Collection Sant'Elia
A nucleus of drawings by the futurist architect Antonio Sant'Elia: the futurist utopia in Como.
Step house with external lifts and parabolic profile inner gallery (1914/1914) by Antonio Sant'EliaPinacoteca civica di Como
Sant'Elia: Futurist vertigo
The nucleus of drawings by the futurist
architect Antonio Sant’Elia (Como, 1888 - Monfalcone, GO, 1916) is an important
collection at the Civic Museums of Como.
Although he did not complete a great deal of architecture building, Sant'Elia distinguished himself by designing modern utopian constructions that renewed 19th-century eclectic architecture in the name of simplicity of form, orderly lines and the use of modern materials.
Recto: Stepped house with exterior lifts and parabolic-shaped interior gallery (1914/1914) by Antonio Sant'EliaPinacoteca civica di Como
Author of the Manifesto of Futurist Architecture (1914), Sant'Elia brought to his projects a great enthusiasm for technological innovations and the vitalistic activism of the modern city so well exemplified in Umberto Boccioni’s painting La città che sale (The rising city).
Monumental building with decorative panels, side and sketch of front of a building with towers (1911/1912) by Antonio Sant'EliaPinacoteca civica di Como
Railway station studio (1913/1914) by Antonio Sant'EliaPinacoteca civica di Como
Monument with Lanterns (1912/1912) by Antonio Sant'EliaPinacoteca civica di Como
La Torre Faro
The example of Viennese Secessionist architecture, his source of inspiration, is still present in the design of the Torre Faro, which now displays modernity in its structural components.
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti used the drawing as a model for the design of the Monumento ai Caduti di Como (War Memorial in Como), installed on the lakeside in 1933 by Giuseppe Terragni and based on a reworking of a Sant’Elia drawing by the Futurist painter Enrico Prampolini.
Power Plant (1913/1913) by Antonio Sant'EliaPinacoteca civica di Como
The Città Nuova project
The series of the Città Nuova, to which the drawing of 1914 belongs, express the culmination of the idea of a visionary city made up of bridges, footbridges, flyovers, train tracks passing under and through dizzyingly high buildings, and cars speeding along motorways.
Aeroplane and train station with funiculars and lifts on three levels (1914/1914) by Antonio Sant'EliaPinacoteca civica di Como
This is an architectural-urban vision because in these drawings Sant'Elia imagines ways of solving the problems of traffic flow and movement around in the city by integrating the movement of people and all the routes with the buildings themselves. In this way he sought to resolve the structural and architectural problem according to the function that the building performs within the urban fabric itself.
Study for the Città Nuova (New City) (1914/1914) by Antonio Sant'EliaPinacoteca civica di Como
Inspired by the brand new power stations in Valtellina, with their elongated forms soaring between the rocky ridges of the mountains, and by the gigantism of architectural proportions taught by Otto Wagner and the Wagnerschule, Sant'Elia's creative imagination led him to produce a series of drawings that are quite unique in the world of art and architecture.
Taken from the text by from the text by Elena di Raddo in Pinacoteca Civica di Como - Selected works, Electa, 2021
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