IL DANTEUM

An Unbuilt Memorial to Dante Alghieri

GIUSEPPE TERRAGNI, 1938

Brief History
The Danteum is an unbuilt monument designed by the modernist architect Giuseppe Terragni at the behest Terragnis design is a built government. of Benito Mussolini's Fascist
representation of the levels of heaven and hell. The structure was meant to be built

in Rome on the Via del'Impero. The intention was to celebrate the famous Italian poet Dante, glorify Imperial Rome and extol the virtues of a strong fascist state. Though it was not constructed, the design was presented at the 1942 Exhibition in Rome.

IL DANTEUM, VIA DEI FORI IMPERIALI , ROME

It is a work of architecture that exists in that special and strange transcendent world of mathematics .

Il Danteum is an exercise in the imposition of ideal geometry on form and space.

 Used a limited palette of basic architectural elements: wall, column, platform, roof. There are stairs and roof lights but only one doorway, appropriately for a built representation of hell, no windows. The plan overall based on a 2 rectangle. This includes the entrance space screened by a high wall. The main body of the building is based on a number of overlapping golden section rectangles of varying sizes.

The subsidiary spaces are proportioned according to a bewildering array of smaller golden section rectangles.

Golden Section Rectangle

sections

The section is organized according to golden section and2 rectangles too.

The inferno and purgatorio are overly divided by varying floor and ceiling surfaces, according to the classic diagram of the golden section rectangle. INFERNO each of the squares on which the golden section rectangles are based has column fixed at its center. PURGATORIO has square openings to the sky that conform to the same geometry.

SITE AND FUNCTION

Located in Via dei Fori Imperiali in Rome, in the midst of the ruins of ancient Rome not far from the Colosseum
Il Danteum has no practical purpose (other than the library in its basement) The client intended this building as a political statement.

MATERIALS/ TEXTURE
Dark wood represent the hall of a hundred columns
Glass paradiso the columns and the roof they are all of glass.

By reflection and refraction the glass columns would have transformed other people into shimmering spirits.

Light and Mood

The columned hall was lit through narrow gaps in the floor of Paradise above, divided into squares each supported by one of the canto columns.
The purgatorio would have been lit with sunlight flooding in through the openings in its ceiling .

FALLINGWATER
The house hanging over a waterfall

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, 1963-66

BRIEF HISTORY
Fallingwater was designed in 1935 for Pittsburgh department store owner Edgar Kaufmann Sr. and was used as a mountain retreat by his family Fallingwater dramatically combines Wright's vision of 'organic' architecture with his engineering skills in cantilevering. Wright's choice of the building's position within the site, and design of the overhanging building, allow the inhabitants to 'live with the waterfall', rather than simply look at it Wrights architectural idea, expressed in words, was to mark a place for a fire on the rocks beside a waterfall and to let a house, composed of rectangular horizontal planes, grow from the hearth that over the water.

Memorable features of the fallingwater: rough stone walls cantilevered balconies bold use of glass remarkable asymmetrical fireplaces site of the house

Space and Form

The large living area has a wall of glass that lets you enjoy the view of the waterfall, in addition to receiving its relaxing rumor. The use of large windows eliminated the separation between the rooms and outside. The walls of the room, like the rest of the house, are equal to the outside, with parts of stone masonry of the place The roof has a design that wraps the lamps included in it.

The composition of fallingwater in plan is governed by a regular grid, in this case 5 foot by 5 foot. Fallingwater's horizontal and vertical lines are some of the distinctive features of what has come to be called the International Style. The cantilevered roofs and terraces create planes and rectangular prisms

Fallingwater was made from the geometric order that Frank Lloyd Wright saw in the uneven rocks and made the rectangular slabs regular rectangles. Fallingwater's horizontal lines go up to three levels with rectangular and parallel terraces and cantilevers over the rocky bank. The horizontal bands, that are made of concrete, are balanced by a perpendicular wall.

Floor plans

Sections

Elevations

South elevation

North elevation

Floor plan of main level. Most of the house's floor space is devoted to the stone-paved living area with its various activity spaces. A high proportion of the living space is outdoors in the form of terraces, loggia and plunge pool below the living room..

SITE AND FUNCTION

Hanging over a waterfall in the woods of south-west Pennsylvania. Key elements: almost horizontal slab of rock river- Bear run the river flows from under a bridge that leads onto an old road the roadway runs along a rocky outcrop with an old dry stone wall. large boulders the sun shines into this clearing surrounded by trees Building function : Residential

MATERIALS AND TEXTURE

The cantilever is the basis for Fallingwater's structure. Three horizontal trays made of reinforced concrete form the three levels of the house, echoing the natural rock ledges beneath the house that jut out over Bear Run. Four pier or bolsters anchored into a boulder underneath the main floor act as the fulcrum for the house. Almost all of these concrete slabs, floors or roofs, are cantilevered daringly, establishing the open interior spaces of Fallingwater that seem to reach out and join the space of the valley outside. Concrete slabs are anchored into the living rock of the site.

The core- hearth and chimney, sets the style for stonework throughout the house. Flat stone slabs are laid up in irregular horizontal layers that resemble rock outcroppings Wright emphasized the image of a house composed chiefly of horizontal trays echoing the bold rock ledges below, establishing a unity of scale and form - architecture and nature correspond. Terraces are bounded by smooth slabs of concrete

Wright used clear plate glass elegantly framed in thin metal frames or occasionally set directly into the masonry of the building. The thin metal frames and the mitered, sealed corner windows, provide a delicate veil between enclosed and open spaces.
The stone, native Pottsville sandstone, was laid in a rough, shifting manner to imitate the natural stone layering . The rounding of the concrete edges on the parapets speaks of the plasticity, or ability to be molded, of concrete in its fluid state. Steel is essential to the strength of the concrete, almost forming a skeleton that becomes visible throughout the house in railings, shelving, and window framework. Wright chose the "Cherokee red" color of a Native American pot for the metal surfaces. Clear glass is used as a wall surface (instead of a hole in a wall), and is not covered, thus permitting the outside to flow freely into the interior of the house

LIGHT AND MOOD

The large living area has a wall of glass , to reflect natural light and project it in an indirect way into the interior.