Materiali e tecniche costruttive Made in Italy

In Italy, the Modern architecture is characterized by the production processes transformations, the experimentation of new technological and constructive systems as well as new materials, that has been contributed to the developement of a "New Italian Style". These new experiments - also favored by the autarkic regime - led to the transformation of the building process and to the introduction of new materials that determined a "Made in Italy" style.
The iron derivatives (cast iron and steel) were widely used as elements of vertical support in building structures. The diffusion of the framed structures and the evolution of the building-industrial process led to the progressive abandonment of the structural role of masonry, in favor of new materials. The glass (and its industrial derivatives - glass blocks, glass fibers, colored coatings) soon established their effectiveness as a building material. Moreover, the system of decorations and cladding of these architectures is very rich: natural stones, used as facing elements that characterized the new Italian architecture and, at the same time, recall the suggestion of a glorious past as well as the ceramics (litoceramica, entirely Italian product) that signed a "modern" building art, related to the industrial experiments and the new construction systems. Finally, the insulation materials generated by fibers of wood, straw, roots or cellulose, capable of providing specific physical-technical performance to the new lightened outer envelopes (feltro, populit, buxus, masonite, faesite). In this complex and articulated industrial context, the study aims to demonstrate how only through a deep knowledge of these materials (often in disuse) and the related constructive experiments it is possible to define procedures and methods for designing recovery interventions for the conservation and valorisation of the Modern heritage, to keep alive the memory of a "Made in Italy" architecture.