Giancarlo de Carlo 1919-2005

Architectural Review, The, July, 2005 by Peter Davey

Giancarlo de Carlo died on 4 June aged 86. He was the last surviving member of Team X, the group of young architects set up to organise the tenth CIAM conference in 1956, and re-inject social idealism and planetary consciousness into a Modern Movement that was becoming increasingly sclerotic and bureaucratic. Like fellow members of the group Aldo van Eyck, the Smithsons and Ralph Erskine (who died earlier this year, AR April 2005), de Carlo never lost his social and political commitment, nor his dedication to creating particular places, rather than the bureaucratic anonymity which was then increasingly the norm.

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As a young man, he was a member of the Resistance against Fascism and the post 1943 Nazi occupation. His first book (published in 1947) was on William Morris, an idealist he revered for his marriage of political commitment and artistic activity. There are wonderful photographs taken just after the War of him passionately addressing workers' meetings in early forms of user participation. Politically aware de Carlo may have been, but he refused to become part of the corrupt Italian web that has entangled architecture, political patronage and officialdom, guaranteeing the mediocrity of so much contemporary architecture. He had no personal style (and thought little of those who have), but approached each new project freshly, seeking input from site, topography and users. Yet he was never a pasticheur and remained a committed Modernist. He saw architecture as part of a continuum of design activity and thinking that ranged from regional and urban planning to furniture.

He took numerous academic appointments on both sides of the Atlantic, and was always ready to take part in a conference or a jury, provided that he approved of the subject and the organisers, for whom he would give much time generously--and free if, like the ones organised by the AR, there was no money for fees. He was professor of architecture at Venice University for many years, but none of the overseas posts lasted very long (he couldn't bear to be parted from his Milan practice for any great length of time). He founded Spazio e Societa, a magazine not concerned with style like most other international architectural journals, but devoted to exploring relationships between architecture and people, theory and practice; he edited it for many years before advancing age caused him to share responsibility with an American university.

In 1975, he founded the International Laboratory for Architecture and Urban Design in Urbino (ILAUD), which every summer drew students from Europe and the US to Urbino, one of the most perfect and least known provincial cities in Italy. Students were exposed to the wisdom of de Carlo and other members of Team X, and the ministrations of younger architects and critics who achieved his approval. ILAUD was intense but fun, and it was a great privilege to be asked to take part. I went once, and one evening, he took us all to the local Communist party's fete, where we drank Karl Marx (red) wine, and Peter Smithson won two tiny ducklings at a fairground booth. (Next day they were taken to a farm to be brought up in peace by Connic Occhialini, Giancarlo's dedicated amanuensis).

From the early '60s, he had a long (occasionally acrimonious) relationship with Urbino, both city and university. The place became his three-dimensional laboratory. He built faculties in the city and halls of residence for the university, and for the city he reopened Francesco di Giorgio's great spiral ramp that links the upper and lower parts of the town (he felt strong affinity for the remarkably versatile Renaissance architect and engineer). His other work included '70s masterplanning for cities as varied as Milan, Rimini, Bologna and Palermo, and much housing, for instance the Matteotti New Village at Terni (1976) and the scheme at Mazzorbo in the Venetian lagoon (AR July 1987), where he reinterpreted the traditional island pattern of living. He built hospitals and buildings for several universities, and (in more festal mood) the heraldic gates of San Marino (AR November 1996), the strange little independent republic not far from Urbino.

The first time I met Giancarlo was in Edinburgh, where we were both members of a jury. He walked briskly up Arthur's Seat (though he was over 60), and on the summit he was enraptured to see the city of Patrick Geddes spread out before him. The final meeting was at his flat in Milan, last summer, where although he had been very sick, he was as lively, inquisitive, witty and thoughtful as ever. His invention, energy, passion and humanity will be greatly missed by the whole profession.