Capturing the Italian townscape : from the beginnings of Italian landscape photography to the anti-idyllic images of Ivor and Ivy de Wolfe

This paper focusses on the photographic illustrations which appeared in a very odd book published in 1963: The Italian Townscape. Its author, curiously named Ivor de Wolfe on the front cover, was in fact Hubert de Cronin Hastings, a major figure in architectural publishing. The photographs were taken mainly by Ivy de Wolfe (another pseudonym), in reality Hastings’s wife, Hazel. Fifty years later, Erdem Erten and Alan Powers, as editors, published a new edition, aimed at the general public. In their brilliant introductory essay the topic of photography is considered with a light touch. In the same period, Robert Elwall had spent time and energy revaluating the images and the photographers. In his article entitled ‘Road show’ (RIBA Journal, June, 2005) and during a speech at the Retrospective Symposium on The Architectural Review’s Townscape Campaign (22nd July, 2011), Elwall discussed the visual approach to urbanism as a hallmark of the Italian planning stance towards historical towns. Images of Sabbioneta, Padua and Loreto were among the examples considered. The process of touring Italy with a camera after the Townscape debates in the 1950s persuaded Hazel Hastings to suggest an uncommon idea of the Italian cultural landscape, a new appreciation of both historical and contemporary vernacular elements of the built environment, and a tension between the understanding of pedestrian and vehicular urban scales. In introducing some of these themes, my paper will draw on a range of evidence from visual echoes, to shared language, to occasional statements on the subject by Italian photographers and town planners.