Luigi Moretti: Works and Writings

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Summary: Poetry in Concrete
Review: This is the first signficant English language text on this extraordinary architect, a genius in concrete. In North America there are only two examples of his work, the famed Watergate complex in Washington DC and the Tower of Change in Montreal Canada. According to the authors, over his lifetime he produced seventy projects.

What this book gives is an insight into his remarkable career though his writings and pages of photographs. They trace the evolution of his career, showing the roots of ideas germinate on various buildings. The scope of Moretti's work is highly varied, private apartments, apartment buildings, gymnasiums, corporate headquarters, vast plazas, Olympic facilities, etc. He was a commited Fascist, serving prison time for his views, and his popularity during Mussolini's time led to many projects. Most of those were vast in scale and were dominated by the Baroque, medieval influences that he so admired.

The unifiying principle in his work is his mastery of concrete, making it float seemingly unsuspended in a variety of ways. For example, a staircase in the Casa del Balilla that looks like a chambered nautilus, or the magnificent fountains at Watergate that gracefully cascade several levels through the air. The underground parking garage of the Villa Borghese might be mistaken for a Stanley Kubrick movie set of a space station or a dramatic theatre set. He forces concrete to do the unbelievable, making the viewer think that the medium is as supple as plastic. This book is well worth the inveestment and the chance to learn about someone whose work has not received enoughr adulation.