Antonio Sciortino, Antonio Sant’Elia and Vladimir Tatlin : architecture of space : the city and the monument in the twentieth century

Abstract

The twentieth century remains a conundrum, an ill-fitting piece within the global puzzle and a centre of debate for many art historians and historians alike. The amount of explosive, implosive and frightening challenges posed to both mankind as well as mankind’s idea of Man within the early decades of the twentieth century left the rest of the century reeling with its effects. The conception of this thesis subject came about through a personal interest in sketched and unrealised plans, and the urban space, married together with a love for twentieth century art and culture. The combination of Maltese and Italian architecture seems succinct enough, with many questioning my decisions to include a Russian example. I believe that the juxtaposition of these three realities is strength rather than a hindrance in showcasing best the diverse and undulating Interwar period. The reality within which Antonio Sciortino, Antonio Sant’Elia and Valdimir Tatlin worked and functioned in united and divided them at the same time. These three architects provided their own interpretations to Mankind’s image after the end of World War One. As hopefully argued lucidly within the following pages, Man’s position in the post-Enlightenment universe was unstable and in flux. The purpose for pure aesthetics, beauty, symmetry and grace were being questioned – why should these matter when the greatest battle ever waged in recent memory – the supposedly War To End All Wars – left seventeen million dead and twenty million injured? A new explanation was needed to successfully source out Man’s new image. In an attempt to rein this argument in, the chosen medium is architecture, the urban metropolis and monumental public commissions. These three aspects can be felt intrinsically within the first chapter entitled The City and the Monument in the Twentieth Century. A broader definition of both the monument and the city was adopted so as to carefully draw out the similarities and dichotomies found within the Sciortino’s Monument to the Unknown Soldier, Sant’Elia’s Citta Nuovà and Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International as well as within the twentieth century in general. The propagandic, pedagogical, subtle authoritarian and controlling of the city and the monument by the respective reigning powers can be noted throughout. The evolutions of a new perception of the city, the monument as well as Man’s position within this new urban-scape are core issues as well. The penultimate chapter confronts this same query: the new Man within the new century and how a new language was adopted to reflect this. The juxtaposition between the sensual floral styles of the Belle Époque, characterised by the Art Nouveau Style and the Stile Floreale amongst others, and the modernist language utilised by Sant’Elia, Tatlin as well as Sciortino (albeit subconsciously and perhaps peripherally in The Monument to the Unknown Soldier) is underlined throughout. The growth of the city and of modernity was a pursuit for the artists, with some adopting an antagonising attitude towards it, whilst others, like the Futurists, embraced it wholeheartedly. The final chapter implements the concept of the representational within the social spaces, applied to the city as well as the monument. A multitude of theories about space, the city and the monument, with special interest given to Henri Lefebvre’s seminal theory on the social production of space were applied throughout. The idea of the memorial, the immermorial, and the monumental come together to form the monument-city.