Giancarlo De Carlo

Architect, planner, and writer, Italy
Architect and planner, educator and editor, writer and speaker, thinker and innovator,
Giancarlo De Carlo is well known in his native Italy and abroad as a founder of Team X
and as a pioneer in participatory architecture. Born in Genoa, the son of a naval engineer,
he studied structural engineering at Milan Polytechnic from 1939 to 1943. On graduation,
he was called for naval service to Greece. In Milan from 1943 to 1945, De Carlo was
active in the Resistance movement and in anti-Fascist circles together with Giuseppi
Pagano, Franco Albini, and other members of the Movimento di Unità Proletaria. At the
same time, his interest in architecture was stimulated by Le Corbusier’s Oeuvre complete and Alfred
Roth’s Die Neue Architektur. Following the end of World War II, De Carlo published critical works on Le
Corbusier and William Morris. From 1948 to 1949, De Carlo studied at the Venice
School of Architecture and collaborated with Albini on the development plan for Reggio
Emilia.
De Carlo’s career in both architecture and city planning was launched in the 1950s,
together with his expanding intellectual circles, the latter including Carlo Doglio, Delfino
Insolera, and Italo Calvino. In addition, he was briefly a member of the editorial board of
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Cas abella. A participant in CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne), De Carlo
became known as a modernist who honored the heritage of the past.
Few architects who emerged in the generation following World War II have been as
prescient in perceiving the problems and possible solutions in contemporary architecture
and urbanism. Both part of and counter to the mainstream, De Carlo has succeeded
because of his deeply embedded historical consciousness and his total immersion in the
problems of contemporary society. A master craftsman, De Carlo harbors enormous
respect for technological inventions and the design principles of modernism, including its
Utopian goals. Nonetheless, he has protested against the rigidity of the Modern
movement and the International Style. In his multifaceted career, however, his name will
inevitably be linked with Urbino, the hill town in the Marches, where Renaissance
architecture reached its summit in Federigo da Montefelto’s Ducal Palace. His work in
Urbino is ongoing, beginning with his master plan and now clearly visible in his
buildings for the University of Urbino.
When international modernism was at its zenith, De Carlo condemned the
preoccupation with style divorced from the social realities of the day.
While remaining open to the enriched possibilities of Postmodernism, he
decried its superficiality, even frivolity. In fact, he believed that
architecture was too important to be limited to the narrow domain of
architects. Rather, it is the architect’s “responsibility” to humanity that
constitutes the basis of their life and work. Evidence of this creed is found
in De Carlo’s housing complexes, where he encourages participation
between architect and users, a type of collaborative planning fully
cognizant of the needs of inhabitants. Mindful of the inhumanity—and
severe lack—of postwar housing, with its disregard for scale, social
realities, and historical circumstances, he challenged the idea of
“minimum living standard” as set forth at the CIAM conference in
Frankfort (1929). Instead, De Carlo advocated an architecture based on
current problems, one that considered the urban context as the primary
force.
Still, a paradigm for architect/client collaboration is the Village Matteotti (1969–74) in
the industrial town of Terni, 60 miles northeast of Rome. Meetings with the steelworkers
and their families led to a continuous partnership in planning with the architect, who
assumed the role of educator as well as designer and builder. Here, every phase of the
project was considered in conjunction with the users, who were directly involved in all
phases of construction. When completed, the Village Matteotti raised the standard for
workers’ housing. Unlike Terni, the housing at Mazzorbo, begun in 1950 on an island in
the Venetian lagoon, focused primarily on morphological considerations. Because of the
distinct identity of Mazzorbo’s residents, De Carlo emphasized the unique setting and a
strong vernacular tradition in his effort to design new forms that evoke the past by
articulating it and enriching it with the use of local color and variety in building types and
plans.
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Beginning with his town plan (1958–64), De Carlo’s work in Urbino continues to this
day. It was the Collegio del Colle, the dormitories for the University of Urbino (1962–
66), that initiated the dialogue between the old city and its surroundings. Additions to the
college from 1973 created patterns that conform to the topography of the landscape,
always simulating the memory of earlier times and fostering a greater sense of
community among the students.
Many of De Carlo’s proposals have since come to fruition: restoring the Mercatale,
reviving the old approach from Rome, and providing access to students and tourists along
Francesco di Giorgio’s 15th-century ramp (discovered while restoring the 19th-century
theater) leading to the Ducal Palace. Abandoned buildings have been rehabilitated and
converted to modern facilities. Brilliant insertions in the town fabric are demonstrated by
the glass-enclosed hemicycle of the School of Education, which seems to be carved from
the surrounding walls, and the courtyard of the Law School, its domes illuminating the
spaces below. Contradictions between inside and outside contribute to the continuity
between old and new.
