I contrappunti di Mendelsohn nel progetto per una Torre dei ristoranti di Mario Ridolfi

The only project Mario Ridolfi (1904-1984) designed especially for the First Exhibition of Italian Architecture (opened on 28 March 1928 in Rome) was a cylindrical twisted Tower of restaurants. Although it did not capture immediate attention, it eventually became the emblematic image of the exhibition itself. The design also became a neuralgic point of Ridolfi’s architectural thought, especially for his exploration of the rotation of central volumes along their axis, resulting in some genius later solutions (the Agip motel in Settebagni near Rome, a design for a motel in Belgrade (Serbia), Terni communal offices (the so-called waste-basket) and house Lina in Marmore etc.). Numerous hypothesis have been advanced regarding the formal genesis of the Tower of Restaurants, among which the architect himself mentioned a famous twisted column of the St. Peter’s baldachin by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1599-1681). Nevertheless, the analysis of the Ridolfi’s creative process reveals a much more complex procedure, with possible Baroque stimuli also including Borromini’s designs for the tower of San Carlino. Particularly important for the young Roman architect were the references to expressionist architecture, especially designs by Erich Mendelsohn (1887-1953), known to Ridolfi mainly through architectural and other publications. A comparison with the rounded angular solution of the Schocken department store in Stuttgart (1926-1928) is rather revealing, as Ridolfi could have assimilated (in a rather personal way) its circular matrix, skeletal structure and the very power of the architectural volume. The German architect also explored the idea that the form of industrial architecture and shops should reflect the product; thus influencing Ridolfi’s reference (with a ludic twist) to a restaurant tower as an unstable pile of plates carried by the waiter. Finally, the originality of Ridolfi’s project is not so much in the “spiral progress” of horizontal planes, but in his capacity to breathe life into the otherwise unanimated cylindrical volume.

Il critico Efisio Oppo fu lapidario nel commentare nel 1928 la Torre dei ristoranti: “Stravagante piuttosto che razionale, ma costruibilissima”, cogliendone a un tempo la singolarità e i pregi. Proposta per la I Esposizione italiana di architettura razionale, la periclitante torre tortile non conquistò immediatamente la critica, seppure, nel tempo assurse a raffigurazione emblematica della mostra. Per Ridolfi costituì l’inizio di una feconda ricerca delle potenzialità insite nella rotazione dei volumi, che condurrà ai progetti dei Motel Agip di Settebagni e Belgrado, degli Uffici comunali di Terni e di Casa Lina a Marmore. La genesi formale della torre è stata oggetto di numerose ipotesi, tra le quali, la più accreditata rimane la colonna tortile che Bernini adottò per il baldacchino di San Pietro. In realtà il processo creativo di Ridolfi fu assai articolato: la torre si rivela il risultato di una sperimentazione che comprende caratteri barocchi, espressionisti, futuristi, e una ricercata ironia del progettista, che la intese come una pila di piatti portata da un maldestro cameriere.