Superstudio

Source: Perspecta , 1971, Vol. 13/14 (1971), pp. 303-315

Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of Perspecta.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1566989

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Superstudio

303

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 "Holiday Machine"
centre on the Calabr
Superstudio with A
The project inclu
ious temporary ser
river on the Calabri
The ecological imp
(harnessing of the
power station, conso
protection of the coa
ing of floating infla
as a basis for the pr
i
'? "":.::'??'?.
.- I'?;' The building, in
years' duration (the
site, belonging to th
a series of reinforce
into the sea.
It consists of four parts, a wall of liv-
ing-cells, a tower containing serviced free

-- . . ! -
spaces, an energy network and an arrival
station.
The part containing the cells (360) is
completely enclosed on the outside with a
double sheet-metal wall with an internal
space of about 2 m., which visually replaces
the missing section of rock cliff. The artificial
paradise on the inside is protected from the
southern sun and has its own microclimate
regulated by the electronic control centers
situated in the trellised energy section. The
roofing is made up of three parts: a series of
sections running back on rails into the walls
for ventilation, a central section which can be
completely raised to a height of 70 m., and a
third umbrella-like part which is completely
transparent.

304

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 The centre tower formed by four space
frame pillars, a series of intermediate floors
and an enclosed central space with service
wall, is a huge self-service for the mind and
the body. It is flanked by moving staircases,
elevators, services, energy conductors ...
The brain of this huge, symbolically
functioning machine is in the trellised section
encased in the rock, containing the aircondi-
tioning plant and water tanks, together with
control rooms, warehouses, kitchens and first
aid station.
The arrival station on land has a heli-
port with a 120 m. landing-strip and under-
ground carpark for 500 automobiles.
Regarding overland communications,
the Autostrada del Sole is about 30 Km. away
and the station at Tropea only 4 Km.
The land above the cliff is left entirely
to the growing of maize and oranges, except
for the parking strip parallel to the river, on
top of which, at ground level, flowers will be
grown. Also, the row of cypresses acting as a
windbreak will be replanted along the top of
the cliff, while the new cistern will permit
better irrigation of the crops on the plateau.

Tropea

305

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 - Tropea, transverse section

-;.. - -_ :-----.- ----? .~L-c-. -. ... .... .....

. . .... - .. . . - Tropea, transverse section through falling water

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.d Tropea, longitudinal section

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........ __=, I f tII' , I . T o e ,ln iu ia e t

i . - _ . . . ? ? .

306

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 L.. ij .:i i.

. : ~ ~ ? .... i:iT

?I .w . .. . -

... .,' . ,. - ... ... I _" , .t:

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Tropea, pair v ft

307

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 Cultural center and public park in th
Fortezza di Poggio Imperiale at Pog
(between Siena and Florence)
Superstudio with Pierpaolo Alberghini
1967
The construction of the Fortezza di
Poggio Imperiale at Poggibonsi was inter
rupted in 1492, when Lorenzo de' Medici
died, and when on the other side of the ocean,
Christopher Columbus was landing in the
New World.
According to Lorenzo's will, the for-
tress was intended to defend a new town:
i\ 1 1181# '
"la Citth del Principe", meant as a theater f
the splendour of the Medici family, sur-
rounded by the artists and heroes of the Ren-
aissance, and where music, painting, poetry
and war could all be part of the same micro-
cosm. But the dream soon vanished, and the
fortress on the hill was left to the plants and
flowers that now cover most of the walls and
are slowly destroying the perfection of its
..
design.
To bring it back to life, it needed an
artificial heart, a machine able to win back
the interest of the people of the valley below
ii ' to the old dream of Lorenzo de' Medici.
i I?I?:

i 111111~ Y-l~-- "'

We re-designed the surrounding land-
scape as a leisure park, with paths and walls
of greenery in long perspectives leading to
fountains or to open spaces seemingly miles
away in the country. The plans for the coun-
tryside drew their inspiration from the same
b' fount as the new cultural machine which we
grafted onto the fortress: a commercial and
h? exhibition center (the town of Poggibonsi
Ir,
i _--.r produces mainly furniture) with underground
'' I carpark and rapid communication with the
town by way of a mountain railway, a series of
containers for group cultural activities, and
leisure halls, all connected by covered pano-
ramic walks, going through the entrance gal-
lery to the fortress to the old guardhouse.
The inside of the fortress has been
excavated to obtain an open-air theater, to
which one gains access through the old gal-
leries of the gun-rooms, with their small eyes
spying on the surrounding country.

