of the most prolific writers on architecture in Italy. He was
born in Orta in 1923 and graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of
Rome in 1946. Throughout his distinguished career as a professor of the history of
architecture, he has taught in Rome, Florence, Venice, and at the University of Palermo.
He has written more than 20 books on architecture over the last four decades, with a
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focus on urban design and the problems of the city. Although he is not as widely read as
Manfredo Tafuri or Kenneth Frampton, his books serve as important texts in the study of
20th-century architecture, both in Italy and around the world.
Since the early 1960s with Le origini del l’ur banis tica moderna ( The Or igins of Modern Town Planning), Benevolo has concerned himself with the history
and transformations of the city. This book addresses the industrial city, the Utopian city,
and urban legislation in modern Europe. In 1968, with L’architettu ra delle cit tà nell’ Italia con tempor anea (The Architecture of Cities
in Contemporary Italy), Benevolo addressed the issues surrounding legislation problems
in Italy, the historical environment in relation to contemporary construction, and the
teaching of architecture and urban planning at the university in Italy. In the same year, his
concern with the city was the main focus of Storia dell’a rchitettura del Rinas cimento (The Architecture of the Renaissance),
with chapters on the ideal city and urban transformations in the 16th century. Here
Benevolo also focused on the evolution of architectural styles, the invention of new
architectures, and the architectural principles of varying periods.
In the early 1970s, Benevolo published Le avventure delta città (The Adventures of the City), addressing
the problems of the relation between the historical center of the city and the periferia (outskirts),
and the decline and degradation of the Italian city following World War II. Many of the
problems of the city are attributed to territorial organizations, which result from the
interests of public administrators and private landowners, and are perpetuated by obsolete
institutions and customs in Italian society. In 1960 Benevolo published his Introduzione all’architettu ra
(Introduction to Architecture), in which he explained the constructive principles of
architecture in relation to its historical contexts, examining a range of contexts and
surveying architectural types including Greek, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine,
Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Mannerism, baroque, neo-classical, and modern.
Storia della città (The His tory of the City) is a well-illustrated, four-volume opus of the history of the city divided into
antique, medieval, modern, and contemporary periods. The work is an attempt to explain
the origin of the city and to tell the basic story of the development of the built
environment in the history of civilization. It is intended for the average reader as well as
scholars and professionals in the fields of architecture and urban planning. Written in
1960, his two-volume Sto ria dell’architett ura moderna (History of Modern Architecture) has significantly impacted
the architectural history of the 20th century for the last four decades. The first volume
(1760–1914) examines town planning, engineering, and the emergence of the skyscraper
and the avant-garde prior to World War I. The second volume (1914–66) isolates the
canon of architects and buildings that characterize the Modern movement. Other books
that have been translated into English are Storia dell’architettura del Rinas cimento (The Architecture of the Renais s ance) and The Origins of Modern Town Planning, La cas a dell’uomo (The House of Man). These analyze the built
environment at every level, from the room to the city, and consider the relation between
the built environment and the process of design.
In the mid-1980s, Benevolo published L’ultimo capitolo dell’a rchitettu ra moderna (The Final Chapter of Modern
Architecture). The title of the book refers to the years 1970–85 and the work of individual
architects, such as Kenzo Tange, James Stirling, Charles Moore, and Robert Venturi, and
in Italy, Vitto- rio Gregotti, Renzo Piano, Paolo Portoghesi, and Aldo Rossi. Benevolo
analyzes the tendencies of their work and their personalities in order to synthesize the
realizations and problems of contemporary architecture. He frames his discussion of the
work of this period with a discussion of the late work of the masters of modern
architecture: Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Mies van der Rohe.
In the early 1990s, Benevolo refocused his attention on the problems and development
of the city. In La città Italiana nel Rinas cimento (The Italian City in the Renaissance), he analyzes the transformations
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undergone by Italian cities during the 16th century, with a detailed examination and
comparison of city plans from that period. In La città nella storia d’ Eur opa (The City in the History of Europe),
Benevolo addresses, in more technical terms, issues such as the detachment of the
modern world from the ancient world, the idea of the city in classical culture, and the
transformations of the city during the Roman Empire. He analyzes the use of perspectival
construction in the Renaissance city and the adjustments made necessary by the rules of
perspective. He looks at new types of cities, such as the coastal city, the international
city, and the industrial city, and addresses the issues facing Europe in confrontation with
the new world of the 20th century.
Benevolo is most certainly a historian dedicated to the ideas of the Modern movement
and is considered among the most influential writers on architecture and urban planning
and the history of the city in the 20th century, in Italy. In his preface to H is tory of Modern A rchitecture, he writes,
“The task of a history of modern architecture is to present contemporary events within the
framework of their immediate precursors; it must, therefore, go far enough into past
history to make a complete understanding of the present possible and to set contemporary
events in adequate historical perspective.”