-ar.

chalres moore
Piazza d’italia
About the architect

• Charles Willard Moore (October 31, 1925

– December 16, 1993) was
an American architect, educator,
writer, Fellow of the American Institute of
Architects, and winner of the AIA Gold
Medal in 1991.
• Moore graduated from the University of Michigan in 1947 and earned both
a Master's and a Ph.D. at Princeton University in 1957
• Moore preferred conspicuous design features, including loud color
combinations, super graphics, stylistic collisions, the re-use of esoteric
historical-design solutions, and the use of non-traditional materials such
as plastic, (aluminized) PET film, platinum tiles, and neon signs, As a result,
his work provokes arousal, demands attention. Such design features
(historical detail, ornament, fictional treatments, ironic significations) made
Moore one of the chief innovators of postmodern architecture.
Moore's Piazza d'Italia (1978), an urban public plaza in New Orleans, made
prolific use of his exuberant design vocabulary and is frequently cited as the
archetypal postmodern project.
Design principles of moore

• 1st Principle:- if we are to devote our lives to making buildings, we

have to believe that they live and speak (of themselves and the
people who made them)

• 2nd Principle:- the spaces we feel, the shapes we see, and the way we
move in a building should assist the human memory in reconstructing
connections through space and time.
 Post modernism

• Postmodern architecture is a style or movement which emerged in the

1960s as a reaction against the austerity, formality, and lack of variety
of modern architecture, particularly in the international style advocated
by Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The movement was
introduced by the architect and urban planner Denise Scott Brown and
architectural theorist Robert Venturi.
• The style flourished from the 1980s through the 1990s. In the late 1990s
it divided into a multitude of new tendencies, including high-tech
architecture, neo-classicism and deconstructivism.
• Postmodern architecture emerged in the 1960s as a reaction against the
perceived shortcomings of modern architecture, particularly its rigid
doctrines, its uniformity, its lack of ornament, and its habit of ignoring
the history and culture of the cities where it appeared. 
• The most famous work of architect Charles Moore is the Piazza
d'Italia in New Orleans (1978), a public square composed of an
exuberant collection of pieces of famous Italian Renaissance
architecture. Drawing upon the Spanish Revival architecture of the city
hall, Moore designed the Beverly Hills Civic Center in a mixture of
Spanish Revival, Art Deco and Post-Modern styles. It includes courtyards,
colonnades, promenades, and buildings, with both open and semi-
enclosed spaces, stairways and balconies.
 Piazza d’italia

• The Piazza d'Italia is an urban public plaza located at Lafayette and

Commerce Streets in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana. It is controlled
by the New Orleans Building Corporation (NOBC), a public benefit
corporation wholly owned by the City of New Orleans.
• By the turn of the new millennium, the Piazza d'Italia was largely
unfrequented by and unknown to New Orleanians, and was sometimes
referred to as the first "postmodern ruin".
• In 1974, postmodern architecture was approached to help realize the
vision of New Orleans' Italian-American community. In close
collaboration with three young architects then practicing with the Perez
firm in New Orleans - Malcolm Heard, Ronald Filson and Allen Eskew
• The location ultimately chosen for the piazza was a city block sited.
• In the semi derelict upriver edge of downtown, 4 blocks from canal
street and the edge of the French quarter and 3 blocks from the
Mississippi river.
• Moore took a highly pictorial approach to designing his urban plaza.
Colonnades, arches and a bell tower are arranged in a curving formation
around a fountain. The layers of structures are brightly colored, trimmed
in neon and metallics, and ornamented with various classical orders. The
paved surface of the plaza is equally embellished and textured. Light and
shadows play across the surface of the plaza, and views through the
various openings create a complex spatial experience for visitors moving
through the colonnades. Up lighting and neon accents animate the
space at night.
Site plan
 planning

• - Moore conceived of a public fountain in the shape of the Italian

peninsula, surrounded by multiple hemi cyclical colonnades, a clock
tower, and a campanile and Roman temple - the latter two expressed in
abstract, minimalist, space frame fashion. The central fountain, located
in the middle of a city block, was accessed in two directions: via a
tapering passage extending from Poydras Street, or through an arched
opening in the clock tower sited where Commerce Street terminates at
Lafayette Street. The fountain and its surrounding colonnades playfully
appropriated classical forms and orders, executing them in modern
materials (e.g., stainless steel, neon) or kinetically (e.g., suggesting the
acanthus leaves of traditional Corinthian capitals through the use of
water jets).
• Moore insisted his colorful, cartoonish piazza was a joyful tribute. It was
a monument to the achievements of Italians, so it references Italian
culture directly – the country’s architecture, urbanism, and geography
are all represented.
View of piazza d’italia
• There are 6 concentric colonnades out of which 5 represent the 5
classical orders of architecture. Doric, Corinthian, Tuscan and composite.
In proper order with the proper capitals and there is a 6th styled
colonnade in front, called the delicatessen order which closely looks like
ionic or Doric orders.
• With its neon lights and water features, the piazza possesses a stage set
quality imbued with the playful touches and irony frequently associated
with Moore’s work. The material composition of the columns, pilasters,
capitals & walls are primarily stucco with the exception of those that are
steel inlaid with marble and those constructed out of fanciful water
fountains.
• The traditional Italian piazza experiences one of contrast, created by
narrow streets lined with buildings that culminate in an open court that
feels expansive in contrast to the narrow street and heightens the piazzas
dramatic sense of space.
• The piazza consists of a flamboyant widely neo-classical, neon-outlined,
scenography backdrop for a contour map of Italy set in a pool of water that
is demarcated by concentric rings of marble paving.
Exterior of piazza d’italia
Thank you.