G.R.A.U. - Design London Tuesday, October 31, 2023 | Phillips

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  • Designing History: The Furniture of Gabriella Colucci and Franco Pierluisi (G.R.A.U.) for the Restoration of Villa of Cardinal Chigi in Ariccia, near Rome

     

    By Stefano Poli

     

    The work of the Roman Architects and Urbanists Group (G.R.A.U.) can partly be understood within the context of a rejection of the excessive linguistic and methodological homogenisation in architecture associated with the so-called International Style. Especially in Italy, between the 1950s and 1960s, there was a critical attitude towards the recent international tradition of modern architecture. Buildings such as the Torre Velasca by Studio B.B.P.R (Milan, 1955-57), Ignazio Gardella's Casa alle Zattere (Venice, 1958-62), the Neoliberty architecture of Roberto Gabetti and Aimaro Isola in Turin, as well as the crucial work of Bruno Zevi and the Association for Organic Architecture (APAO, founded in Rome in 1945), became vehicles for both a new focus on historical and urban aspects and the search for an alternative expression of modernity. In particular, the attempt to establish a synthesis between the city's historical fabric and new architecture, considering history as the very substance of contemporary design, led to a debate that flared up in the pages of the English magazine The Architectural Review with a scathing article by Reyner Banham, to which Ernesto Nathan Rogers responded with a firm sense of irony in Casabella Continuità.

     

    Villa of Cardinal Chigi in Ariccia, near Rome. 
    Photo: © Patrizia Nicolosi

    On one hand, this historical and critical context partly frames G.R.A.U.’s work. On the other hand, one must place the cultural context of the group within its unique Roman setting. The acronym declared the group's identity, founded on the inseparability of architecture from urban planning and the Roman character of the association. The inextricability between these realms is evident in the restoration project of the 16th century Villa of Cardinal Chigi in Ariccia, near Rome (executed in 1967), from which the present furniture originates. The history of Western architecture, guided by perspective geometry and adorned with references to examples of ancient and Baroque Roman architecture, permeates the entire project, aligning modifications and reconstructions according to an ideal symmetrical plan. The oldest part of the building regains centrality compared to later additions, while the urban context determines the visual axes, recalling the landmarks of Palazzo Chigi and the dome of the Church of Santa Maria Assunta by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

     

    Giovanni Borromini’s perspective corridor at  Palazzo Spada, Rome.
    Photo: Borromini © Laudibi | Dreamstime.com

    Similarly, the furnishings are defined by the pervasive perspective design that the architects elaborate for each room. In the drawings, imaginary Cartesian lines form a grid within the interior spaces, resembling a deliberate homage to Renaissance perspective studies, accompanied by exuberant references to Michelangelo. In certain portions of the interior space, this abstract grid materialises, moving away from the two-dimensionality of the paper to give life to the shapes and proportions of the furniture, which appear as a three-dimensional transposition of it. These furnishings clearly exhibit their "architectural" character, emphasiing the inseparability of the furniture design from the spatial design that contains them, implicitly engaging with the emerging divide between industrial design and architecture. For Gabriella Colucci and Franco Pierluisi, such a distinction was evidently unacceptable, as it was foreign to the great Italian tradition of design and practically inconceivable.

     

     

    A detail of Villa of Cardinal Chigi 's entrance in Ariccia, near Rome.
    Photo: © Patrizia Nicolosi
    • Provenance

      Private collection, Villa of Cardinal Chigi, Ariccia, commissioned directly from the designers, 1967
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • Literature

      Alessandro Anselmi and Gruppo Romano Architetti Urbanisti, G.R.A.U. Isti Mirant Stella: Architetture 1964-1980, Rome, 1981, p. 110 for a drawing
      Francesco Moschini, 'Il restauro del casino Chigi sull'Appia Nuova', Abitare, no. 271, January - February 1989, illustrated p. 123

91

Custom bookcase

circa 1967
Painted beech-veneered plywood, painted pine, glazed ceramic.
287.5 x 305.3 x 45 cm (113 1/4 x 120 1/4 x 17 3/4 in.)

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£6,000 - 8,000 

Sold for £13,970

Contact Specialist

Antonia King
Head of Sale, Design
+44 20 7901 7944
Antonia.King@phillips.com

 

Design

London Auction 31 October 2023