1941-2020

A father of ‘radical architecture’ and coauthor of one of the most influential architectural visions of the second half of the 20th century, the Continuous Monument, Adolfo Natalini died on 23 January 2020 at 78 years of age. A graduate of the University of Florence, where he later taught, Natalini generationally belonged to the troubled and promising times of postmodernity, and his critique of the legacy of great masters like Le Corbusier, Mies, and Gropius – and especially of the Modern Movement’s eventual transformation into a conventional language at the service of powers-that-be – became a center of his utopian approach. This flowed not so much into buildings as into exhibitions, furniture, collages, and photomontages where architecture was conceived as a language that transcended norms and whose ultimate objective was social communication. In 1991, Natalini established his own practice and raised buildings, but as with other avant-garde architects, the Florentine’s real work paled beside the hypnotic lure of the drawings of his Superstudio, admired to this day for their counterfactual sense and disturbing beauty.