Bruno Zevi, the continental European emissary of Geoffrey Scott’s theories

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century, Bernard Berenson revived the analytical methodologies employed in art history by proposing new methods of pictorial analysis, such as space-composition and life-enhancement. In the twentieth century, his pupil Geoffrey Scott transferred these new methodologies from their original context, Renaissance painting, to architecture. Though Scott was a recognised critic within English aesthetic circles, he was largely ignored in Continental European academic communities. The influence of his book The Architecture of Humanism (1914) was limited to the Anglo-American world before the 1940s. This essay depicts the key role that the Italian architect Bruno Zevi played after the Second World War, by becoming the primary architectural historian to introduce and diffuse Scott's forgotten masterpiece in many non-English-speaking countries. Zevi defended a critical methodology based on spatial, empirical, and sensory analysis of architectural works, an attitude that is observed in his theoretical corpus written immediately after his return from the United States. This paper proposes an examination of Zevi's reception of Scott's theories and the debates that it propagated, and aims to contribute to the understanding of the methodological approach followed in the years after the Second World War on both sides of the Atlantic. The introduction of the concept of space as an element of architectural analysis and design has been one of the most significant contributions to the field of architecture in the twentieth century. The interpretation of architecture in terms of space, though, did not become widely familiar to American and English audiences until the early 1940s, with the publication of Sigfried Giedion's Space, Time and Architecture in 1941, Nikolaus Pevsner's An Outline of European Architecture in 1943, and later, Bruno Zevi's Architecture as Space in 1957. Broadening this traditional narrative, Colin Rowe suggested that the American art historian Bernard Berenson, his pupil, the English architectural historian Geoffrey Scott, and, potentially, the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, had already begun to utilise space as a fundamental concept in their works, prior to the normally assumed entry of space onto the Englishspeaking architectural stage in the 1940s. 1 Rowe's hypothesis was developed in part from Cornelis van de Ven's Space in Architecture: the Evolution of a

Factors Linking Perceptions of Built Heritage Conservation and Subjective Wellbeing

“…Since the 1950s, scholars emphasize the social dimension of architecture. To Zevi, "the content of architecture is its social content" (Zevi 1957, cited in;Martínez 2019). Zevi argued, according to Vitruvius' principles, that there is no sense in isolating beauty and ignoring the social context.…”

“…Zevi argued, according to Vitruvius' principles, that there is no sense in isolating beauty and ignoring the social context. Summerson, in "The Case for a Theory of Modern Architecture," refutes the establishment of formal theory and concludes "the source of unity in modern architecture was in the social sphere, in other words in the architect's program" (Summerson 1957, cited in;Martínez 2019).…”

“…Social connections and relationships Quantity and quality of social relationships Community engagement and volunteering activities (Lalli 1992), (Najafi and Shariff 2011), (Gifford, Steg, and Reser 2011), (Ander et al 2012), (Ujang, Moulay, and Zakariya 2015), (Chi, Cai, and Li 2017), (Mouratidis 2018a), (Martínez 2019) 3. Knowledge gain Learning about history through the built environment Learning about human capabilities Being inspired by knowledge of past achievements (Graham, Mason, and Newman 2009), (Froggett et al 2011), (Ander et al 2012), (Morse and Chatterjee 2017), (Todd et al 2017) 4.…”