Stone Architecture: Ancient and Modern Construction Skills

1300 colour and 700 b/w illustrations

The underlying aim of Stone Architecture is not to redefine the universal language of the “lithic style” based on the age-old traditions of Classical expression—which I have also examined—or the formal articulations of contemporary works, but to search for a single place of convergence that offers practical help in reconsidering and re-enabling one of the most ancient and representative types of architecture.

Although assembled through processes of association to create a single corpus, the contents of this book are presented in a manner that allows them to be dealt with separately. They cover three general themes: the foundations (i.e., the design culture, the sedimentation of the concepts and ideas that underlie stone architecture), the constructive methods and practices that together define the technological style with their prescriptive and essential attributes, and finally the contemporary works that, in their bringing of the “lithic style” up to date, enhance, shift and modify the balance achieved by the design culture to date.

This three-part breakdown of the book is matched by a symmetrically structured presentation of the text, photographs and drawings in the innovative graphical layout with its differentiated composition and paging.

We have thus returned to the medium, the narrative device that I searched for right from the start (and in the end found thanks to the creative talent of Massimo Pucci) to enhance the contents of Stone Architecture. It is my belief that “thinking” and “communicating architecture”—on a level with “designing architecture”—means associating and connecting elements of different origins, character and importance; it means creating hierarchies and constructing conceptual structures able to bring to mind a memory consisting of images that can calmly be “consulted” and “explored” from different perspectives.

Alfonso Acocella (1954, Calitri, Avellino), is the Professor at the Architecture Department at the University of Ferrara. He currently teaches the Technological Culture of Design.