Between the Building and the Street. A Phenomenology of the Facade

This volume explores the subject of facades, from both an architectural and an urban point of view. Each building has two facades: one is private, hidden, free, the other is public and belongs to the people who look at it. A facade tells of the cultural climate in which the building was born, the lives of the people who have resided or worked there, though it often conceals the activities that take place behind it. Facades that constitute the visible side of the city have generally employed a sort of triple coding, exhibiting the nature – and thus the character – of the building, the connection, more or less direct, with the plan and the section, and the relationship with the context. The work deals with the public side of architecture, studying the inside/outside limit, looking at it through geometry and physiognomy. An analysis of the historical background and the progressive reduction of its thickness is followed by some itineraries of contemporary works whose genesis is explained in interviews with the protagonists. Between the Building and the Street, the result of many years of study and research, it is the only work that deals in a complete way with the theme of the facade through interpretative paths, evolutionary readings, compositional itineraries. One of its strengths is the study of the etymology of the word “facade” through the centuries, in dictionaries, encyclopedias, and in all the means that have helped to spread knowledge, from the Accademia della Crusca to the present time.