Riverberi di paesaggio nell'architettura domestica nell'Isola d'Elba (1945-1965)

In 1940, Gio Ponti introduced the readers of Domus to the wonders of the Island of Elba, the first to present it as a tourist destination. The island's tourism promotion was interrupted during World War II but started back up immediately afterwards. The beauties of Elba began attracting early speculative building as well as an "enlightened" bourgeoisie who hired talented architects to build their own "getaways" amidst the island's still pristine nature. This was how a cluster of architectural works emerged on the Island of Elba, which, despite their varied architectural expressions, shared the common design material of the landscape, which became an essential part of how the architectural body was conceived. Echoes of Mediterranean landscapes proliferated from one project to the next, such as in the open, rocky structures of houses by Emilio Isotta (1948–1962) hidden among the maritime pines or rooted in the cliffs, the glazed patio of Villa Acquarilli (1948) by Guglielmo Mozzoni and Giancarlo Ghidini, the pure, monochrome geometric shapes of Gio Ponti's villas from the early 1960s immersed in the Mediterranean maquis, as well as in organic expressions as in the Ambrosoli House (1965) by Angelo Andina from Ticino. Our intent, rather, is to compare significant pieces of a single, open collective work of landscape modification. Reinterpreting these house designs from a shared perspective, beyond their specificities, involves critically asking what are the terms of a contemporary architectural text, on a working or design level, that continues to echo the complexity of the Mediterranean landscape.