Introduction Futurist Architecture International Style F.L. Wright City Planning

The New City
La Citta Nuova (The New City)
Antonio Sant'Elia, 1914
    The Futurist movement existed as a distinct entity from 1909 - 1944; however the movement began to loose momentum after the death of Umberto Boccioni in 1916. The Futurists were interested in anything new and anything having to do with technology. In addition to their obsession with new things they were equally interested in a complete disposal of the past. This combination of interests drew the Futurists heavily to the hustle and bustle of city life. As such it would make sense that some of the Futurists had ideas for improving upon their choice living area.

    Antonio Sant’Elia was the primary driving force behind Futurist architecture. He was born in 1888 in Italy where he trained and qualified as a builder. After his training he moved to Milan where he worked as a building and continued his education in architecture. Prior to 1912 he was still not involved with the Futurists and was instead a part of the Italian Secessionist movement. However by 1914 he was fully under the influence of Futurist ideas. Antonio Sant'Elia wrote the official Manifesto of Futurist Architecture in 1914. The published manifesto was primarily a consolidation and editing of ideas previously developed in Messaggio, a document that was also written by Sant'Elia.

    The Manifesto of Futurist Architecture was written in a similar style to other Futurist manifestoes this one was overall quite inflammatory with an intense desire to depart as completely from the past as possible. With this decoupling from the past the Futurists fully embraced any new technologies they could get their hands on. Not only did they want new materials to be used in their new designs they did not want the new materials to go anywhere near design themes from the past The manifesto states that usage of new materials in the construction of buildings with historical designs desecrates the materials.

San Maurizio
Villa Elisi, San Maurizio (Como)
Sant'Elia's only surviving buiding
Antonio Sant'Elia, 1912
    In order to perpetuate their desire to leave the past behind to future generations the manifesto went so far as to recommend that architecture be constructed of degradable materials ensuring that nothing would endure past a single generation. This degrading architecture effectively makes each generation responsible for the construction of their own towns and cities. To a limited extent this kind of construction is happening today, with budgetary concerns prompting the construction of limited use, temporary buildings as well as buildings with expected occupancy spans of 40 years or less.

    However, even with all of this talk of the new and breaking from the past many of the designs produced where not as radical as they would have liked. Even the designs of Antonio Sant’Elia have hints of monumental architecture, with many designs featuring monumental facades and monolithic pillars. Additionally, with all of their desire to create a new city to separate from the past, no full plans were created. This shows that as much as the Futurists may have wanted to obliterate the past, such an objective is essentially impossible.


Resources
Frampton, Kenneth. Modern Architecture - A Critical History. pp 84-89. New York: Thames and Hudson Inc, 1985.

Osborn, Bob. Bob Osborn's Futurism and the Futurists. 2003. 8 Dec 2004. http://www.futurism.org.uk/futurism.htm

Sant'Elia, Antonio. Manifesto of Futurist Archtiecture. 1917. 8 Dec 2004. http://webusers.physics.umn.edu/~duvernoi/futurist.html