30 October 2025
Campus LeonardoRoom: B.6.2.
14:15 – 16:15 hours
Introduction
Marco Stefani – Università degli Studi di Udine
Moderator
Anna Frangipane – Università degli Studi di Udine
Discussants
The Modern Movement cinemas in Turin
Emilia Garda – Politecnico di Torino
Modernity of cinema bearing structures in Italy
Marco Stefani – Università degli Studi di Udine
Architecture and metamorphosis Cinema-Theatre in Valdagno by Francesco Bonfanti
Luca Zecchin – Università degli Studi di Udine
The 20th-century Italian School of Engineering is known for its outstanding works, not only related to its main players, as Riccardo Morandi, Sergio Musmeci, Pierluigi Nervi …, but, also, to its high-level designers, calculating, at home and abroad, bridges, dams, tall buildings, stadiums, sport halls in which architecture meets engineering.
There is, surprisingly, in this epic storytelling, a field of study waiting to be investigated, in which, again, architecture and engineering meet: the cinema spaces.
Vaults, large span beams and balconies of halls designed for 1000 and more people, as well as small precious spaces, talk about a culture of structural design innovative in the use of materials and building techniques, hidden in the darkness of the movie screenings, and too evident to be looked at during the screening times.
The future of these spaces – the topic of the on-going project FUTURSPACE this Seminar is part of – cannot forget the quality of the structural design produced with creativity and no preconceptions, in a characterising mixité between architecture and engineering, which finds an unicum in MIlan, in the just revealed pioneer work by Alessandro Rimini (1898-1976) and the unfinished production by Mario Cavallé (1895–1982).
Starting from the outline of a general framework, the seminar focuses on the relevant case study of the experience in Turin, ending with a critical assessment of the Modern Movement heritage in Valdagno (Vicenza), passing its hand over the following Seminars.
