Presentation of issue of area 134 – clients

Last July 18, issue 134 of Area magazine was presented at Spazio A. This issue’s introduction, written by Marco Casamonti and Paolo Portoghesi, considered the theme of the issue, “Clients”, translating the term in Italian with the more sophisticated “committenza”, based on the Italian word for “to commission” and suggesting the idea of a patron, rather than the more obvious “clienti”, which has a ring suggesting customers of a supermarket.
This issue is uniquely complex when it comes to architecture, clearly much more complicated than that for “art” clients, as it’s not just about negotiating a painting or sculpture that might end up stuck in the basement or thrown on the fire, but rather a building in which to live, act and work. Discussing the topic were Marco Casamonti, Riccardo Bruscagli, Paolo Portoghesi and Albiera Antinori. Embodying the client and architect in the flesh were Casamonti and Antinori. It was the meeting of these two in Bargino in Chianti that led to the Antinori Winery, the headquarters of one of Tuscany’s oldest wine producers. The winery is one of the most innovative and challenging contemporary urban and architecture projects in Tuscany, set in a very sensitive landscape and an equally sensitive residential setting. From their stories, there seems to have been little blood shed during the design and construction of the winery. Casamonti’s irrepressible inventiveness (see: the spiral staircase that rises from the winery under the vineyards, to “behold once again the stars”, to quote Dante) seems to have been in tune with the genteel caution (and ultimate courage) of an intelligent client.
Riccardo Bruscagli spoke on the exceptional history of Florence and Tuscany in the “client /architect” relationship with a premise that was rambling, but ultimately relevant, about what may be the most famous episode of commissioning architecture in our history. This was the episode that led to the construction (in Vasari’s words: unthinkable, incredible and terrible) of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore by Brunelleschi (now known as the “Duomo” for that very dome). The commission was absolutely special because Brunelleschi, a visionary architect, did not have a “king builder” to seduce; he had to win over the bureaucracy of an entire “democratic” city.
Next, Paolo Portoghesi drew on the wisdom of his long career in battle and noted the changes in “clients” and the relationship with different generations of architects since World War II, or even before since the early twentieth century, whose bourgeois aesthetic famously originated against the bourgeoisie (Portoghesi pointedly observed that this is the only class that likes to disparage itself). He delineated a relationship between artist and client of incomprehension, deep-rooted difference, opposition and even hatred. Portoghesi sees this situation as having dramatically changed in recent decades, having made way for more relaxed, collaborative relationships. Adolfo Natalini was in the audience and disagreed with this vision, which he considered too “idyllic”. He was roused to tell his story of a not at all peaceful experience with his clients. He gave telling examples of friction, which may have been portents of masterpieces, though masterpieces born to the world (to use a metaphor of the generation favored by Casamonti) with difficult labors and none too few traumatic C-sections.

Riccardo Bruscagli