A Narrative of the Compact City. Mario De Renzi through the Sequences of A Special Day

Abstract

Mario De Renzi is the architect of Palazzo Federici (Rome, 1931-1937), "[...] perhaps the most gigantic partner house", as Italo Insolera defined it. He identifies, in the construction of the block, the elementary unit of a compact city that takes shape through the design of the urban block. In order to focus on the distinctive characteristics of this urban model and to investigate the relationships between narratives and city, the evocative capacity of the cinematographic language will be exploited by commenting on some sequences of A Special Day (1977). In the film by Ettore Scola, entirely set inside Palazzo Federici, courtyard, entrance halls, distribution cores and crowning terraces with their drying racks become places capable of explaining the relationships of exchange and interdependence between private living spaces and collective spaces for meeting (in a time) when density returns to interest the design of the contemporary city and urban practice is marked by a renewed attention to the development models that refer to the compact city.