Color in architecture among futurism, neoplasticism, rationalism (and more...)

Abstract

In the first decades of the Twentieth century, the relationships between the culture of color and all forms of creativity were intense.  In general - between Futurism and Rationalism - if chromatic theories, trends and "fashions" are clearly recognizable in sectors such as graphic and painting, these are less evident in the complex of architecture. The Futurists immediately appeared open to international contacts: Prampolini, in the area of French Purism; Marinetti, close to Karel Teige and the new Czechoslovakian researches; Paladini to the Russian Imaginism, while Carmelich is the trait d’union with the Yugoslav constructivist area. In all cases, the roots of Bauhaus appear central, even with the fertile role of generator for chromatic theories (Matotta, 1999), with Itten, Klee, Kandinsky, Hinnerk Sheper, Albers (fig. 1), but van Doesburg as well. On the basis of studies on the history and theories of color, this essay intends to re-establish - albeit through still largely incomplete fragments - the network of diffusion developed in Futurism, from Futurism (between theory and practice, knowledge and experience), to start possible comparisons through analogies or discrepancies, and to grasp some developments in architecture, in the contemporary debate, or in subsequent moments. From this point of view, both in coeval and in subsequent periods, the figure of Alberto Sartoris is confirmed illuminating if we take into consideration his intuitive ability and his cultural background, even in the field of color. Combining cultural or speculative aspects with experimentation in the architectural design, his national and international contacts in the field of color, by taste and in the Futurist period, later matured with Rationalism (including all the derived and/or connected "isms") are also valuable.