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Italian architect, Francesco Venezia, is one of the most eminent figures in Italy today who understands the future and the past. His experiences in the city of Naples and its topography has led him consider the cultural connections of spolia, or what I call luxurious fragments, and the significance of how they serve humans living in the landscape. Venezia’s poetic imagination moves in the direction of an architecture that prizes the horizon, light, shadows, natural or artificial geometries and the residual - an architecture understood as creating links that move us and embody our soul. He believes that architects should work like tailors to create “harmonic attires” to highlight a building. As a result Venezia explains how future buildings should be “durable.” This includes the durability of building: shadows, geometries, light and the intention of angles. This pocket book surveys his poetic writings, built and unbuilt projects. More specifically, it highlights the lost important projects in architecture and how each one either complies or confronts with the Mediterranean landscape. It also explores the contemporary architectural spoliation, that is, the recycling and reuse of not only the buildings but also the landscape in which his buildings occupy or recline in. Building Around Architecture FRANCESCO VENEZIA OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM looks at themes in Francesco Venezia writings and works that expand on the evolution of fragmentary design strategies and their pre-Christian foundations, relevant in terms of the circular economy. And it questions critically the interrogation of Italy’s foundations and conditions for productive reuse

Camouflaged by nature during the Cold War then abandoned and earmarked by the military for public and private use, concrete bunkers are cultural heritage spaces, which became luxurious follies. By unearthing the front lines in opposing directions, this article will speculate what “classless luxury” was in the Cold War era in the context of mantling of concrete bunkers. Through a brief discussion of Cold War-era bunkers constructed in Albania, the rescued structures and their regeneration of misaligned parts are converted into magnetic-sites for illicit use, multi-media zones or absurd attractors as ruin porn for tourists. Resembling Italy’s vernacular trulli houses strewn across Alberobello, Albania’s bunker surfaces are considered herein as tangible circuitous frontlines that instrumentally camouflage the immediate surroundings to maintain their own structure as renewed mantled landscapes. To understand how the mantling of the concrete bunkers is essential for their conversion into other conservatories/ observatories, perhaps to create new luxury codes for outer space. This inquiry focuses on the origin of how space exploration served as a dramatic arena for Cold War competition to rethink how concrete bunkers have become cultural heritage spaces. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into earth orbit whereby artificial satellites serve as heritage. At that time, the Space Race commenced, and whichever way were trying to conceal and yet express their space superiority. American and Soviet space race were vying for supremacy in the air and to drill the deepest hole in the earth. What struck me first about the Cold War was that Italy’s involvement nearby, especially Albania, was at the centre and since then, there has been the intermittent migration of refugees into southern Italy. I first present a brief overview of the significance of the bunker space and show how this design evolved from other nations and the way luxury evolved differently during the Cold War

This chapter traces the origin of pearls and seashells as underwater luxury goods from a global-historical and marine-cultural perspective within the sustainability debate. It illuminates the luxury of the hidden sea gems, its natural and imitation items, refers to writings concerning jewellery ethnography and discusses the impact of the connections between the pearl, fashion and tourism industries in Western Australia. Contributing to creating Broome’s viable marine-culture, it analyses the popularity of the Australian pearl and pearl shell overseas as well as relooking at the jewellery traders who introduced the luxury of the indigenous “ritual good” to an international market in the context of “sustainable luxury”. The chapter concentrates on the display of the Western Australian indigenous commodity in newspapers and magazines from the 1930s to the 1960s. Suggesting how the indigenous integration of seashell luxury emerged in Australia’s Northwest, the town of Broome impacted the multicultural pearling industry not only through jewellery, but also by providing an alternative solution for pearl fishery farms. The viability of the pearl industry demonstrates how the natural jewel has contributed to the meaning of sustainable luxury, transforming how to measure coastal remnants in the Kimberley region. Broome’s marine culture developed a form of Australian pearlescence as a sustainable luxury, with Paspaley and Kailis jewellery injected with authenticity, reliability and organic substance.

From the mid-1970s onward, Neapolitan architect Francesco Venezia generated intriguing reuse projects, in and out of sync with other postmodernists of his era, and his writings on ‘architectural spoils’ are most influential today when regenerating cities. Venezia’s work, such as Lauro Square (1976), critically interrogates Naples’ pre-Christian palimpsest as spaces of spolia. He embraces the constructed landscape and luxurious spolia of the antiquity of Egypt, Paestum and Pompeii. Additionally, he embraces the complexity of Naples’ archaeological remnants and modern architectural history with the unveiling of hidden poetic qualities of their fragments within Le Corbusier’s writing and sketches. This paper will expand on previous research on the writings and projects by Venezia, by tracing the modern and contemporary fragmentation within his designs. The paper will briefly look at Venezia’s reuse projects at Caserta (2014) and Pompeii (2015), which present important arguments for establishing and interpreting the reuse of spolia between antiquity and the modern. Projecting a new understanding on architectural spoliation, by positioning the discussion outside mainstream postmodern discussions, it argues that Venezia’s meaningful projects embrace the idea of palimpsest and that contemporary regenerating of city-landscapes contribute to producing environments that eliminate wasted spaces.

