Drawing Modernity

Between the end of 2006 andJanuary2007,“Costruire le Modernità” was the name given to three major exhibitions dedicated to Franco Albini, Ignazio Gardella and Carlo Mollino, architects who have played a leading role in the Italian architectural debate interpreting the canons and demands of rationalism with great coherence and methodological rigour. Hosted almost simultaneously in Milan, Genoa and Turin, these exhibitions not only provided an opportunity to get to know the three protagonists of Italian architecture in depth, but also triggered critical processes and fascinating historiographical interpretations come together in the three volumes dedicated to the exhibitions held at the Triennale in Milan, the Palazzo Ducale in the Ligurian capital and the Archivio di Stato in Turin. The aim of the “Costruire le Modernità” project was to create a single event of international scope which, thanks also to a series of collateral activities, would be able to investigate more closely the contribution of the architectural poetics of the three masters of Italian architecture. This essay, paraphrasing the title of this extraordinary initiative, explores some of the three architects’ projects through drawing in order to further increase knowledge of their work. The digital narration of their architecture through new images is intended to restore to historiography the contribution of the three Italian masters, highlighting the character of their modus operandi not only for the purposes of dissemination but also for educational purposes tending towards recognition of a ‘workmanlike’ work that links architecture and its construction within an autonomous theoretical/practical path.