“Futurama II”. Tracking the ‘Presence of the Future’ in Contemporary Architecture Representations

Enzo Venturelli, Claude Parent and Roger Anger belong to the same period of time, as the latter two are contemporary while the former was born 13 years earlier, in 1910. However, their stories are quite different. Their approach to architecture reflects the widely varied characteristic and personal features of the three authors, despite their contradictions and complexities. Venturelli is reserved, proposes innovative, visionary architectures within a feasible, consistent context. His reclusive personality kept him away from the French glowing, international environment, in fact he remained in his hometown of Turin that did not love him and soon forgot the contribution of his works. Parent, on the other hand is a brilliant, omnipresent, polemic, provocative personality. Architect among artists, he was the real driving force among artists and intellectuals of post-war Paris; he was appreciated by institutions and was therefore included in the French architectural elite. Anger is the architect who was integrated into the system, a prolific, trendy architect who developed several residential projects, in Auroville, India, therefore implementing his utopian vision of the town. Differences that do not exclude and, on the contrary, confirm the opportunity to identify in the three authors a common urban representation. We refer in particular to the special declination of the ideal, utopian town, according to similarities and repetitions that make this comparison rather interesting. This is even more significant as the analysis highlights a network of cultural, personal relationships, either ascertained or highly probable.