ABSTRACT
Paolo Portoghesi (born in Rome, 1931) is an architect and one of Italy’s most respected architectural historians of the twentieth century. His studies have ranged from the Renaissance, including the investigation of Leonardo’s technical drawings and an edition of Leon Battista Alberti’s De re aedificatoria, through to the architecture of Michelangelo, nineteenth-century Art Nouveau and contemporary architecture.1 Nevertheless, Portoghesi’s historical research has predominantly focused on the architecture of the Italian baroque. Portoghesi began writing articles on the baroque while still a student in Rome. In 1956 he published his first book on Guarino Guarini and at the same time his attention became increasingly devoted to the work of Francesco Borromini. Portoghesi’s intuition was that aspects of modern architecture could be read and understood through the investigation of baroque architectural experience, a study that could provide useful design tools for developing contemporary architectural composition. Driven by an anticlassicist passion inherited from Bruno Zevi, Portoghesi’s attention was caught by Borromini’s skills in breaking the theoretical and projective rules seemingly fixed by Renaissance architecture. Setting itself free of conventions, Borromini’s work became a symbol of liberation and innovation. From Portoghesi’s Casa Baldi (1959-61), through to his design of the Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre (1974-95), both in Rome, to the Via Novissima at the first Biennale di Architettura in Venice (1980), the historical lessons of baroque architecture had meaningful reverberations in Portoghesi’s design work.