308

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 With this new project, we intended not
only to create a point of attraction both cul-
tural and tourist, capable of bringing back to
life the ancient forms of the fortress, but
above all to revive visually the shape of the
surrounding countryside, by providing the in-
discriminate urbanization of the town with a
focal point, a model for future developments
in the valley.
All structures are in metal covered with
corrugated steel or glass. Moving stairs and
elevators function between the different lev-
els of the buildings.
The whole structure is designed in
metal. Most of the external wall surfaces are
in corrugated steel (South) and glass (North).
The structure of the hall is conceived as a
large green-house, with the entire roofing in
glass.
All the halls and other rooms have air
conditioning, but also benefit from the isolat-
Fortezza da Basso, Firenze. Built by Antonio da Sangallo, II Giovane 1533-34.

ing effect of the air cushions formed between aI.V V IM .

the glass and the flooring, and the floor itself

and the sloping metal walls.
The building of the whole complex can
be divided up over a period of time, starting
with the central hall and the museum and arts
and crafts sections, and proceeding with suc-
ceeding sections of the pavilion block.
The total volume of the complex is cal-
culated at mc. 621,000. The expected cost is
about $2,100,000.

309

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 "-.". i- ??'i r' I.. "~~. L~~~lc"-

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310

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 IR~~~ _

Fortezza, front view tlll1 P L 1 F~

..HTH i

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iEilil e I rij Ii il

ilI i
r~~III , ?I . !, ..
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Fortezza, sectontr og cetrlhal 1

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Fortezza, section through central hall 311

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 National competition for projects for the
urbanistic and architectural restoration of an
old fortress in Florence as a national centre
for arts and crafts
Superstudio with Carlo Chiappi, AlI Navai,
Klaus Bauschmidt, Consultants - 1967
The project presents an enormous ex-
hibition machine, a structure capable of con-
taining and uniting all the exhibitions, shows
and fairs up till now held in Florence in var-
/
ious different halls, and more.
This machine would be permanently in
operation, and would hold several different
events at one and the same time: full use
justifying the complexity of the equipment.
The project presents a new hunk of
city, an indicator of directions, within the cir-
cle of the walls, a new focal point of relation
ships hinging the city and the penetratin
/ L ~A ' i r\ lines of the motorways, at a corner of the
polygon formed by the outer boulevards.
Thus, a work on the same scale as the
city, capable of solving certain problems
(with underground carparks, the re-develop-
ment of an amorphous area) to be taken as a
model for future developments.
Fortezza da Basso, Firenze
The project presents a development in
harmony with the pre-existing requirements
of the Fortezza, i.e., on a "monumental"
scale. The monument as an extraordinary
architectural event forms the link between
ourselves and the city, and between ourselve
8, and history: the only possible form of respec
for monumental being of the Fortezza is a
creative attitude, through absolute dedicatio
I~~~ ~ ,~t A , ,~~i;l-
and coherence. ?.
Thus, in the project we see references
to the morphology of the ancient walls and
gates of the city, through the clear conscious
ness of historical continuity.
;j 1~~~ ., _4r The structure '.
we propose
I gained its
size through a precise desire to render it vis-
ible from the city, from the hills and from the
railway, and with it to modify the urban
landscape.
-..-? L, " As regards its size, we took the huge
mass of Palazzo Pitti (perfectly on a scale
with Florence in the days of the Grand Dukes)
as our point of reference.
The purpose of the project was to pro-
vide the city with on the one hand an organic
system of services with a powerful tourist and
cultural attraction, and on the other with an
image on a scale with our times, an image
constituting a clear testimonial of our
situation.

312

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Fortezza, elevation

313

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 On Technomorphous Architecture
From industrial processes, architecture
takes methods of composition (assembly,
repetition, change of scale) and demonstrates
them. The machine producing objects gives
birth to an architecture in the image of the
machine.
Thus, in place of an architecture in the
image of man (more or less Vitruvian), we
find "technomorphous" architecture.
After the machine ethics of the early
industrial age, (when the machine repre-
sented only work-production-money) the con-
sumer age produces machine aesthetics.
Styling and packaging have become
models for architectural operations: the po-
etry of containers and wrappings has taken
the place of the poetry of perspective and
facades.
Through the machine and its possibili-
ties and images the traditional image of archi
tecture has widened with the introduction of
new methods and models, a new, freer, form
of behaviour, more receptive to influence,
takes the place of artistic and functional
dogmas.
Architecture in the image of the ma-
chine, technomorphous architecture, offers a
not yet ruled-up code of behaviour for our
times and circumstances.
Myths, the old motives for all activities,
are still with us: architecture is a machine also
functioning symbolically. April 1968.

Fortezza, cross-section of the total project

314

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 These three projects, made in 1967-68,
may be considered as a typical section of the
kind of technological monumentalism (con-
tinually balancing between experimentalism
and dogmatism) which seems destined to
become the characteristic face of our age.
We believe in a future of wisely used
technology, but for the time being we believe
it is more important to stop and re-think on
architecture and the purposes of this activity.
Perhaps in a ordered world of "con-
tinuous monuments" technology will once
more return to its role as the technique of
action ....
"We are the first generation of the ages
to have seen the machine" (Le Corbusier,
"L'esprit noveau" 1924)
The constitution of an iconography of
technology within an idealistic structure, re-
veals not so much faith in an unconditional
adhesion to technology, as the existence of
an idea of architecture which proceeds by
successive model (systems, structures), elab-
orating the material of history in a continuous
process of autoclarification. December 1969.

- rdp

*F
;% 50
,
100
, 150
, ...
FT I II 50

315

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