"Il Problema Sociale, Costruttivo ed Economico dell’Abitazione": sources et affiliations

Diotallevi and Marescotti’s Manual “Il Problema Sociale, Costruttivo, Economico dell’Abitazione”: Sources and Affiliations The handbook under examination came out in 1948-1950 and paired Ridolfi’s “Manuale dell’Architetto” (1946) as an influential tool of technical know-how for the Italian reconstruction after the defeat in WWII. The aim of the paper is to illustrate the specificity of Diotallevi and Marescotti’s work, whose essence can be described under the slogan “doing by comparing”. Composed by 196 unbound plates, double side, horizontally printed on a thick paper, “Il Problema Sociale” represents a unique experiment in the dissemination of a practical culture intended to reach different strata of Italian society, from the cultivated designers to the simple builders. Of the two authors, both architects, Marescotti was for a decade involved in the editorial board of Casabella, under the leadership of Giuseppe Pagano. During the years he was in charge of the section of the journal dedicated to classify news from international magazines. In this capacity he had the opportunity to wide his knowledge of world architecture. In assembling the manual the authors developed a grid for listing buildings and neighbourhoods and applied a descriptive collage technique to design the layout, which includes b&w photos, drawings (mostly axonometric representation), and technical diagrams. In this paper I shall concentrate on the examination of the printed sources of the illustrations the authors selected, largely taken from journals and architectural publications, not to mention product catalogues and publicity. The next step will be to investigate the layout process from the collected material to the printed format. I shall discuss the design of the different sections of the manual, focusing, for instance on the use of short texts printed in different colours and the appropriation of a cartoon’s method of representation. A brief analysis of the contents will also be included. As a conclusion I wish to show how the graphic design of the two manuals mentioned above – Diotallevi and Marescotti on the one hand, and Ridolfi on the other – are emblematic of different approaches to the building industry in post-war Italy related to different audience.