Il corpo grafico di una architettura decorata : rilievo, disegno, ornamento

This essay deals with the results of research and experiments conducted on the representation of the city of Bari and its architecture. In particular, it investigates the relationships between architecture and its decorative apparatus, between the plastic language of forms and the graphic language of signs, points, lines and surfaces, to the point of composing and defining the “graphic body” of the architectural organism, which is visible, measurable and experienceable. Through the integral reading of an architecture from the beginning of the last century, a building located in a difficult space within the urban fabric and characterised by a singular eclectic decorative party, this publication is part of a research project, begun in 2008, on the image of the city of Bari, starting with the systematic survey of road sections along the fronts of buildings constructed between the 19th and early 20th century in Bari, and then extending to all the buildings that define the regular islands, and creating the visual archive called “BDA. Bari Disegno Architetture” (Valentina Castagnolo, Anna Christiana Maiorano, BDA. Bari Disegno Architetture. Martina Franca (TA): AESEI 2018. ISBN 978-88-909574-9-9), which continues to be implemented with new data. Surveying and drawing are the cornerstone of the research activities underlying the present study and provide the tools to observe, analyse and study the artefact as a whole and in detail, integrating technologies for the architectural survey and digitisation of the work, from terrestrial laser scanner technology to photogrammetry, from remotely piloted aircraft (the drone), applied in the aero-photogrammetric field, to virtual reality. Through the scientific rigour of these operations on the artefact, the study of the expressive potential of drawing and the theoretical contribution of graphic analysis, an integral reading of the work has been made possible. The aim of this study was to investigate, through the graphic language, the decorations on the surfaces of the ‘Palazzo’, studying their compositional dynamics together with the devices through which to transfer the system of knowledge to which the research tends. The present study proposes a particular vision/description/visual narration of the architectural work that is transferred, through the graphic translation operated by the drawing, onto a theoretical/abstract plane, experimenting with a representation model that allows for new levels of reading and analysis, in which the external surfaces (the façades) and the internal surfaces of the ‘Palazzo’, and together with them all the signs and superimpositions, are broken down into their constituent elements (denotative and connotative) and recomposed within a new logical system. The elements and components of the decorative apparatus and architectural ornamentation are visualised in their structural identity and meaning. Sculptural objects and visual artefacts, the decorations have been graphically rendered, taking into account their complexity and morphological variety in sequences of elements ordered according to compositional and summative criteria that declare their linguistic and design autonomy. Fixing the forms in dynamic space, defining them in Euclidean geometry and visualising them in descriptive geometry has substantiated the investigative work of the present work. Thus, drawing is no longer a scaled reduction of reality, but stands as a conceptual datum capable of generating meaningful images. In the two-dimensional visualisation of the element chosen as the recognised unit of the system, and once the hierarchy of vision has been established, the decoration offers itself to the eye as a handwriting, a script to be read and codified. In the frontal, two-dimensional representation, each single element of the decoration can be observed by going beyond the scale at which it was drawn, and beyond the real scale if the viewing device is electronic and one is in a digital environment, i.e. by zooming in: the drawing (or the image) loses its recognisable connotations, it unconfigures itself, the forms, the geometries merge to become lines, linear or curved, continuous, discontinuous, points. Relations, distances, equalities and sequences are established. In the space of drawing, the original system is dismantled, the façade is fragmented and the individual elements are isolated and then placed side by side. Similar elements are repeated and the slightest linguistic variations underline the richness of the building, its history, its link with its context. In identifying the morphological balances of the reproduced image, forms, proportional relationships, harmonies, analogies and variations are traced, outlining a path to rewriting the expressive possibilities of a new ornament.

Attraverso la lettura integrale di una architettura di inizio secolo scorso caratterizzata da un singolare partito decorativo eclettico, collocata in uno spazio difficile del tessuto urbano di Bari, il presente volume indaga la relazione tra l’architettura e il suo apparato decorativo, tra il linguaggio plastico delle forme e quello grafico dei segni, punti, linee e superfici, fino a comporre e definire il “corpo grafico” dell’organismo architettonico, visibile, misurabile ed esperibile. Il presente studio propone una particolare visione/descrizione/narrazione visiva dell’opera architettonica che viene trasferita, mediante la traduzione grafica operata dal disegno, su un piano teorico/astratto e sperimenta un modello di rappresentazione che consente nuovi livelli di lettura e analisi, in cui le superfici esterne ed interne del Palazzo, con segni e sovrapposizioni, sono scomposte nei suoi elementi costitutivi e ricomposte all’interno di un sistema logico nuovo. Oggetti scultorei e artefatti visivi, le decorazioni sono state restituite graficamente, tenendo conto della loro complessità e varietà morfologica, in sequenze di elementi ordinati secondo criteri compositivi e sommativi che dichiarano la loro autonomia linguistica e progettuale. Fissare nello spazio dinamico le forme, definirle nella geometria euclidea e visualizzarle in quella descrittiva ha sostanziato il percorso di indagine del presente lavoro. Pertanto il disegno non è più una riduzione in scala della realtà, ma si pone come dato concettuale capace di generare immagini significative.