LECTUR 7/2. THE FORMATION OF MODERN SPECIAL NODAL BUILDINGS
(May 2026)
Some aspects of the transformation of urban fabric into a building were observed, during the base building lessons, through the continuity of the process generating the current row house from the melting of terraced units, that is, through the transformation of a portion of an urban aggregate into a building. We will now touch on the complex formative continuity of many modern specialized buildings, which often reveal within themselves the explanation of their own formative laws by “knotting” (transforming into spatial nodes) places that were originally physically or virtually open. Like many buildings of the past, they arise from the dialectic between enclosure and roof, between serial and organic structures, between city and building. The derivation of modern theater from urban fabric is, for example, among the most evident and documented phenomena of this process. Theatrical performance itself evolves through the specialization of “basic” forms of entertainment (religious recitations, secular festivals, carousels). Johan de Witt’s famous 1596 drawing of the Swan Theatre in London fully demonstrates the nature of the building in formation: the “public” space is the fluid, open stalls-like space where spectators stand or sit in makeshift seats; the “private” space is the perimeter of the fabric boxes, codified by the construction laws of the enclosure. While Plautus and Seneca were already being performed in the 15th-century courtyard of Cardinal Riario’s palace, the transformation of the Elizabethan theatre concluded in the early 17th century and the contemporary one began with the permanent roofing of the open space of the old Fortune Theatre. A similar formative process can be discerned, still underway, in many aspects of 19th-century architectural design. In the large stock exchanges, for example, which arose at the end of the 16th century as enclosed squares within a series of offices and warehouses, whose shelter generated the covered space for exchange (Berlage’s “basilica” for the Amsterdam Stock Exchange represents only the best-known outcome of this process). Or in the large department stores that emerged in Paris following the very new tradition of the passages, where elements, structures, and serial systems are interwoven around the space of a covered courtyard. But, above all, it can be identified in the dialectic between urban spaces and interior spaces within buildings generated, at the end of the last century, by the organization of complex communications networks in metropolises. The articulation of the post and telegraph building, in fact, arose from the connection of serial spaces, for administration and services, around the large hall for the public, a vast space mediating between city and building. The late-nineteenth-century architect, bewildered by the interweaving of unfamiliar problems, took refuge in the wealth of experience brought ashore by history, in traditional building types still capable of fostering syncretism, transformation, and modernization. Many of the major nineteenth-century post offices are organized around the notion of enclosure, like those in Germany, which were organized around a vast, open hof (in Breslau, Halle, or Potsdam), but also protected by glass, as in Berlin. The transition from courtyard to central space is most evident in the reuse of existing buildings organized along internal paths that wind around open spaces (convents, palaces, etc.). This is not simply a matter of reuse, but a process where the transformation of open space generates entirely new, more organic buildings. Consider the transformation of the Fondego dei Tedeschi in Venice into a post office, where the introduction, in this 16th-century serial building, of a large iron and glass structure covering the open courtyard triggered a unified transformation process involving all the building’s components: the stresses induced by the roof, having compromised the stability of the underlying walls, progressively (organically) extended to the entire building, aided by subsequent consolidation works. The entire structure emerged transformed: the new central space, as in any nodal building, was statically supported, distributively served, and spatially dominant, while the peripheral spaces were load-bearing, serving, and serial. In the processual transformation of the large central space, the “logical” next phase was the merging of the atrium and the counter room, that is, the progressive fusion of the core of the structure with the urban space. Born from the city, the spatial node returns to the life of the streets: if still at the beginning of the 20th century the same manuals recommend to consider the room for the counters as a “spacious courtyard completely covered with glass” (Donghi), ……………………….
