Cherubino Gambardella’s recent monograph, published by Electa, is called “Magical Neo-realism”. Why the title? No mean question, since an answer to it requires an ability to link up the recent works by the firm of this 47 year-old Neapolitan architect (born in 1962) with landmarks in the movement that hovered between metaphysics and realism, launched under fascism by Massimo Bontempelli and numbering Antonio Donghi, Felice Casorati and Cagnaccio da San Pietro among its followers. I think we may rule out politics. No hankerings for the Twenty Years: for one thing, in some Latin American countries critical realism has been espoused by writers from such different ideologies as Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges. My money is on three explanations bound up with architecture itself. The first is a desire to solve a contradiction within Italian architecture, above all, that of an academic matrix, namely a refusal to go along with the experiments of post-deconstructivism and variants on high tech, including soft tech; but at the same time a refusal to be cooped within a reactionary mentality. To pick up the threads from a seasoned movement with its own creative surprises - magic realism - means taking a stand within avant-garde on a stamping-ground for differences of opinion, heated dispute and manifestoes of intent still firing the enthusiasm of those who deep down believe in experiment and innovation. The second reason is biographical in nature. Cherubino Gambardella trained under and was an assistant to Franco Purini. Through him he came to see Italian architecture as an - albeit fertile - clash between two trends: futurism and metaphysics. To opt for magical realism, with its many points of contact with metaphysics, means taking a position within this frame of reference, choosing a course that is basically (though not a priori) anti-futurist and hence not far removed from the master’s own. Contents-wise, that means going for contemplation rather than action,...
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