Aside from appointments as visiting professor at Yale University, the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cornell University, and the University of California at Berkeley,
De Carlo was professor in the schools of architecture at the Universities of Venice and
Genoa. In 1976 he founded the ILAUD (International Laboratory for Architecture and
Urban Design). This forum of international students meets annually in an Italian city,
such as Urbino or Siena, to develop projects for the adaptive reuse of old buildings, such
as the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, the renewal of industrial areas in
Genoa, or new interventions in the Arsenal in Venice. In addition to these pursuits, De
Carlo, always a prolific writer, founded Space and Society, an Italian/English quarterly journal that
addresses global architectural topics.
Since 1995 De Carlo has entered competitions for the School of Architecture in
Venice and for the redesign of three piazzas in Trieste. Recent projects include university
facilities, civic works, and conversions in Pavia, Siena, Catania, the Republic of San
Marino, Lastre a Signe, Pistoia, Venice Lido, and Urbino. The latter includes the “Data of
Francesco di Giorgio,” and the restoration and transformation of a city observatory into a
multimedia center. It is little wonder that De Carlo has been made an honorary citizen of
Urbino and that, on the occasion of his 80th birthday in 1999, he was given the key to the
city of Venice.
A CIAM delegate from 1952 to 1959, a member of Team X, and an honorary member
of the American Institute of Architects from 1975, the American Academy for Arts and
Sciences from 1978, and the Royal Institute of British Architects from 1981, De Carlo
has been the recipient of prestigious awards, including the Patrick Abercrombie Prize
(1963), the Wolf Prize (1988), the Gold Medal of the City of Milan (1995), and the
Grand Prix “A/mbiente” in Buenos Aires (1999). In addition, De Carlo has been awarded
the doctor honoris caus a from the Oslo School of Architecture, the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, the
Université Catholique-Louvain, the Université de Genève, the Buenos Aires School of
Architecture, and the Faculty of Humanities in Catania. On the occasion of receiving the
Royal Gold Medal of the RIBA (1993), De Carlo spoke of “promising signs …emerging
from our present state of confusion.” Proving to be both realist and idealist, he hopes that
“perhaps organizing and giving form to the three-dimensional physical space will become
architecture’s raison d’être once more.”

DARMSTADT, GERMANY

The Darmstadt artists’ colony was founded in West Germany in 1899 by Grand Duke
Ernst Ludwig von Hessen of Darmstadt, grandson of Queen Victoria and the last ruler of
the formerly independent state, which became part of the German Empire in 1871. Ernst
Ludwig was one of the most influential of the new patrons of contemporary architecture
and design movements in the early 20th century. He was familiar with the English Arts
and Crafts movement because of his frequent trips to England and his having already
commissioned Baillie Scott in 1897 to design furniture and interior decorations for the
dining and drawing rooms of his palace at Darmstadt. C.R.Ashbee was invited to design
the light fittings, and his Guild and School of Handicraft in London was asked to make
both furniture and fittings. The colony was a response to a memorandum prepared for the
parliament and important local people by Alexander Kock, proprietor of a local wallpaper
factory. He and others acknowledged the important role that the applied arts might play
in future economic development. Aware of English developments, the memorandum
included ideas for the development of homes for artists and ateliers for applied art. Seven
artists were invited to form the colony on the Matildehöhe, and they were to design and
direct the production of goods by other craftspeople and workshops. The outcomes were
published and promoted by Kock through his journals, Zeits chrift fü r Innendeko ration and Deutsche Kunst und Decoration, the latter a German
imitation of the English The Studio. Twenty-three artists worked there at various times from 1899
to 1914, when the venture ceased.
