THE UGLY WORKS OF THE GREAT ARCHITECTS AND DESIGNERS: MICHELUCCI

Michelucci is a complex architect, capable of creating organic architecture, but also rationalist, with elements constructivist and also inspired by futurism, dosing symmetry and asymmetry. One of his most representative organic works is the church of San Giovanni Battista, while the most rationalist and almost futuristic one is the Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence. In order to give shape to his creations he simultaneously uses stone, steel, brick, wood and concrete, as parts of the body of a single architecture. Despite his talent, sometimes he too created works that were not worthy of his reputation, then labeled as masterpieces, only because they are out of every scheme and not because they have a uniquely recognized architectural value. For example, if we look at the ''Post Office Building'' in the center of Florence, we can see the ribbon windows (typical of the Bauhaus period) on a box-like shape building like cold/foreign elements, not integrated with the genius loci of the neighborhood, made up of historic buildings, despite the attempt to dialogue with the surroundings, through a stone surface. Furthermore, it is located on the corner of two streets (Pietrapiana & Verdi street) and therefore is very visible and if you observe it from a distance, it looks more like a small factory rather than a place made up of offices that receives hundreds of people every day. Another of his known architecture, that in my opinion does not represent him, is the church of Santa Maria e Tecla in Pistoia. The church and the bell tower have a too box-like and schematic shape and give the impression of being in front of a large storage warehouse, or in any case an unfinished architecture. This aspect of ''unfinished'' is given by the small holes/windows on the facades and they look like provisional ribs, which should have been hidden from the finishes, which do not exist. This church is devoid of decorations, a bit like remembering the ''Church of San Lorenzo'' by Brunelleschi in Florence, but while Michelucci wanted it to be stripped, the ''Church of San Lorenzo'' was just not finished, due to technical and financial problems. So, in this case, the decorative simplicity becomes poverty of the shapes and substance of this architecture by Michelucci and the only positive aspect is given by these small openings, which capture a nice light inside. Unfortunately, apart from this interesting idea of interior lighting, these small holes alone cannot replace real facades, which are missing. Thus, this original Michelucci experiment does not become one of his beautiful architectures, imbued with meaning.