La critica d'architettura di Giovanni Klaus Koenig e il grimaldello dell'ironia

Giovanni Klaus Koenig (1924-1989) was an architect, industrial designer, esteemed professor, theorist, historian and critic: a leading figure in the Italian post-war design culture. Although he was the author of groundbreaking research and projects – the essays devoted the German Expressionism and the semiological intrerpretation of architecture, and the careful design of cable cars and trains, just to name a few – some stubborn clichés have affected the understimation of his figure for a long time. Indeed, it seems impossible to talk about Koenig without mentioning his enjoyment for the fulminating joke, the paradoxical metaphor, the invention of pseudonyms and nicknames for himself, his academic colleagues, and the most important and respected architects of the time, as well as the ironic attitude that marked his lectures and writings. The present essay aims to overturn this portrait, discussing how such irony was an instrument of a precise critical project, reflected in a peculiar writing style. Questioning why and how Koenig employed the dialectical artifice of irony also allows us to question the stereotypical interpretation long assigned to the Italian scholar, and also to emphasize the way in which he looked at architecture.