This book explores the intricate relationship between luxury and craftsmanship, using brand-based case studies and consumer behavior to do so.

This chapter unravels the intertwined influences of the rice traffic between Japanese culture and Italian futurism. Interpreting the way Japanese cuisine was understood in the Italian context, it explains how Italian cuisine became established in Japan. As “communicant” rice-bites, fortune cookies, onigiri and arancini impart Futurist messages through their spherical form. “Rice oranges” appealed to Futurist protagonist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, celebrated author of The Futurist Cookbook (1932). This chapter demonstrates why the Italian Futurists were attracted to Japanese cuisine through its military dimension. Analyzing the cookbook’s Japanese origins and Marinetti’s penchant for fast, portable tidbits, the chapter argues how some recipes, consumed in foil-like interiors, were indebted to Asian traditions.

In a world of diminishing resources, the opal has become a sign of mineral exclusivity for the consumer luxury market and its value as a luxury object comes from gemstone cognoscenti. According to one Australian Aboriginal legend, rainbow-hued opals are believed by some to stir emotions of loyalty and connection to the earth. Regarding the integral indigenous connection of Australia’s national gemstone, rarely has one has looked at the spaces where opal veins were once quarried in remote regions in terms of sustainable luxury. More importantly, the revival of South Australia’s opal mining industry in Coober Pedy by female Aboriginal entrepreneur Tottie Bryant in 1946; its development into a multi-million dollar industry into a modern hub in the 1970s; and the spread of the town’s construction of subterranean spaces a decade later, enticed immigrants to mine for opals. And when seeking an inexpensive and cool environment, the place enticed immigrants to live underground, providing an unusual form of sustainable luxury in Australia. In 1968, for instance, former Coober Pedy opal entrepreneur John Andrea planned for a unique international underground hotel, the luxurious Desert Cave, but it was not until 1981 when Umberto Coro realised the subterranean spaces’ potentiality and created Andrea’s dream. Another opal entrepreneur Dennis Ingram designed a golf course with ‘scrapes,’ which emerged above ground made with opal quarry dust and waste oil. In popular culture too, the town had attracted filmmakers, such as George Miller, to produce his post-apocalyptic epic Mad Max, and Wim Wenders, to document his wandering scenes not because of opal scarcity but due to the harsh desert-landscape littered with spoil heaps. Turning to adaptive reuse and indigenous culture in Coober Pedy, this chapter addresses the existing underground passages as the recyclable-integration of a former mining site. In tracking the way in which the community and its rural groundwork served as a site

What does the tourist town of Limone on Lake Garda in Italy have in common with suburban Montreuil in France? Reinterpreting the infrastructural constructions to house fruits in these places, this paper will trace their lesser-known architectural marks through the urban landscape based upon established memories. In 19th century-Europe the citrus and peach industries reached their peak, but by the turn of the 20th century these sought-after agricultural/luxury commodities went into decline: peaches were no longer tattooed with artisanal stamps and lemons were tainted with a disease. First, this paper analyses the citrus architecture, specifically the lemon greenhouses along Lake Garda’s towns. Then, it compares them with the criss-cross spaces for peaches within walls (aka peach walls), created in suburban Montreuil, near Paris. Observing the links between these two cases, it is concerned with memory traces, argued herein as promoting functional vestiges in European urban landscapes. Referring to German landscape architect Leberecht Migge’s writings, the paper questions why such functional vestiges operated as alternative allotments in the urban landscape elsewhere in Europe. How have they provided luxurious spaces or the cleansing of entrenched spaces for those who live or work outside the city or suburb? Although the spaces within such infrastructural constructions have since declined, peach walls have subsequently been converted into public spaces as with Jean Nouvel and Michel Desvigne’s 800 kilometres ‘seam’ design (2009) near Paris. And traces of the lemon greenhouses have inspired David Chipperfield’s new private luxury houses (2015) at Lake Garda. This comparison of the remnant fruit-growing traces of Limone and Montreuil through the landscape enabled remnant spaces to become sustainable places today. Urban citrus-spaces cleanse microclimates and the conversion of peach walls provides us with beneficial changes as communal spaces.

