luigi moretti: lessons of spazio

Luigi Moretti: Lessons of SPAZIO focuses on the theoretical work of the Italian architect Luigi Moretti (Rome, 1906-1973). It does so selectively, focusing on the editorials he published between 1950 and 1953 as editor-in-chief of the magazine SPAZIO, as well as a further essay on parametric architecture, published in 1971-1972, in the first issue of the magazine MOEBIUS, directed by his friend Giulio Roisecco.

This book rediscovers Moretti’s personal impact on international architectural theory through thoughtful comments that shed light on the architect’s modernity and original approach. Although Moretti is an architect renowned for his projects and buildings, his theoretical essays are less well-known. The aim of this book is therefore to explore Moretti’s theoretical work, which covers many topics, including pictorial art, sculpture, architecture, urban planning, music, cinema, poetry, mathematics, computer science, parametricity. In addition to the translation from Italian to English, the book contains reproductions of the original articles, accompanied by a series of essays of critical commentary and updated interpretations that show new ways of approaching, reading, and understanding the foundations of current architectural theory and its progress over the last 50 years. This book approaches Moretti’s thought from a new perspective, with the aim of reconsidering the originality of this brilliant and visionary architect who was intellectually ostracised for many years due to political and ideological contingencies, even though he personified the ideal of the ’Renaissance man’ in modern times.

A re-reading of Moretti’s work is more justified today than has ever been before, both to reconnect the threads with contemporaneity and to make his intensity and farsightedness of vision known to researchers, teachers, and students working in the areas of architecture and design theory, technology, and art today.

Roberto Podda, Ph.D, MA, B.Arch, is Associate Professor of Architecture XJTLU since 2019. He graduated from Politecnico di Milano. His Ph.D. in Architectural and Urban Design dealt with morphotypological experimentation at the scale of the urban region in the context of Italian architecture. From 2009 to 2019 he taught at Politecnico di Milano. In 2019/21 he was director of the UG programme at XJTLU. He has published numerous essays in books and journals on the topics of architectural and urban composition theory. From 2023 is Director of the Sino/Italian Urban Regeneration HUB, at XJTLU School of Design.