L’influenza di Wright sulla cultura architettonica napoletana del secondo dopoguerra

In the first period after the Second World War, in Naples the inspiration from the work of Frank Lloyd Wright depends largely on the central role of Bruno Zevi in the architectural debate, also because especially at that time the cultural life in Naples had so many connections with Rome. The influence of the American master on Neapolitan architecture has been quite heterogeneous and there has not actually been an “organic” school; but we can find different personalities, who might be considered Wright’s spiritual heirs, everyone in his own way, and among them Giulio De Luca, founder of the local APAO section, and other younger architects, such as Michele Capobianco, Alberto Izzo, Camillo Gubitosi and Aldo Loris Rossi, are remarkable. They all teach at university and there are not external and non-academic figures, like elsewhere Ridolfi or Nervi. Just in a few cases the buildings of these architects, like Punta Molino Hotel, in Ischia, by De Luca, have curvilinear forms, following the main interpretation of Wright’s work. More frequently, they consider organic architecture as a new approach to nature, context and human being, all aspects which are strictly connected. Another difference from the rest of Italy is the absence of a strong ideological interpretation, so that sometimes the need to renew the architectural language and the spreading of jerry-building are not so far from each other. Anyway, the admirers of Wright are not part of South Italian architectural main stream, because they represent isolated cases, who reclaim their cultural independence, always in their own way and in different social-political situations, from the late 40’s up to the present time. Nowadays, the work of Aldo Loris Rossi shows how the model of Wright can remain alive even after many decades since his death.