Concrete Architecture from the Alps to the Mediterranean Sea
Edited by Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell. Introduction by Adrian Forty. Photographs by Roberto Conte, Stefano Perego.
The first book on Italy’s unique Brutalist style, from the authors of Soviet Asia
What makes Italian Brutalist buildings different to their counterparts in other countries? Containing over 140 exclusive photographs—ranging from private homes to churches and cemeteries via football stadiums—across every region of the country, Brutalist Italy is the first publication to focus entirely on this subject. Architectural photographers Roberto Conte and Stefano Perego (authors of Soviet Asia) have spent the past five years traveling over 12,000 miles documenting the monumental concrete structures of their native country. Brutalism—with its minimalist aesthetic, favoring raw materials and structural elements over decorative design—has a complex relationship with Italian history. After World War II, Italian architects were keen to distance themselves from fascism, without rejecting the architectural modernism that had flourished during that era. They developed a form of contemporary architecture that engaged with traditional methods and materials, drawing on uncontaminated historical references. This plurality of pasts assimilated into new constructions is a recurring feature of the country’s Brutalist buildings, imparting to them a unique identity. From the imposing social housing of Le Vele di Scampia to the celestial Our Lady of Tears Sanctuary, Syracuse, Brutalist Italy collects the most compelling examples of this extraordinary architecture for the first time in a single volume.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Wallpaper*
Jonathan Bell
Brutalist Italy contains such a cavalcade of concrete riches that it seems selfish to publish any more images here; you’ll have to buy the book to see the best ones.
Morning Star
Elizabeth Short
Brutalist Italy shows how architects on the peninsula embraced concrete’s pluralities and contradictions, in styles that were not always necessarily a utopian view of times ahead but also reflective, layered in history.
Financial Times: How To Spend It
Edwin Heathcote
But this little book is full of wildly inventive, sculptural buildings by architects who have escaped the classical legacy of fascism and the ubiquity of the historic.
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FORMAT: Hbk, 8 x 6.5 in. / 200 pgs / 153 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $34.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $48.95 ISBN: 9781739887834 PUBLISHER: FUEL Publishing AVAILABLE: 9/19/2023 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Brutalist Italy Concrete Architecture from the Alps to the Mediterranean Sea
Published by FUEL Publishing. Edited by Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell. Introduction by Adrian Forty. Photographs by Roberto Conte, Stefano Perego.
The first book on Italy’s unique Brutalist style, from the authors of Soviet Asia
What makes Italian Brutalist buildings different to their counterparts in other countries? Containing over 140 exclusive photographs—ranging from private homes to churches and cemeteries via football stadiums—across every region of the country, Brutalist Italy is the first publication to focus entirely on this subject. Architectural photographers Roberto Conte and Stefano Perego (authors of Soviet Asia) have spent the past five years traveling over 12,000 miles documenting the monumental concrete structures of their native country.
Brutalism—with its minimalist aesthetic, favoring raw materials and structural elements over decorative design—has a complex relationship with Italian history. After World War II, Italian architects were keen to distance themselves from fascism, without rejecting the architectural modernism that had flourished during that era. They developed a form of contemporary architecture that engaged with traditional methods and materials, drawing on uncontaminated historical references. This plurality of pasts assimilated into new constructions is a recurring feature of the country’s Brutalist buildings, imparting to them a unique identity.
From the imposing social housing of Le Vele di Scampia to the celestial Our Lady of Tears Sanctuary, Syracuse, Brutalist Italy collects the most compelling examples of this extraordinary architecture for the first time in a single volume.