Parklike grounds (already containing a reservoir), the Russian Chapel, and a number
of villas were offered by Ernst Ludwig. The colony was to be a “living and working
world” and to form a public exhibition, Ein Dokument Deuts cher Kunst (A Document of German Art), to be held in
1901. The intention was to show the public a model style of home decoration in
individually designed artists’ houses. The artists—Hans Christiansen, Paul Bürck, Patriz
Huber, Josef Olbrich, Peter Behrens, Ludwig Habich, and Rudolf Bosselt—were given a
three-year contract and a housing subsidy, although they had to pay construction costs
themselves. Work started immediately, and the resulting villa suburb formed the main
part of the exhibition, creating an event in the field of architecture and interior decoration
that bore witness both to the individuality of the members and to the collective strength
of the colony. Olbrich organized the layout of the exhibition in 1901, designing most of
the buildings himself. Architecture included not only Olbrich’s Ernst-Ludwig-Haus, the
artistic center, and a theater but also various temporary structures and the artists’ houses
themselves. Writings of the artists reveal that they were concerned with aesthetic rather
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than functional considerations. No reference is made to machinery, mass production, or
cost-effectiveness in projects undertaken by the colony. In one of three articles on the
Darmstadt colony by W. Fred in The Studio, Behrens gave a cogent analysis of the aims of the Arts
and Crafts in Germany: “Architecture is the art of building, and comprises in its name
two ideas: the mastery of the practical and the art of the beautiful. There is always
something exhilarating in being able to combine in one word the two ideas—that of
practical utility and that of abstract beauty—which unfortunately have too often been
opposed to each other.” The architecture and design at the colony showed progressive
unification of the practical and the beautiful, going beyond the possibilities of artistic
hand production to the wider field of industry.
Built on a gradient, the two-story Ernst-Ludwig-Haus, a long, low, shedlike design
with unbroken walls, dominates the other buildings. Its principal feature is the omegashaped
central doorway, with richly painted and gilded stucco decoration, flanked by
Ludwig Habich’s colossal statues of Adam and Eve. The two bronze figures in the door
niches, goddesses of victory by Bosselt, harmonize well with Olbrich’s gold decoration
behind them. Internally, the upper story contained a central hall, intended for small
exhibitions. To the right and left, several colonists had two rooms each, placed one
behind the other, to provide useful, well-lit spaces. The lower story contained living
rooms for the bachelors along with the general fencing, gymnastic, and recreational
rooms.
Grouped around the atelier were the private houses, which adhere to two basic types:
(1) a narrow design with large, pitched roofs and irregularly placed windows with small
panes, derived largely from English Domestic Revival work, and (2) those with flat,
veranda-like roofs, developed by Wagner and Hoffmann, that echo the simplicity of the
Italian villa. The Villa Habich is reminiscent of Hoffmann’s Villa Henneberg (1900) near
Vienna, with its emphasis on the square block of the house with larger windows, sudden
projection, and a flat roof extending far out over the walls. The Glückert II house is a
compromise between the two types.
The exterior and interior decoration witness the diversity and richness of Olbrich’s
vocabulary, in which he repeats linear border patterns and mold forms derived from
nature into stucco and plaster. All his designs provide interesting color harmonies and
demonstrate a simplification of form, tending toward geometry, but all bear the hallmark
of quality, craftsmanship, and respect for materials. The first story of Olbrich’s own
house had glazed tiles on the facade.
Behrens designed his own small villa, employing a compact plan. The exterior shows
the free interpretation of vernacular forms combined with an attempt at structural
rationalism that contrasts with the picturesqueness of Olbrich. He employed brick and
green terra-cotta tiles to invoke the vernacular of the Baltics, which he admired.
Internally, curvilinear echoes of Art Nouveau are outweighed by simplified forms that are
more in accordance with contemporary Viennese trends. The pavement running between
the artists’ houses is designed in a black-and-white linear geometric pattern, formed out
of small flat cobbles and serving to unite the individually designed villas.
The exhibition of 1901 was a financial failure, and the critical reception was mixed,
although it was recognized as an important point in the development of German design.
A less ambitious exhibition followed in 1904, responding to the criticism that objects
were too expensive and sometimes “eccentric.” Olbrich created a “group of three houses”
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representing average homes. Here, modest shapes, simple motifs, and plainer materials
recalled vernacular work.
The colony was represented at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, at Turin in 1902, and at
St. Louis in 1904. In 1907, Olbrich designed the Hochzeitsturm (Wedding Tower) and
the Municipal Exhibition Halls as the crowning feature of the Mathildenhöhe site. The
motif of a five-fingered hand raised in benediction, with its asymmetrically placed
banded windows running around the corners, is thought to have influenced Gropius’
design for the Chicago Tribune Tower competition entry of 1922. Architects such as
Behrens demonstrated their talents in designing architecture, furniture, silver, jewelry,
glass, and porcelain. Behrens left the colony in 1903 and, as was the case of many others
who had begun their careers at Darmstadt, enjoyed national and international acclaim.
A final exhibition was organized at Darmstadt in 1914. Albin Müller, who took over
the artistic management after Olbrich’s death, designed new buildings and facilities
specifically for this purpose. These were destroyed in 1944.