exhibition
19 December 2014 > 03 May 2015
Lina Bo Bardi in Italia. “Quello che volevo, era avere Storia”
related events
photogallery
— All of Italy was substantially on hold.
But Milan no
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Achillina Bo was born in Rome on 5 December 1914. After studying at the capital’s arts high school, she successively earned her degree in Architecture in 1939. 1940 — 1946 Milan Lina moved to Milan immediately after graduating where, together with her colleague Carlo Pagani, she worked for Gio Ponti in the editorial office of Domus and Stile. Lina and Pagani soon opened their own practice, which was destroyed by a bombing raid in 1943. Lina was also very active as an illustrator and freelance journalist for the journals Grazia, L’Illustrazione Italiana, Bellezza, Vetrina e Negozio, Cordelia, Tempo, Aria d’Italia and Milano Sera. Successively, again with Carlo Pagani, she became vice editor of Domus and editor of the Quaderni di Domus. In 1945, together with Bruno Zevi and Carlo Pagani, she founded the journal A. In August 1946 she married Pietro Maria Bardi in Rome. One month later they left together for South America: their first stop was Brazil.
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In collaboration with Domus and Instituto Lina Bo e Pietro M. Bardi
Technical sponsor ARPER SpA
With the participation of The Piranesi Experience, Rome
— I felt that the only way was the way
of objectivity and rationality
 | Domus Lina Bo and Carlo Pagani began collaborating with “Domus” magazine during the second half of 1940, near the end of Ponti’s direction, debuting with the design of the Casa sul Mare di Sicilia and various projects and illustrations. This first phase at “Domus” concluded in December 1940, when Lina and Carlo followed Ponti to the new publication “Lo Stile”. In 1944, at the invitation of the publisher Gianni Mazzocchi, Lina and Carlo returned to “Domus” as vice–editors. In 1945, despite a temporary halt to the publication of “Domus”, the two architects created and directed the “Quaderni di Domus”: a series of small monographic publications dedicated to furnishing the modern home. |
| Lo Stile When Gio Ponti stepped down as director of “Domus” and, in open contrast with Mazzocchi, created the rival publication “Lo Stile nella casa e nell’arredamento”, he once again called on his young collaborators Lina Bo and Carlo Pagani. This new monthly was published by Garzanti and dedicated to Italian art. Lina was a regular collaborator, together with Carlo, presenting projects focused primarily on interior furnishings and design, some referred to completed works that testify to an active commitment to professional practice during Lina’s years in Milan. Furthermore, she contributed often to the beautiful covers of “Stile”, together with Ponti or under the acronym Gienlica, a hybrid of the names of Gio Ponti, Enrico Bo — Lina’s father — Lina herself and Carlo Pagani. |  |
 | A Originally an idea of Lina Bo and Carlo Pagani, and successively realised in collaboration with Bruno Zevi, the journal A first saw the light on 15 February 1946. Published by “Editoriale Domus”, this innovative fortnightly magazine “placed the problems of architecture within everyone’s grasp”. By the seventh issue it had been transformed into a weekly, to consent a broader diffusion of themes linked to the post–war period and reconstruction. This was also the moment when the name of the journal was changed to “A Cultura della vita”. The editor ended the experience in June 1946, after only nine issues. A selection of photographs taken by Federico Patellani during a documentary voyage with Lina and Carlo were presented in the journal; the covers of the final three issues featured ironic vignettes by Lina Bo. |
| Grazia and other journals Of Lina’s various collaborations with magazines for the general public, “Grazia. Un’amica al vostro fianco” undoubtedly stands out. It was here that Lina — assiduously between 1941 and 1943, and again in 1946 — almost always together with Carlo Pagani, published a column in which she presented practical solutions and models for the furnishing and layout of the internal and external spaces of the home. Other important contributions include her work for Bellezza, a fashion magazine under the influence of Gio Ponti, where Lina worked on and off exclusively as an illustrator, creating a curious universe suspended between imagination and reality. The same world that can be found in the drawings accompanying the serial publication of two novels La scure d’argento and Magoometto in L’Illustrazione Italiana. Isolated though relevant contributions can also be found in Aria d’Italia, Cordelia, Tempo, Milano Sera and Vetrina e Negozio. |  |
curated by Margherita Guccione
MAXXI Architettura Archives Centre
— I never wanted to be young.
What I wanted was to have a History
A “small” exhibition dedicated to a “great figure,” Lina Bo Bardi, a pioneer of Italian architecture, on the occasion of the centennial of the architect’s birth.
This exhibition retraces the History of Lina Bo, in the form of a reverse chronology: from 1946, the year she left for South America with her husband Pietro Maria Bardi, back to her graduation in Rome in 1939.
It tells the story of her intense and tormented years in Milan, prior to her departure for Brazil, a nation she adopted as her home and where she finally found personal and professional satisfaction.
In Milan, together with Carlo Pagani, Lina received her first professional commissions, despite the limitations imposed by the War. In parallel, she was a member of the editorial board of various architectural journals and instructive publications
In addition to designing buildings connoted by a significant material and expressive strength, evidence of a consistent attention toward the social responsibility of architecture, Lina also created multi–coloured imaginative worlds in her drawings: a highly personal iconographic universe that would consistently accompany her development as an architect. These are the origins of Lina Bo Bardi’s history, evoked in her Curriculum letterario (Literary Curriculum); a history of ideas at the time considered avant–garde, and extremely relevant to this day; a history written and drawn entirely by her.
In collaboration with Domus and Instituto Lina Bo e Pietro M. Bardi
Technical sponsor ARPER SpA
With the participation of The Piranesi Experience, Rome
Italy 1914 – 1946
Editorial Activities