This paper focuses on the “Teatro Popolare Italiano” (TPI), a mobile theatre for 3,000 spectators, realised in Italy in the 1960s, a design project by the architect Ezio De Felice and the engineers Elio Giangreco and Giuseppe Giordano. The TPI, commissioned by the famous Italian actor and director Vittorio Gassman, represents an architectural, technological and building experiment as well as a cultural project conceived by Gassman, with the support of the entrepreneur Giovanni Erba. The travelling structure would have allowed a new theatrical art form, a theatre which would have been itinerant, democratic and accessible to everyone. A series of problems caused by alterations during the realisation opened up a debate on a national level and eventually the mobile theatre stayed paradoxically stationary for years before being dismantled and sold to the Egyptian State. This paper will follow the design concept and the whole process of structural and technological definitions through the unpublished material (drawings, writings and photographs) kept at the Foundation De Felice.
TPI – the Italian popular theatre: An architectural, technological and building experiment of a space in motion
COMO Alessandra;TALENTI, Simona;SMERAGLIUOLO PERROTTA;TEODOSIO, ANNARITA
2018-01-01
Abstract
This paper focuses on the “Teatro Popolare Italiano” (TPI), a mobile theatre for 3,000 spectators, realised in Italy in the 1960s, a design project by the architect Ezio De Felice and the engineers Elio Giangreco and Giuseppe Giordano. The TPI, commissioned by the famous Italian actor and director Vittorio Gassman, represents an architectural, technological and building experiment as well as a cultural project conceived by Gassman, with the support of the entrepreneur Giovanni Erba. The travelling structure would have allowed a new theatrical art form, a theatre which would have been itinerant, democratic and accessible to everyone. A series of problems caused by alterations during the realisation opened up a debate on a national level and eventually the mobile theatre stayed paradoxically stationary for years before being dismantled and sold to the Egyptian State. This paper will follow the design concept and the whole process of structural and technological definitions through the unpublished material (drawings, writings and photographs) kept at the Foundation De Felice.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
