There are problem-solving architects: “give me a client, a site and a budget, and I’ll give you a design.” And then there are architects who want to change the world and who write handbooks for the purpose. Andrea Palladio, with Leon Battista Alberti and Le Corbusier, falls into the latter category.
In the foreword to his treatise Quattro libri dell’architettura (Venice 1570), Palladio wrote that ‘man is not born for himself alone but also to be of use to others’. His vision of transformation was not utopian or literary licence, but a practical approach. He was engaged in a grandiose project to transform the Venetian mainland in order to increase agricultural production, in response to a marked increase in the demand for food linked to the demographic growth. Indeed, Venice in the 16th century implemented an ambitious project to reclaim and cultivate hitherto marginal land, which entailed the digging of canals and the construction of new roads and bridges. The focal points of this new infrastructural network were the Palladio villas, a new type of country residence that combined economic aspects with agricultural property management and attention to the health and benefits of country life, with architectural forms that drew on the great ancient Roman tradition.
In my conversation I’ll get closer to examine the great architect’s work. This means exploring the methods devised by Palladio to improve people’s lives around him. This will lead us to analyze the mechanisms of his architectural language and the ways he created a system capable of conveying the mathematics of ancient Roman architecture, made up of building units, bound by rules, types and ratios. Where might we look for the incubator of such a system? Surprisingly, we find it in Palladio’s research on the deployment of Roman legions on the battlefield.
Guido Beltramini is an architectural historian and exhibition curator. Since 1991 he has been Director of the Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio in Vicenza. In 2012, he created the Palladio Museum as a physical interface for communicating the Centro’s scholarly activities to a wider public. From 2015 to 2020, he was a visiting lecturer at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. In 2017 was the Inaugural Andrew W. Mellon Visiting Professor at the Victoria & Albert Museum Research Institute.
An expert on Renaissance architecture, Guido Beltramini has published widely on the subject, including books translated into English, French and German. He has also curated exhibitions in London, Venice, Vicenza, New York and Montreal, which over the years have also been a means of further developing his Renaissance studies and in particular on architectural drawings and the network of relations between architects, humanist intellectuals and artists.
The event is hybrid. You’re welcome to attend in person—no registration is needed, and access is free. If you would like to join us online, please make sure to register using the link above.
