Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli UN ARCHITETTO COSMOPOLITA IN PATRIA RAIMONDO D’ARONCO IN FRIULI Castello di Udine Comune di Udine Sindaco Pietro Fontanini Assessore alla Cultura Fabrizio Cigolot Dirigente del Servizio Cultura e Istruzione Antonio Impagnatiello Conservatore delle Gallerie del Progetto Silvia Bianco MOSTRA a cura di Diana Barillari e Silvia Bianco Restauri realizzati con il co-finanziamento della Fondazione Friuli, Bando Restauro 2022 Centro Studi e Restauro, Gorizia Coordinamento amministrativo e di segreteria Federica Coletti Roberto Tomada Segreteria Patrizia Goveto Lucina Meloni Assunta Serra Ufficio Prestiti Francesca Tesei, Registrar Verena Maria Manfroi Fotografie Archivio D’Aronco, Gallerie del Progetto Fototeca dei Civici Musei di Udine Igor Londero Ricerche bibliografiche e fotografiche Loris Milocco per la Fototeca dei Civici Musei di Udine Barbara Morandini per la Biblioteca d’Arte dei Civici Musei di Udine Debora Bufi, Elisa Nervi, Federica Pellini per la Biblioteca Civica “Vincenzo Joppi” Prestatori ACC, Archivio Comunale di Cividale del Friuli presso Biblioteca Civica di Cividale del Friuli Biblioteca Civica “Vincenzo Joppi”, Udine Civici Musei di Udine, Gallerie del Progetto Maria Amalia D'Aronco Museo Civico del Comune di Gemona Famiglia Sello Famiglia Zanuttini Coordinamento sicurezza e allestimento Mariangela Buligatto Marco Visintini Paolo Tosolini Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli The extraordinary creative and artistic experience of Raimondo D’Aronco (18571932) , one of the protagonists of international Art Nouveau architecture, developed between Italy and Turkey, where he worked for the the Sultan Abdülhamid II between 1893 and 1909. The development of his architectural proposals fostered by the encounter of the Ottoman tradition with the advanced Viennese and Central European architectural culture, modelled the peculiarity of his research, which from the very beginning was regarded with great attention by the Italian critics. His distance from Italy never stopped proposals and projects for his homeland, Friuli, where he was born and lived in the early part of his life. His first important human and professional experiences took place between his native Gemona and Udine, and throughout his career the architect was able to plot a close dialogue with his homeland, to which he generously dedicated the outcome of his original works. Previously unpublished documents, rediscovered archives and a historiography that enriched the knowledge of his activities form the basis of the research project to reinterpret the Friulian projects in the light of international experience, which in a continuous process of osmosis feed and are nourished by his Turkish experiences. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli The visitor who climbs the staircase that leads to the Parliament Hall of the Castle of Udine to visit the exhibition "A cosmopolitan architect at home: Raimondo D'Aronco in Friuli" , can stand in front of the desk he had commissioned along with other furniture for the study (drawing board and two bookcases). The furniture was donated to the Municipality of Udine by the heirs (Milla Irene D'Aronco Chizzola, Cristina, Mattia and Silvia Chizzola) so that the exhibition is a valuable opportunity to show the city a part of the donation that implements the archive of drawings kept at the Project Galleries, to which are added the books that are located in the Joppi Municipal Library. The donation also brought back a forgotten story that intertwines the human and professional life of the architect with his friend Angelo Sello, owner of the furniture factory in Udine and a point of reference during his stay in the city. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli At the time of the donation it was known only that the furniture was made of cypress wood, a rare essence that the D'Aronco heirs attributed to the long stay in Turkey, where the production of fine furniture was characterized by the use of this essence. The research carried out on the occasion of the exhibition has led to the identification at the Sello archive of unpublished documentation that has allowed us to date the furniture (1923) and acquire the details of their realization. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli Room 1 :Monuments and public architecture. The D’Aronco family moved from Gemona del Friuli to Udine in 1876 following the head of the family who had taken over an artificial stone and cement factory. In the same year, Girolamo’s company was entrusted with the task of overseeing the restoration of the Loggia del Lionello. Here the young Raimondo gained his first experiences, before enrolling at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice (1877), where he immediately stood out for his commitment and talent. From his earliest projects, his dedicated search for innovation was carried out within the framework of tradition, which the architect intended to revolutionize, using eclecticism as a tool of ars combinatoria, allowing him to range between eras and styles. