Leonardo Ricci - Call for Papers - HPA 10/2021

Leonardo Ricci (1918-1994), eclectic figure in the architectural study of the postwar period in Italy and abroad, received his education under the guidance of Giovanni Michelucci in Florence, where he had several academic assignments starting from 1945. He was Director of the Town Planning Institute from 1965, Head of the Faculty of Architecture from 1971 and visiting professor at M.I.T. (1959-1960), Pennsylvania State University (1965-1969), University of Florida (1969-1972), and Kentucky University (1972-1980s). George Braziller, editor of Ricci’s book Anonymous (XX century) (1962) defined him as “a visionary profoundly concerned with the state of twentieth-century man in what he consider[ed] to be a time of transition between an old civilization and a new civilization struggling to be born.… He [saw] architecture as a creative act, and the obligation of the architect to make the actions of man come alive”.

Ricci strongly believed in the potential of art, architecture, and the synthesis of the arts to build a suitable world for the 20th-century man. His work ranged from designing community space during the postwar reconstruction in Italy to microstructural models as a response to a growing need in contemporary architectural culture.

His work across the decades could be understood through the “form-act” design method, which was founded on the refusal of a priori forms and on the belief that morphological results could be achieved after analysing human actions and activities.
Leonardo Ricci’s existential position shifted from the search for a new vision of the world and spread to architecture after World War II, apparently detached from the study of the human soul yet deeply involved in the fervour associated with the city.

His conception of “anonymous architecture” marked a precise effort to achieve a necessary change in architecture and urban planning by investigating the field of Visual and Urban Design.

Histories of Postwar Architecture Open Lab contributed to the celebrations for Leonardo Ricci’s centenary in 2018 by participating in studies and contributing to the digitisation and cataloguing of the materials kept at Casa Studio Ricci (Monterinaldi, Florence) thanks to the gracious permission of Clementina Ricci and Gerd Ricci, granddaughter and daughter-in-law of the architect, with the support of Fondazione Michelucci.

In agreement with the mentioned partners, to which the CSAC must be added, the issue will include the publication of a selection of archival materials gathered for the RICCI100 initiatives.

The issue is open to contributions relating to every aspect of Leonardo Ricci’s multifaceted activities and has the goal of stimulating a debate on his eclectic figure of architect, painter, scenographer, teacher and visual, urban and interior designer in order to produce a complete overview of his works and to consider his legacy.

Papers should be submitted using https://hpa.unibo.it/user/register
The guidelines for paper submission are available at
https://hpa.unibo.it/about/submissions#authorGuidelines
Please, fill in the author’s profile with all the informations required as:
• Applicant’s name
• Professional affiliation
• Title of paper
• Abstract
• 5 keywords
• A brief CV (max 2,000 characters)
Please submit the proposal in the form of MS Word (length between 20,000 and 80,000 characters). The submitted paper must be anonymous. Please delete from the text and file’s properties all informations about name, administrator etc. Papers should clearly define the argument in relation to the available literature and indicate the sources which the paper is based on. All papers received will go through a process of double-blind peer review before publication.

HPA also looks for contributions for the review section.
https://hpa.unibo.it/about/editorialPolicies#sectionPolicies

Authors must submit directly full papers by December 31, 2021
Accepted authors will be notified by January 31, 2022
Publication is expected to be in June 2022
To addressed questions to the editors:
redazione.hpa@unibo.it