"Lo sguardo di Thérèse Rivière al Musée de l’Homme di Parigi. Le 'tecniche del corpo' per il capovolgimento del paradigma coloniale (1928-1946)", in "Opus incertum", n. monografico "Verso una nuova idea di museo. Architettura, arti, teoria e storia 1934-1964", a c. di E. Ferretti e O. Lanzarini (original) (raw)
Related papers
L’Ambra nell’Antichità. Le figure femminili alate e altri studi, 2021
The J. Paul Getty Museum’s collection of amber antiquities was formed between 1971 and 1984. Apart from the Roman Head of Medusa, which Mr. Getty acquired as part of a larger purchase of antiquities in 1971, all the other ancient amber objects were acquired as gifts. The collection mostly consists of Pre-Roman material, but also includes a small number of Roman-period carvings, of which the Head of Medusa is the most important. The Pre-Roman material includes a variety of jewelry elements that date from the seventh to the fourth centuries BC: fifty-six figured works and approximately twelve hundred non-figured beads, fibulae, and pendants, all gifts from sir Gordon McLendon in 1976. A winged female head in profile showing specific characteristics stands out in a particular way among the ambers of our interest, especially in the treatment of some anatomical details. These details call to mind the female protomes from Canosa and Melfese area, framed in the context of the production of the “Master of the Winged Warrior,” one of the workshops operating within the famous “Satyr and Maenad Group.” Particularly interesting is the rendering of the hair on the forehead, made out in clumps or in wavy bands, which brings in a clear manner this protome to a similar artifact from the tomb 164 of Banzi. The other two winged female heads of the Getty Museum are characterized by a high tutulus and diadem that cover all the hair, big eyes profiled by a deep, almost lozenge-shaped groove, big pyramid-shape nose, small mouth, and tight lips. These figures fully fall, from a stylistic point of view, within the group of female heads gathered under the so-called “Roccanova Group”, and in particular between the protomes of type B in the classification of Montanaro, widespread especially in Canosa area.
"Il Capitale Culturale", 2019
Franco Albini arrived in Egypt in the early Sixties with a Unesco delegation, led by George Henri Rivière and charged with suggesting possible locations for new museums, in collaboration with the Egyptian government. He actually elaborated some plans, which were never put into practice, such as the so-called “Gezira Project” in Cairo (1962-63). In Alexandria the Albini studio, cooperating with Rivière and local architects, resumed a beloved theme of the Italian designer, that of re-establishing connections between museums and cities. He planned a Guggenheim-type structure, a stepped building where the vertical floor separation was abolished. This project too was destined to remain on paper. From this Egyptian experience, besides the plans and the scale models, an interesting report has survived, jointly signed by Albini and Rivière in 1969, which put forward some recommendations and suggestions, with the aim of updating the local museums and archeological sites according to modern European museology.
The quest for suitable exhibition spaces to accommodate the artworks discovered in Ostia Antica has been a constant concern in the modern history of the archaeological area, since the establishment of the first antiquarium in 1912. The situation worsened with the excavations for the Universal Exhibition of 1942 and the discovery of about 200 new sculptures, which needed an adequate accommodation. The Director of the Excavations Guido Calza and the architect Italo Gismondi proposed the renovation of the Casone del Sale, seat of the newly inaugurated Museum (1934), but the project wasn’t appreciated by Marcello Piacentini, who imposed the construction of a new complex designed by the engineer Enrico Lenti. The new building would fit harmoniously the old museum, the Cardine Massimo and the bank of the Tiber, with an succession of open and closed spaces recalling the Roman domus. Here we will show the graphic documentation of both projects, filed in the Archivio Disegni of the Parco Archeologico di Ostia Antica and partially published: in addition, we will also show the administrative and project documentation found in the Fondo Ente Eur, filed in the Archivio Centrale dello Stato. Due to the war, the project was abandoned in favor of a modest enlargement of the existing museum, inaugurated in 1945. In the 1960s, Italo Gismondi proposed the realization of a new building, in which the opus sectile of Porta Marina would be exhibited: this project, too, was never realized, but its graphic documentation is presented here. The search for exhibition spaces continued in the 1980s, when the architect Vanni Mannucci proposed the reconversion of the building of the ex-Meccanica Romana into a museum; a project supported by the superintendent Anna Gallina Zevi, not be realized due to the failure of the expropriation.