Structures and Spatial Sequences in the Churches of Guarino Guarini

Abstract

The study focuses on the formal structures of the projects of churches by Guarino Guarini, identifying a series of recurring compositive operations. To understand this aggregative logic, the empty inner space of the buildings was analyzed and modeled in three dimensions. This operation, conducted reworking the method exposed by Luigi Moretti in his famous article, allowed to highlight the spatial conformation of the building, in particular the succession of the various elementary cells that composes the buildings themselves and the hierarchy between the various parts. Highly original outcome was the formulation of four possible variants of geometric intersection, that summarize all the relationships that can be established between the elementary cells of the Guarini’s buildings. Their redraw was the moment of testing and immediate verification of the results of the theoretical study, offering, through the definition of a synoptic view, an immediate visual transposition of theoretical statements, as well as the opportunity to establish critical transverse comparisons on the projects of Guarini. The overall outcome of the study is an attempt to systematize and integrate the rules and methods of the architectural thought of Guarini, from two points of view: the first one was the identification and rationalization of aggregative paths underlying any building; the second one, is the final resolution of the mode of contact/conflict between the cells composing each building. As tools, was used, in the first case, the tradition of morpho-typological interpretation of the project, especially for the identification of the basic types. In the second case, the tools offered by descriptive geometry, allowed us to categorize the different ways of contact, intersection, interpenetration and connection between the different cells, by restricting the field of possible variants and arranging them on a scale of progressive and growing organicity. We have tried to analyze and report the spatial outcome of each arrangements, especially with regard to the potential to change the aspects related to the perception and legibility of the inner space of each architecture.