Abitare ‘alla moderna’. Il rinnovo architettonico a Genova tra XVI e XVII secolo

Description

From a rich documentary base, the dynamic is captured by which the sixteenth and seventeenth-century city, growing in height on the network of old medieval sediments, becomes 'modern'. For the first time, the economic mechanisms with which the popular neighborhoods were developed are clarified by transforming the primitive artisan houses into 'half-timbered houses' with up to seven small identical overlapping apartments and how, in the central areas, between noble and 'mezzanine' floors , with trade, hospitality, cumbersome servants, and the sober home of a single family, the rich merchant houses, now disappeared, were organized on seven levels. The research is aimed at the urban context rather than the large representative buildings. With a series of transformation projects, which bring back the state of the houses before and after the interventions, we go back to the changes in fashion and taste, but also in the ways of life of Genoese society: from the medieval house, to the Renaissance, to the Baroque, towards the bourgeois house.

Author profile
Luciano Grossi Bianchi, professor of Design at the Faculty of Architecture of Genoa, realizes several works of Modern Architecture, restorations and urban plans, is the author of studies on the historic city, including: A port city of the Middle Ages, Genoa between the tenth and sixteenth centuries , (SAGEP, Genova 1979/87), with E. Poleggi and with the same: La strada del Guastato: Genoese capital and urban planning at the beginning of the seventeenth century, in 'From the pre-industrial city to the city of capitalism' (Il Mulino, Bologna 1975) ; The landings of the factions and the port of the Municipality of Genoa in 'Port cities of the Mediterranean' (SAGEP, Genoa 1989); Palaces of the XVI and XVII centuries in the Genoa alleys, in 'Argomenti di Architettura' (Faculty of Architecture, Genoa 1995); The restoration of the former convent of San Silvestro in Genoa, in 'Tema' n.3 (New Press, Milan 1998); The foundation of the church of San Salvatore in Genoa, in 'Quaderni Storici 110-2' (Il Mulino, Bologna 2002); The construction of the monumental Genoese maritime front, in the 'Medieval Mediterranean Sea Town' (Centro di Cultura Amalfitana, Amalfi, 2005).