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli The design of monuments is a constant that returns in the project activity and if at the beginning the opportunities were offered by national competitions that celebrated the young Italian nation and the Risorgimento wars, at the end of the IWW the monuments in memory of the fallen prevail. In 1914, a competition was launched among the Friulian artists to erect a monument to commemorate the annexation of Friuli to Italy, an initiative promoted by the Friulian community living in Argentina that for the occasion had promoted a subscription of funds. The place chosen is the large hemicycle outside Porta Poscolle, for which the architect proposes a triumphal column with the signs of Roman military glory. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli Among the projects, there are the monument to San Pietro al Natisone (1918), the monument Lighthouse to be erected on Mount Buja (1924-1925) and the draft for the national competition of the Monument to the Fante on Mount San Michele (1920). Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli In 1887 he was commissioned to design the new Udine Town Hall, which was not completed until 1930. The history of the project and the changes in the architectural language used allow us to follow the evolution of the classical tradition that turns from eclecticism to the geometric rigor of the Viennese school, to arrive at the «Modern Renaissance» of the final project, dated 1910. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli If the projects for the Banca Cattolica del Veneto (1907) and the enlargement project of the Albergo Nazionale (1911) had been carried out, they would have configured a marked Secessionist intonation inspired by the architecture of Vienna. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli Room 2: Sacred Architecture It was a predestined encounter of Raymond with the Gothic and the Middle Ages, his competent passion was equally ascribed to the neo-Gothic design of his father, author and builder of many churches, and to the teachings of Giacomo Franco at the Academy of Venice. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli For the cemetery of Cividale (1889) D'Aronco chooses an architectural language that is characterized by the neo-medieval lexicon, on which he grafts neo-Gothic elements - spires, pinnacles - that give the project that innovative imprint much appreciated by the client, which praises «good taste and genius». Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli The project for the new Sanctuary of Sant'Antonio in Gemona (1923-1924) develops in a baroque sense starting from Renaissance presuppositions, a Greek cross plan with a succession of niches, exedras, protruding bodies, ending in a grandiose dome worthy of Juvarra, as in the basilica of Superga, it is preceded by a long pronaos. The restoration of the temple of Saint John to house the fallen of the IWW is of 1920. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli The Family Tomb in the cemetery of Udine (1898) is attributable to the peculiar eclecticism of the architect who, now living in Istanbul for some years, combines the East - understood as ancient Egypt - to the West, combining urns, garlands and ribbons with lion heads and sacred scarabs. For the Tomba Camavitto (1904) the architect elaborates the studies completed for the regional exhibition, one of the apexes of his adherence to modern architecture, anticipating the dynamism of Futurism with the simultaneous progression of the arms of the cross that rises on the funeral chapel. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli On display some unpublished documents from the Sello archive, which refer to the architect’s career, admission to the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice (1877) the conferral of the chair of architecture and ornate at the Institute of Fine Arts in Massa Carrara (1881), the dismissal sheet of service at the Military Engineer (18751876), the assignment (1887) by the Mayor of Udine for the Town Hall and that of the Mayor of Cividale (1889) for the new cemetery, the thanks of the Mayor of Gemona for the gift of some drawings and the request to create two tombstones to put in the Town Lodge (1882). Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli Room 3:The houses. One of the first works realized by Raimondo D'Aronco on his return to his homeland in 1909 after his long and extraordinary stay in Turkey, are the houses for his brother Quinto in Tarcento (1909) and Udine (19101911). This last building is of great importance because together with the villas that are still preserved - house D'Aronco in Turin (1903), house Djemil Bey in Kireçbürnü (1903) and the former summer residence of the Italian Embassy in Tarabya on the Bosphorus (1905-1906) - is a valuable example of D'Aronco’s contribution to the main theme of 20th century architecture, the single-family house, which becomes a field of experimentation for the search for new forms. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli House D'Aronco in Udine (left) and in Tarcento the project (right). The demand for the construction of the house in Viale Duodo dates 1912, but the first project dates back to 1910 and of all the houses built in Italy is the one that most recalls the layout of the villas for the Turkish client. The memory of the East in the house for Quinto in Tarcento is manifest in the tower with the bulb dome in which there is the spiral staircase that serves as a axis of vertical distribution. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli The architect in 1924 designed for Luigi Tamburlini the villa that will be built in Viale Trieste and demolished after a ruinous bombing in 1944. D'Aronco designed the reform of villa Biasutti in Villafredda di Tarcento (about 1924), inserting powerful ashlar pilasters on the corners of the building and a seal of the main body, while for the house of Udine, it has an annex on the side overlooking the new Viale della Vittoria (1924). Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli The projects for the Villino Zanuttini (via Cairoli and via D'Azeglio in Udine) date back to 1923 but were not carried out according to the plans of D'Aronco. Next to the design of the cottage, the table with the reform of Villa Biasutti and a old photo of the Biasutti house in Udine (archive Sello). Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli Family photo, from left Rita Javelli D'Aronco, daughter Rita and Raimondo D'Aronco (collection Valentina Pizzali). Girolamo D'Aronco with his wife Santa Venturini and seven children, eldest son Raimondo (collection Maria Amelia D'Aronco). House D’Aronco, Turin, 1903 1905. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli The smiling faces of the brothers Raimondo (left) and Vigilio D'Aronco indicate that the exhibition continues on the third floor. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli Room 4: The Udine exhibition 1903. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli The Udine exhibition of 1903 did not have the notoriety of the modern decorative art exhibition in Turin 1902, which sanctioned Italy’s adhesion to the Art Nouveau movement and the international relevance of Raimondo D'Aronco, author of the exhibition halls. Nonetheless the architect considered the drawings elaborated for the Udinese exhibition «as the most serious and complete study he has done». There are no gaps between the projects of the two exhibitions, since chronologically rearranging the sequence, including variants, reconstructs the evolutionary path of his architectural language, and it is agreeable the statement of D'Aronco that sanctioned the conclusion of a biennial research, held between April 1901 and February 1903. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli The numerous drawings that illustrate the decorations, the ornamental and the constructive details, with their sumptuous chromatic range, document the extraordinary imaginative creativity of the author. Many projects were not realized but the many studies and drawings produced were originated by the possibility of expressive research that had glimpsed «I want to touch the most varied subjects and prove that you can do everything new without repeating...». Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli D'Aronco illustrates in a letter to the engineer Cantarutti the innovative charge of the project for Udine that he says is superior to that of Turin, because the architectural language - which reveals the guidelines has cut any reference to the past, creating a vocabulary made up of simple and grandiose lines. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli Room 5: D’Aronco in Turkey. In 1893, D'Aronco moved to Istanbul to begin working to the Ottoman exhibition. After the exhibition was cancelled due to the devastating earthquake of 1894, the architect was called upon to collaborate in the reconstruction and the impressive restoration of mosques and monuments damaged by the earthquake. He then designed private residences and houses, public and religious buildings, in which his perspective expanded towards the East, making him discover a new and fascinating universe of forms and structures. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli Between 1903 and 1904 he designed the Small Mosque in Galata, the Tomb Fountain and Library complex for Seyh Zafir in Yildiz, the Collection Hall and Library for Memduh Pacha in Arnavutköy. These projects measure the extent of the modernization in key of genius loci that D'Aronco proposes, since the types of buildings such as a prayer room or a monumental memorial complex for a convent of dervishes, they become an opportunity to reformulate the decorative patterns of the Viennese Secession, adapting them to the vast repertoire of Islamic and Ottoman ornamentation. Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli House Djemil Bey in Kireçburnu, 1903, project and realization (photo 30' ca.). Un architetto cosmopolita in patria. Raimondo D’Aronco in Friuli The exhibition is open from Tuesday to Sunday, 10 - 18. The catalogue is on sale at the ticket office of the Castle of Udine and the bookshop Einaudi Gaspari , via Vittorio Veneto in Udine (cost Euro 16,50).