St Francis allegedly
stayed here in a straw hut, returning from Perugia ;
on the spot where later Nerio di Bulgaruccio would stand
a small church. In 1400 then the area was enlarged by
building the Monastery lately known as Scarzuola , property
of Franciscans till 1876.
The architect Tommaso Buzzi (1900 - 1981) bought the
area surrounding the Scarzuola convent in 1956 and he
planned and realized the Città Buzziana, rising
near the convent, in twenty years' time.
The aim of his plan was to create a sort of "ideal"
city where a blend between nature and culture could
take place. The result has been an architectural complex
where symbolisms, allegories and any kind of citations
are scattered throughout it and where there are many
small and empty rooms that make it appear like a giant
termitarium.
Tommaso Buzzi is considered one of the most interesting
Italian designers of the XX century and he has been
a subject of research during the last years. He was
a protagonist in Milan in the 20's and the 30's of the
XX century. He played an important role as the organizer
of numerous manifestations and reviews about national
and international applied arts. He worked in the domain
of furniture and planning.
Fantasy and irreverence, together with the continuous
use of humanistic, literary and classical quotations
that distinguished his works, earned him the sympathies
and the loyalty of the nobles and the high society,
even though they probably prevented the architect from
being renowned outside these environments.
In 1956, when he retired, he decided to buy the convent
of the Scarzuola and to transform it into a sort of
"autobiography on stone" of his career as
an artist, as he himself states in his book "Lettere
Pensieri Appunti 1937-1979" (Silvana, Milano 2000).
This is how he created this bridge between old and new,
keeping the structure of the convent and adding his
"ideal city" to it.
The Città Buzziana is an architectural composition
inspired from neo-Mannerism as it can be inferred from
the staircases that cross the complex and by the extension
and the lack of proportion of its shapes, but also from
the numerous statues that are present everywhere.
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