Over the past century, luxury has been increasingly celebrated in the sense that it is no longer a privilege (or attitude) of the European elite or America’s leisure class. It has become more ubiquitous and now, practically everyone can experience luxury, even luxury in architecture. Focusing on various contexts within Western Europe, Latin America and the United States, this book traces the myths and application of luxury within architecture, interiors and designed landscapes. Spanning from antiquity to the modern era, it sets out six historical categories of luxury - Sybaritic, Lucullan, architectural excess, rustic, neoEuropean and modern - and relates these to the built and unbuilt environment, taking different cultural contexts and historical periods into consideration. It studies some of the ethical questions raised by the nature of luxury in architecture and discusses whether architectural luxury is an unqualified benefit or something which should only be present within strict limits. The author argues how the ideas of permissible and impermissible luxury have informed architecture and how these notions of ethical approval have changed from one context to another. Providing voluptuous settings for the nobles and the leisure class, luxury took the form of not only grand palaces, but also follies, country and suburban houses, private or public entertainment venues and ornate skyscrapers with fast lifts. The Architecture of Luxury proposes that in Western societies the growth of the leisure classes and their desire for various settings for pleasure resulted in a constantly increasing level of ‘luxury’ sought within everyday architecture.

Italian-Brazilian Lina Bo Bardi's modern architecture has received considerable attention. Her urban projects in Brazil, however, are rarely discussed as having been influenced by her husband's thoughts. Consequently, they merit renewed critical attention through this lens. Pietro Maria Bardi's urban experiences and architectural collaborations in pre-war Italy and Brazil informed his reflections upon Italian Futurist manifestoes and drawings. His urban novellas, criticism of Italy's State Architecture and unrealized collaborations, specifically with Pier Lugi Nervi on E'42 in Rome for Rationalist planner Marcello Piacentini, express ways for considering the importation of the underlying Futurist design traits in Brazil. This paper illuminates the lesser-known Italian Futurist links with Lina Bo Bardi's projects and tracks their origins to Pietro Maria Bardi. This argument draws upon Olivia de Oliveira's interview with Lina Bardi, her last. Pietro Maria Bardi was a vicarious architect and urban Futurist. He subconsciously conceptualized designs with Lina Bo Bardi within an unrestricted Futurist framework, imported from Italy and transformed in Brazil.

The subject of the ancient Sybarites is highly influential for understanding fashion. Historically, Sybarites were famously believed to live luxuriously in their sumptuous city of Sybaris in what today is southern Italy. The term 'sybarite' has become proverbial and luxury remains associated with the legendary vanished city and its inhabitants. In 1876, Italian writer Romualdo Cannonero discussed a proverb concerning the luxurious lifestyle and dress sense of the ancient Sybarites. This proverb also critiqued their insolence and sumptuous ways of walking, expressed as the 'sybaritic parade'. The fame of the 'sybaritic parade' in Renaissance Venice subsequently impacted Parisian aesthetic sensibilities in the eighteenth century. Through time, the Sybarites' luxurious and pleasure-seeking habits came to be identified with cuisine, opera, the architectural realm and fashion. This chapter will investigate the 'sybaritic' venues aboard as cultures of fashion. It will focus on the modifications of luxurious surroundings and question how these surroundings created the catwalk of certain cities. Then, the chapter will highlight the criticism associated with the aristocratic sybarites throughout eighteenth- and the nineteenth-century France, identifying its underpinnings as moralistic. It next examines Cannonero's proverb in relation to the genesis of French fashion and later the rise of the American department store. It argues that 'sybaritic' venues were, and still are, fashionable architectural spaces.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the discovery of Pompeii attracted European aristocrats to include the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Southern Italy) on their Grand Tour itinerary. Similarly, Sybaris, an ancient Greek colonial polis also directed aristocratic attention to the region. French painter and engraver Jean-Claude Richard de Saint-Non and his entourage of architects most famously documented the ruinous Sybaris and exported its imagery back to France. In parallel with these developments, interest in recreating sybaritic images within luxurious Picturesque gardens arose. Drawing upon a pair of garden case studies, Monsieur de Monville's Broken Column House (1780–81) at Désert de Retz, Chambourcy, and Queen Marie-Antoinette's hameau (1783) within the Petit Trianon Gardens at Versailles, this paper examines the sybaritic images, their influences and the ethical values of the creators of these gardens. Monville and Marie-Antoinette were, for instance, charged of excess. This paper is concerned with the way in which these sybaritic places were configured and how they encapsulated a mythic Sybaris, and argues that the charges of excess levelled against their creators partly stemmed from the unusual and sybaritic effects to be found at their private entertainment gardens.