Crafting Urban Intervention: Mario Ridolfi ’s Postwar Works in the City of Terni

The reconstruction works of Mario Ridolfi and Wolfgang Frankl in historical centre of Terni, unlike their earlier practices known for neo-realism, are often marginalised from the mainstream of modernist architecture, probably because their historicist and craftsmanship approach both seemed to be outdated in postwar era and thus unlikely to provide new insights into the architects’ concept. This thesis scrutinises the scarcely discussed relationship among these works, both temporally and geometrically, seeing them, including urban planning and architecture, as parts of a longterm exploration of a consistent compositional apparatus which was able to be applied in urbanism, architecture and construction details alike, which wasn’t seen anywhere else in the architects’ oeuvre. Emphasis is placed on two areas of urban intervention, San Francesco and Piazza Spada, as well as two related sets of built works and projects. Craftsmanship might be the all-time concern when it comes to Mario Ridolfi’s work. In Terni, with no exception, the architects skilfully crafted as many details for every project as for the houses in Marmore. But the critical part still resides between each individual building and their environment, where volume, framework, and construction system was carefully organised as if form, material and technics were organised in construction details, in order to build up connections of components and integrity, or to balance between consistency and multiplicity. In the field of urbanism, craftsmanship became a spirit of systematic way of composition that didn't rely on figure or proportion, but the detailing process translating geometric motif consistently into variegated urban-architectonic forms in different scales that went beyond singular material and buildings technology. Meanwhile, holding to a certain typology of mixed structure with visible concrete framework combined with infill walls, Ridolfi’s ‘urban craftwork' extended to appropriation and reinterpretation of the construction system in accord with the position of the object in the relationscape. This thesis also discussed the origin, development, variation and culmination of this construction typology as it transformed along with the construction of urban environment. In Ridolfi’s conception of urbanism there existed an unsung theme which was scenography that functioned as visual control, since the buildings are always the backdrop of human activities on the square. Such conception witnessed the evolution of visual control from single axis in the first phase of the reconstruction plan to multiple ones that formed a panorama in the second phase of the detailed plans, and had, to some extend, pre-determined the form of geometric motif as well as the elements such as the asymmetrical backdrop, the diagonal axis and its destination, or the stage of theatre in a central plan. Although ternian works are unique because of their non-repeatable prerequisite, they were still indebted to the accumulation of the architects in their profession and private experiences. There are huge amount of drawings but very few words left as the resources of this research, since Ridolfi was apparently among those architects who always do a lot but speak little. Therefore these works are also examined in relation to the architects’ past and contemporary works and experiences. Never considered major urban designers, Ridolfi and Frankl, nonetheless, provide through their play in various scales with geometric pattern and constructional form abundant materials for a different, architectonics-oriented urban intervention in Italian postwar reconstruction.