WOMEN’S CREATIVITY SINCE THE MODERN MOVEMENT (1918-2018)

Women Who Build: Giulia De Appolonia, Ulla Hell, Elisa Burnazzi

Twenty years ago, there were just a few female architects largely known; today there are a multitude: you can find not just female ‘archistars’ but also female professionals, who carry out their work every day, vigorously and naturally at the same time.

This is a report of the roundtable ‘Future Architecture – Women who build’ (promoted by the Architects’ Order of Trento), focused on three young female architects, which took place on 13 October 2016 in Trento (Italy) as part of the national event Festival delle Professioni; architects Ulla Hell, Giulia de Appolonia, Elisa Burnazzi were invited to show their projects and to talk about their professional and personal life, inseparable from one another.

The event is presented by members of Architects’ Order Council: President Susanna Serafini tell us that women architects ‘find it difficult to reconcile work and family life having at the same time a satisfying income; in Trentino region women are 35% of the Order members (compared with an average of 42% in Italy). Testimony of several successful women helps to encourage other women’. Vice President Ugo Bazzanella reminds architects’ crisis in Italy: Crisis means not only lack of work but also prejudices and vilification; as members of the Order we undertake to defend the dignity of profession. The public body equalizes architects’ job with any firm providing services, without assigning any value to intellectual work, to creativity; procurement processes based on the lowest offer are not fear. In other countries, like Germany and Sweden, professional fees are defended.

Ugo introduces us to the moderator, architect Maria Grazia Piazzetta,1 seventh woman enrolled (1964) in Architects’ Order of Trento since its foundation.

Rapporteurs’ curricula are extremely rich and different from each other.

Elisa Burnazzi, born in Rimini in 1974, graduated in Venice, presented her professional experience as a ‘partner work’: two partners both in life and in architecture, since university, Davide Feltrin and Elisa Burnazzi, are driven by a passion for architecture as a creative act. After working a few years with leading architects, in 2003 they founded in Trento the firm Burnazzi Feltrin Architects.4 Their projects –always original and updated with respect to the international architectural panorama– reveal an inclination to paying extreme attention to every single detail, besides the purely architectural aspect, thus trespassing into high quality design. They won many awards, both national and international; in 2016 Elisa has been the only Italian shortlisted for the international award ‘Women in Architecture Awards’ category ‘Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture’;5 she has been listed, the only Italian designer together with Lina Bo Bardi, among the 15 women architects who have designed exceptional projects by Archdaily6 and she has been invited to join the jury panel of the international award American Architecture Prize (2016 and 2017). In 2012 Burnazzi Feltrin Architects took part in the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale and in 2013 in the 2nd Biennale of Public Space 2013

Elisa Burnazzi identifies female skills in sociability and hosting: ‘Women who are part of a group tent to keep it together’. In her opinion quality architecture means paying attention to details at every scale, from interior to urban design, because ‘architecture should be directed to improve life conditions of community’. In every project she presents us, you can find a special care to furniture, often tailor made, and an issue of continuity from the outside to the inside because ‘architecture should deal also with emotional aspects’.

In the assignment for Aggregation Center in L’Aquila, destined to earthquake victims (2015), the theme was the attention to sociability.

The assignment came from a construction firm involved in reconstruction of L’Aquila. This building should remember the earthquake but giving trust to people at the same time. An alive building, thought to be used, which could fit into mountain landscape; to give trust we used references to nature: a wooden covering and a green roof which continues along the facades.

The Single Family Dwelling BL in Pergine Valsugana is a medieval house-laboratory: at the ground floor spaces to work, at the first floor the dwelling spaces, at the second floor the spaces to relax; the building is composed of cubic blocks completely white colored – ‘the Building Commission imposed to use a single color; we would like to use several colors as homage to painter Fortunato Depero’;9 the hearth of the building is the kitchen, where we opened ad large window south oriented.

Multifamily complex GI in Caldonazzo is a holiday home, built in front of the lake, situated in a high quality environment. The choice was to create a compact volume and minimise the impact, especially the views from the lake: lodges instead of balconies and plastered walls, which continue along the roof.

Another dwelling in Pergine Valsugana – Single Family House PF is a refurbishing and extension architectural design: structure of the new block is independent from the existing one; first floor deck is supported by a Vierendeel bean, in order to obtain a free house plan. It leaves an impression of a ‘cold white heart covered by nature: a lower heavy part against an upper light part, completely hidden by a wood batten frame’.