Alberto Sartoris’ Contribution to the Architectural Culture of Theatre: From the Private Theatre of Casa Gualino to the Avant-garde Theatre for Geneva

Abstract

In the last twenty years Alberto Sartoris has been the subject of numerous celebrative publications: despite this critical fortune, catalogs of exhibitions and essays dedicated to him are mostly referred to specific episodes of his career, the aspects of his relationship with the architecture of the theater has always remained in the background, in spite of this very rich bibliographic production. The aim of this research is therefore to add a further piece to the complex artistic-theoretical activity of such a multifaceted person, analyzing Sartoris' contribution to architecture of the theatre through the analysis of his main projects and his theoretical contribution to design. His eclectic personality allowed him to successfully apply in many disciplines, so as to be recognized as one of the most important precursors of rational architecture in Italy and abroad. Sartoris' “lyrical rationality” is also clearly visible in his experimental avant-garde theatre project of 1929 whereby he can coherently deal with theatre themes, favoring a rational stage performance, with the involvement of large masses of spectators, a trend typical of architecture in the first half of the twentieth century.