Until 14 January 2018, Merano Arte will host an exhibition which, for the first time, will present the works of Armando Ronca (Verona, 1901 - Bolzano 1970), an architect who in the course of 35 years of activity, has built over 30 buildings who have literally shaped the face of Bolzano and Merano.
The exhibition, curated by Andreas Kofler and Magdalene Schmidt, will analyze the work of Armando Ronca through extensive photographic documentation created by Werner Feiersinger, and a series of historical documents - photographs, copies of plans, perspectives and sections - divided by decade of realization.
A section of the exhibition will be entirely dedicated to the Eurotel complex in Merano, while a documentary made by Daniel Mazza and Giuseppe Tedeschi and one by Susanne Waiz and Carolina Rigoni will focus attention on the architect's projects, also looking at the deprived of his life, to draw an unedited portrait of him.
Alongside the activity carried out in South Tyrol, Ronca has conducted a study in Milan, and has been active at a national level with prestigious projects, such as, for example, the headquarters of the South Tyrol newspaper (formerly La Provincia di Bolzano), the chain of Eurotel buildings , the church of San Pio X in Bolzano and the second renovation and expansion of the Giuseppe Meazza stadium in Milan San Siro.
At the beginning of his professional career, Armando Ronca took part in exhibitions and competitions together with his colleague Giovanni Lorenzi, starting his real professional activity from the mid-thirties with projects in Bolzano, Merano and Trento. The fifties and sixties mark the period of his greatest production, with the execution of most of his works. Within Ronca's production, two centers of particular interest can be identified: the large residential buildings, which also include the constructions of the Eurotel complexes, and the public buildings for culture and aggregation.
In the more than 50 buildings that the architect was able to carry out until his death in 1970, the architectural styles of the different eras in which he was a protagonist can be read in an exemplary way.
His contribution to South Tyrolean architecture must be considered within a professional trajectory that reflects the national planning path between the pre-war phases, the post-war reconstruction and the economic recovery. Starting in the XNUMXs, the architect took part in the design of an "Italian Bolzano" and, in the post-war period, he was the only one able to bring to South Tyrol the evidence of the historical-critical debate underway at a national level. Ronca participates in the design of the South Tyrolean rationalist landscape by adhering to the Italian canons, while his local colleagues decline a domestic Rationalism with a Viennese and socialist approach.
Among the numerous buildings in Ronca, the one for the headquarters of the newspaper La Provincia di Bolzano (1939–1940) stands out, which blends the rhetoric of regime structures with functionalist elements. The restructuring for the Alto Adige newspaper founded in 1945, born following the suppression of the Province of Bolzano, leaves traces of the previous construction only on the lateral front. Ronca creates new facades, modifies the layout of the spaces and adds three floors, two of which have a residential function. The drawings of the elevations, of which there are two variants, show the ingenious play with the horizontal and vertical elements, which Ronca used here explicitly and with a decorative intent, mitigating the severity with the use of arched openings.
As mentioned, among the projects carried out by Armando Ronca, there is also that for the second expansion of the San Siro stadium in Milan, the structure of which was built starting in 1925 on the initiative of the then President of Milan, Piero Pirelli. The structure, as designed by Alberto Cugini and Ulisse Stacchini, initially consists of four straight grandstands; in 1935, the Municipality of Milan, after purchasing the stadium, started a first expansion operation supervised by the engineer Bertera and the architect Perlasca, while the second expansion was entrusted to Ferruccio Calzolari and Armando Ronca.
The Eurotel in Merano opened in 1959 is often considered Armando Ronca's main work and is also representative of the frequent collaboration between the architect and the Vanzo construction company. The commercial idea of the Eurotel Group was born in a period of strong economic growth which, on the one hand, encourages mass tourism and, on the other, stimulates the desire to distance oneself from it. In those years the possibility of traveling multiplied, but for many the classic hotel model represented an anonymous structure that was often too expensive, while the family-run boarding house seemed too intrusive. The conception of Eurotel starts from this complexity of needs, combining the principle of hospitality of a hotel with that typical of one's own home, to offer a commercial model that constitutes an investment opportunity in a housing solution used for holiday leisure . Another element in favor of the Eurotel system is the possible exchange of apartments between the owners of the various sites in the chain, for which the standardization of the housing units is essential in order to make them compatible with each other, and this is why Ronca develops two typologies, conceived and furnished in the same way. In this case, the architect is oriented towards the spirit of one of his idols, Le Corbusier, who in 1952 had completed his first Unité d'habitation in Marseilles. The choice of the place in which to build the first Eurotel, and therefore the prototype for all the following buildings, fell on the city of Merano.
