Ernesto Nathan Rogers. The House of the Men and the Architecture As a Phenomenon

Abstract

The critical and theoretical work of Ernesto Nathan Rogers can be considered as a sort of vast narrative, readable not only from a historical point of view but also in a strictly practical sense concerning the design instances of our time. Ernesto Nathan Rogers, together with Giuseppe Samonà, Ludovico Quaroni and a few others, can indeed be ascribed to the category of the fathers of that Italian tradition that presents at least two traits: on the one hand, the reference to the existing city, understood as a stratified and complex fact, and on the other, a constant analogical reference to the architecture of the past in the compositional process. The writings and drawings of Ernesto Nathan Rogers are, therefore, a precious corpus to reconnect the threads with this way of understanding architecture in relation to the other arts and the architect’s role in society. The writings on La casa dell’uomo and architecture as a phenomenon cast indeed an oblique light on themes and issues that our present, tuned to the paradigms of efficiency and economic convenience, gradually forgets and loses sight of.