Note 495 — CHAPTER 23 LATER WORK OF THE LEADERS OF THE SECOND GENERATION

If Expressionism in architecture is an episode difficult to assess despite the real achievement of several of the architects involved with it (see Chapters 20 and 22), Futurism is impossible to evaluate at all since it was only a ‘might have been’. Italian modern architecture since the thirties does not derive from the projects of Sant’Elia, many of which are only now being studied for the first time. Sant’Elia and the other architects associated with Futurism wished to cut all links with the past, Terragni re-linked the ‘International Style’—usually called architettura razionale under the Fascist regime—with Italian tradition, a line which several Italian modern architects have followed since. See Sartoris, A., Sant’Eliae l’architettura futurista, Rome, 1943; Tentori, F., ‘Le Origini Liberty di Antonio Sant’Elia’, L’Architettura, 1(1955), 206-8; Banham, R., ‘Futurism and Modern Architecture’, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, LXIV (1957), 129-38, and ‘Futurist Manifesto’, Architectural Review, CXXVI (1959), 77-80. The greater part of Sant’Elia’s drawings are now available for study at the Villa Olmo, Como.