Franco Albini’s works of architecture and design, produced between 1930 and 1977, have enjoyed a recent revival but to date have received only sporadic scholarly attention from historians and critics of the Modern Movement. A chorus of Italian voices has sung his praises, none more eloquently than his protégé, Renzo Piano. Kay Bea Jones’ illuminating study of selected works by Studio Albini will reintroduce his contributions to one of the most productive periods in Italian design. Albini emerged from the ideology of Rationalism to produce some of Italy’s most coherent and poetic examples of modern design. He collaborated for over 25 years with Franca Helg and at a time when professional male-female partnerships were virtually unknown. His museums and installation motifs changed the way Italians displayed historic artifacts. He composed novel suspension structures for dwellings, shops, galleries and his signature INA pavilions where levity and gravity became symbolic devices for connoting his subjects. Albini clarified the vital role of tradition in modern architecture as he experimented with domestic space. His cohort defied CIAM ideologies to re-socialize postwar housing and speculate on ways of reviving Italian cities. He explored new fabrication technologies, from the scale of furniture to wide-span steel structures, yet he never abandoned the rigors of craft and detail in favor of mass-production. Suspending Modernity follows the evolution of Albini’s most important buildings and projects, even as they reveal his apprehensive attitudes about the modern condition. Jones argues here that Albini’s masterful use of materials and architectural expression mark an epic paradigm shift in the modern period.

Tunnels and Underground Cities: Engineering and Innovation meet Archaeology, Architecture and Art. Volume 1: Archaeology, Architecture and Art in Underground Construction contains the contributions presented in the eponymous Technical Session during the World Tunnel Congress 2019 (Naples, Italy, 3-9 May 2019). The use of underground space is continuing to grow, due to global urbanization, public demand for efficient transportation, and energy saving, production and distribution. The growing need for space at ground level, along with its continuous value increase and the challenges of energy saving and achieving sustainable development objectives, demand greater and better use of the underground space to ensure that it supports sustainable, resilient and more liveable cities. The contributions cover a wide range of topics, from urban tunnelling under archaeological findings in Naples (Italy) with ground freezing and grouting techniques, via the functional role of heritage in metro projects, to interdisciplinary research in geotechnical engineering and geoarchaeology – a London case study. The book is a valuable reference text for tunnelling specialists, owners, engineers, archaeologists, architects, artists and others involved in underground planning, design and building around the world, and for academics who are interested in underground constructions and geotechnics.

Italy and the UK experienced a radical re-organisation of urban space following the devastation of many towns and cities in the Second World War. The need to rebuild led to an intellectual and cultural exchange between a wave of talented architects, urbanists and architectural historians in the two countries. Post-war Architecture Between Italy and the UK studies this exchange, exploring how the connections and mutual influences contributed to the formation of a distinctive stance towards Internationalism, notwithstanding the countries’ contrasting geographic and climatic conditions, levels of economic and industrial development, and social structures. Topics discussed in the volume include the influence of Italian historic town centres on British modernist and Brutalist architectural approaches to the design of housing and university campuses as public spaces; post-war planning concepts such as the precinct; the tensions between British critics and Italian architects that paved the way for British postmodernism; and the role of architectural education as a melting pot of mutual influence. It draws on a wealth of archival and original materials to present insights into the personal relationships, publications, exhibitions and events that provided the crucible for the dissemination of ideas and typologies across cultural borders. Offering new insights into the transcultural aspects of European architectural history in the post-war years, and its legacy, this volume is vital reading for architectural and urban historians, planners and students, as well as social historians of the European post-war period.

he dialogue, as “the talking of the soul with itself” that constitutes the act of thinking (Plato), has been selected as the ideal form through which to vividly and accurately convey the thinking of a number of protagonists of Italian modern architecture. Knowledge remains a latent legacy of the soul until a given stimulus reawakens its memory: architecture, more than sophia (wisdom), becomes philo-sophia, i.e. love of knowledge. A reading of the architectural phenomenon aimed at faithfully bringing out its complexity cannot help but involve the stories directly told by the protagonists, and the micro-stories of individual episodes, in order to explore the relationship that exists between the poetic and the technical-scientific spheres, underlining their complementary and conflictual nature. The disciplinary tools of exegesis of design and its materialization stimulate a form of critique of criticism driven by the rejection of an angle of interpretation of architecture oriented exclusively towards its results. Method and result constitute the inseparable terms: the direct testimony of certain protagonists of Italian architecture makes it possible to reconnect the interrupted threads of a narrative that has often been rendered syncopated and unilateral by excessively superficial explanation. The Dialogues on Architecture explore the interaction between idea, design and construction, revealing different operative and conceptual modes through which to achieve the finished work. Franco Albini, Lodovico B. Belgiojoso, Guido Canella, Aurelio Cortesi, Roberto Gabetti & Aimaro Isola, Ignazio Gardella, Vittorio Gregotti, Vico Magistretti, Enrico Mantero, Paolo Portoghesi, Aldo Rossi, Giuseppe Terragni, Vittoriano Viganò are the authors of this narrative.

This rigorously compiled A-Z volume offers rich, readable coverage of the diverse forms of post-1945 Italian culture. With over 900 entries by international contributors, this volume is genuinely interdisciplinary in character, treating traditional political, economic, and legal concerns, with a particular emphasis on neglected areas of popular culture. Entries range from short definitions, histories or biographies to longer overviews covering themes, movements, institutions and personalities, from advertising to fascism, and Pirelli to Zeffirelli. The Encyclopedia aims to inform and inspire both teachers and students in the following fields: *Italian language and literature *Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences *European Studies *Media and Cultural Studies *Business and Management *Art and Design It is extensively cross-referenced, has a thematic contents list and suggestions for further reading.

This collection focuses on how architectural material is transformed, revised, swallowed whole, plagiarized, or in any other way appropriated. It charts new territory within this still unexplored yet highly topical area of study by establishing a shared vocabulary with which to discuss, or contest, the workings of appropriation as a vital and progressive aspect of architectural discourse. Written by a group of rising scholars in the field of architectural history and criticism, the chapters cover a range of architectural subjects that are linked in their investigations of how architects engage with their predecessors.