Autonomy by Drawing: Gianugo Polesello on Route 66

The economic, ecologic, social crisis we are dealing with generated, in the recent academic discussions, a widespread re-emergence of political engagement, felt as a necessary alternative to the neo-liberal pensée unique that dominated the latest decades. The mid-1960s, with their concentration of important theoretical contributes, their ambiguous mixture of populism and formal research, of radicalism and reactions against modernism, are therefore back in the architectural debate. Among the various approaches produced by that agitated moment, the Italian ‘Tendenza’ contributed to redefine the disciplinary field in terms of language and autonomy, shifting its focus from design to composition and from the transformative attitude of the zeitgeist to the continuity with existing typo-morphological contexts. Partner in some early projects of Aldo Rossi – leader of that group – and with him and other young architects member of the Casabella’s ‘think tank’, Gianugo Polesello shared that theoretical operation, conducted, however, through a more explicit and precise medium, to the limits of tautology: architectural design or, more precisely, architectural drawing applied to design. His approach provides an interesting vantage, able to shed some light on a period and a generation that, at a closer look, appear less coherent than their latest reconstructions.