Raimondo Guidacci was born at Foggia in 1968. He studied architecture at Venice and graduated in 1995. His dissertation was supervised by Carlo Magnani, a teacher belonging to the cultural milieu of Vittorio Gregotti though with a mind of his own and a spirit of pragmatism that distinguishes him from the Zen architect’s excessive rigour. As well as studying architecture, Guidacci attended the Benedetto Marcello Conservatoire of music where he obtained his diploma that same year. His first work experience was at Orsara in Puglia to which he commuted from Turin where he was on the strength of the Polytechnic for several years and in 1996 opened his own professional practice. It was two houses at Orsara completed in 2004 that brought him to the notice of the inside talent-spotters. Though these were first efforts, they speak of mature professionalism deployed in five directions. The first of these we might call abstract contextualism. This approach consists in pursuing modernity while avoiding any clash with the surrounding context. Within the contemporary idiom it entails choosing a repertoire of line and figure that is on a compatible wavelength with the pre-existing buildings. In this it stands apart from mimicry – that present-day trend which municipal regulations and superintendency restrictions are enforcing in many quarters and which unthinkingly copies the urban context, obsequiously picking up stylistic traits and materials in a kind of revivalist kitsch. In the case of Orsara Guidacci opted for elementary geometrical figures, preferred simple harmonious relations, used horizontal and vertical alignment so as to keep a coherent interface with the visual history of the place, and chose white since that is so widely found in the region. Such a line has been adopted extensively in Spain and Portugal; so we have this Puglia-born, Venice-educated Turin adoptee throwing out references to Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura. The second feature is essential solid...
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Arts and Sciences Building
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