[...] Even though quite small, it's the cemetery the real heart of all the interventions (in Santa Severina). Thought as an enclosure containing also the precedent cemetery, it evokes the idea of a more intimate place, a " sancta sanctorum " hidden inside. Here too, the apparent simplification of forms it's the result of clear design intentions: a logic based on contradictions, a barely-there axis of symmetry, the use of circles and arcs, like self references. The entire design oscillates between a clear distinction of elements – clearly identified and autonomous – and a sort of continuity, as if the building was carved out from the hill, emphasized by the slope of the valley and variations in height. This oscillation between " architecture achevée " and " talking architecture "  gives rise to a sort of limbo where all the architectural elements, uninterested in monumentality and eloquence, strive for a more unassuming, barely vibrating ...

Roberto Mariotti (G.R.A.U.) “Nuovo cimitero di Nizza 1982-1986” - Ingresso, 1985 (con Paola Chiatante, Aldo Coacci, Gabriella Colucci, Franco Pierluisi, G.X. Marguerita, M. Schwartz) China, matita e pastelli colorati su carta da lucido, 46,5x69,5 cm. Copyright: Roberto Mariotti (G.R.A.U.) Courtesy: Francesco Moschini e Gabriel Vaduva A.A.M. Architettura Arte Moderna ... the problem we want to discuss here is architecture as art . Art is thought : multiplicity as unity, truth, judgement. A thought that enacts and realises itself through specific organisation of signs and techniques, particular for every art. That specific organisation of signs is closed; only within the organic relations inside the artistic object  we can witness the realisation of the concept or artistic truth. The true artistic value in the architectural object is found in the organised relations , thought with specifically signs. This kind relationship is: – sem...

picture from G.R.A.U. isti mirant stella - Architetture 1964-1980, edited by Kappa / A.A.M. Architettura Arte Moderna, 1981, Roma - Città e progetto 1. Collana di Architettura diretta da Francesco Moschini. [...] The complex logic that undergoes these works let see a tension towards formal simplification, where geometry, far from becoming a field of virtuosity, is an element of clarity and order. [...] In this slaughterhouse two elements are simply pulled together, a circular one for the butchery and a square one for the stable: but still those two volumes, so different, exchange important cross references. Blocked in austere closure – even if the circular shape would suggest opening towards landscape – they seem to hold, wrapping it in their intimacy, an extraneous element, turned mythical through history but reduced to a purely domestic use: so they are those two secret, vaguely hinted references t...

picture from G.R.A.U. isti mirant stella - Architetture 1964-1980, edited by Kappa / A.A.M. Architettura Arte Moderna, 1981, Roma - Città e progetto 1. Collana di Architettura diretta da Francesco Moschini. 3D reconstruction

Competition for the Opera in Udine, 1975 - A. Di Noto, R. Mariotti, M. Martini, P. Nicolosi from G.R.A.U. isti mirant stella - Architetture 1964-1980, edited by Kappa / A.A.M. Architettura Arte Moderna, 1981, Roma - Città e progetto 1. Collana di Architettura diretta da Francesco Moschini. G.R.A.U. Several years ago, when I tried to make a point about their work, the GRAU was mostly a «spiritual» reality. Many architects gazed the sky: Isti mirant stella was the motto for one of their  best works and it would also become the title of a book. Slowly but surely, after some interesting designs, the first few built works started to arrive: not quite symphonic compositions, more like chamber music, but their vocation toward orchestral pieces was strongly present, well expressed after all in those bigger contemporary works. In the next fifteen years, more important works were designed and some more distinct personalities started to emerge under the comm...

picture from    G.R.A.U. isti mirant stella - Architetture 1964-1980,  edited by Kappa / A.A.M. Architettura Arte Moderna, 1981, Roma -   Città e progetto 1.  Collana di Architettura diretta da   Francesco Moschini. 3D reconstruction