Shapes of the New World: “Graticci Brasiliani” in the Italian Architecture of the Post World War II

The aim of the work is to investigate the acclaim and the use of the cobogó in Italy in the ’50s and ’60s. In 1953, in a time of lively debate on the Brazil’s new architecture expressions, Gio Ponti writes an article about the “graticci brasiliani” – loose translation of the acronym –, through which he urges to introduce this construction element in the current building practice. The “graticci” solve several functional problems related to space, light and ventilation of the architectural environments in a new way, reflecting an aesthetic sensitivity for surfaces and modern materials fitting the most contemporary artistic tendencies of Concretism and Synthesis of the Arts. Furthermore, they suggest references both to the Modernism of the ‘30s and to vernacular experiences. The cobogó achieves a wide and diversified diffusion in the Italian architectural scenario, embodying, on the one hand, a formal-aesthetic solution that represents a sort of feature of Modernism and of a new way of building; and on the other, a need to define leisure spaces with a touch of exoticism. The research is based on the perusal of specialized magazines, on the consultation of archives of architects and Italian companies who bought the Brazilian patent, in order to create a visual repertoire of documentary, divulgation and advertising photographic images. Their montage returns sequences of shapes which highlight typological varieties, influences, filiations, connected solutions, tracing a sort of map of these artefacts propagation.