Author Description

The focus of this issue of Engramma no. 196, “Il viaggio dell’architetto”, edited by Fernanda De Maio and Christian Toson, is on the narratives of architects’ journeys and questions their myth as initiatory journeys, as pilgrimages, or as supreme sources of creative inspiration. Alberto Ferlenga’s contribution, Ciò che il disegno non può raccontare (What Drawing Cannot Tell), concentrates on travel drawing, widespread in architectural publications and monographs. Architects’ sketches and drawings are questioned not for their ability to describe reality and their secret correspondences with future projects, but rather for the relationship they have with a specific moment in their training. In Esperienza soggettiva e racconto collettivo. Architetti sovietici in viaggio (1954-1964) (Subjective Experience and Collective Narrative. Soviet Architects Abroad (1954-1964)), Christian Toson describes the first trips of Soviet architects to Europe in the post-Stalin era, when they were finally allowed to see Western architecture. In Ettore Sottsass, il viaggio e l’archivio (Ettore Sottsass, the journey and the archive), Marco Scotti deals with one of the most prolific architects-writers-travellers of our century, Ettore Sottsass. Storytelling and travel constantly intersect in the life of the architect, who almost obsessively collected and ordered an immense archive. The tale of a journey goes hand in hand with the tale of one's own life, and this combination is particularly evident in the story of Lina Bo Bardi, told by Daniele Pisani in Sola andata. Lina Bo Bardi in Brasile (1946-) (One way ticket. Lina Bo Bardi in Brazil (1946-)). Bo Bardi built up her own personality starting from what at the beginning was little more than a honeymoon trip, although her retrospective narration recounts it as the choice to move to another culture. Similarly, Bernard Rudofsky transformed travelling into the manifesto of his life, as Alessandra Como argues in her paper I Viaggi di Bernard Rud