Original scientific paper
Arhitectural projects of Antonio Noale for the Garagnin family in Trogir: Poor house as a project task
Ana Šverko
Abstract
Trogir, one of the most beautiful cities in Croatia, listed by UNESCO as the World Heritage Site, was at the turn of the 18th century, within the borders of the Kingdom of Dalmatia, under Austrian government only to be annexed to the Kingdom of Italy in 1805 by the Treaty of Pressburg when Napoleon gained Dalmatia.
Around 1800, the Trogir family Garagnin instigated the organisation of family properties in Trogir`s surroundings, in conformity with the European physiocratic practice of the time. In order to construct buildings at their properties, they hired renowned Italian architects. Garagnins` requests ranged from aristocratic villas to pisnente houses ‒ those were the peasants who had no rights, land or property (pisnente = poco più che niente).
Giovanni Luca Garagnin (1764 - 1841), a renowned physiocrat from the family of Trogir aristocrats and intellectuals originating from Venice, had a vision for the underdeveloped province of Dalmatia to base its prosperity on a strong and modern agriculture. In his book Economic and political meditations on Dalmatia (Zadar 1806), he offered ideas for the law reform in order to improve agricultural land tenures and agricultural productivity. He also wanted to organise family properties and form exemplary properties which would express his enlightening horizon and physiocratic attitude. The family kept its strong ties with Italy through social and business relations. Therefore G. L. Garagnin chose Italian properties as role models for economic politics, agriculture and architecture.
G. L. Garagnin saw uniting of the dispersed properties and constructing farm buildings as key steps in the process of establishing the modern agriculture. In order to erect adequate buildings of various types on the properties, he hired renowned Italian architects of Neoclassicism; among which Giannantonio Selva (1751 – 1819) from Venice and his follower Antonio Noale (1776 - 1837) from Padova. The Garagnins requested from Noale several projects of casa colonica, small houses for tenant-farmers who cultivated the fields of landowners and then shared the profit according to previous agreements. Those were modest houses like pisnente houses, but shaped according to universal classical canons. The article is based on Noale`s projects for the Garagnins, which simultaneously represent his only known engagement on the Croatian side of the Adriatic coast.
The organisation of farm buildings in Noales`s projects for the Garagnins is analysed through the tractate of Francesco Milizia Principi di architettura civile (Finale 1781), the author whose literary achievements unequivocally presented the most influential foundation for the acceptance of the neoclassical architectural expression in Italy. Describing farm buildings erected on different properties, Francesco Milizia emphasises that the construction of such buildings was usually given to plain masons and rarely to skilled architects, which makes Noale`s engagement all the more important.
Noale based his Dalmatian casa colonica both structurally and functionally on traditional Venetian architecture, but these buildings acquired a sophisticated aura of classical education through his interpretation of Renaissance models.
In architectural sense, Noale`s projects for the Garagnins do not seem that much important from today`s perspective. They look like independent parts of agricultural wings of Palladio`s villas (barchessa), without the architectural contribution of great architects like Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. However, they express an equally enlightened attitude. Ledoux in his book L’Architecture considerée sous le rapport de I’art, des moeurs et de la legislation (Paris 1804), based on philosophy of Immanuel Kant and theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, articulated a new role of the architect – as one who values architecture according to the expression of the character of the building, because such architecture purifies and improves the social system. The house of the rich and the house of the poor present an equally valuable task for Ledoux. The article emphasises the enlightening attitude according to which, for the first time in the history of architecture, all project tasks become equally valuable. The quality of architecture is evaluated by appropriateness and recognisability of the building character.
Keywords
Antonio Noale; Giovanni Luca Garagnin; Francesco Milizia; Claude-Nicolas Ledoux; physiocratism; Neoclassicism; casa colonica; Trogir
Hrčak ID:
99691
URI
Publication date:
25.2.2013.
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