Beyond the Holiday Camp, Before Mattei: The Meridiana Hotel by Edoardo Gellner and the Montessori Method

Abstract

In the Postwar years towards the pursuit of happiness and the construction of a new society, an unusual accommodation facility was built on a meadow just outside Cortina d'Ampezzo: the Albergo Meridiana. The originality of this building can be found in the female client, in its target– childhood, hosting boys and girls from 3 to 14 years old – and above all in the proposal of a house built according to the Montessori model, rather than a more  traditional holiday camp. The design was entrusted to Edoardo Gellner and it represented not only one of the first mature works of the architect, but also a real design experimentation on Montessori’s theories of the environment. Also, the building was a testing ground on the interior design which will lead, in the following years, to the more corporate variation of the holiday for children: the Eni Village Summer Camp in Borca di Cadore. In smaller dimensions, the Meridiana anticipated architectural forms, interiors spaces and materials and construction methods, contributing to irreversibly modify the social and pedagogical approach of the architecture of holiday camps through Montessori’s words and theories.