Cesare Leonardi - Solidi / Solids - 1995

Cesare Leonardi. Solids 1983 / 1993. Modena, Logos, 1995. Curated by Giancarlo Martinelli. Dimensions 24x33.5 cm. Hardcover in full cloth with dust jacket. 288 numbered pages. Texts in Italian and English. Black and white and color illustrations. In excellent condition - minimal signs of use on the dust jacket. Cesare Leonardi (Modena, June 3, 1935 – Modena, February 4, 2021) was an Italian architect. He enrolled at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Florence in 1956, where he studied under Adalberto Libera, Ludovico Quaroni, Leonardo Savioli, with whom he graduated in 1970. During the summers of 1959 and 1960, he apprenticed at Marcello D’Olivo's studio in Udine, where he developed an interest in tree architecture. In 1963, he opened a studio in Modena with Franca Stagi. Together, they worked on design, architecture, and landscape planning until 1983. Among their most famous objects are the Nastro Chairs, Dondolo, Eco, which have become part of the permanent collections of museums such as the MoMA in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein. His activity as a photographer accompanied his entire production as a tool for documenting, investigating, designing, also taking on the character of autonomous artistic research, especially in the 1970s. In the late 1960s, he began working as a sculptor, which he temporarily abandoned in the mid-1980s. From 1983, Leonardi started an independent professional activity focused on experimentation in design and urban planning. In 1990, he moved into a house-studio on Viale Emilio Po in Modena, designed by himself, which is now also the archive's headquarters. From 2000, after ending his professional activity, he mainly dedicated himself to photography, sculpture, and painting. In 2011, the Superintendence for Archival Heritage of the Emilia-Romagna Region declared his professional archive a “particularly important cultural asset.” Between 2015 and 2019, the archive, within the activities of the Cesare Leonardi Architect Archive Association (active since the early 2000s and later becoming the Leonardi Archive Foundation after the architect's death), underwent an intervention of reorganization and detailed inventory, culminating in the subsequent publication of the inventory on the online Research Tools portal of the National Archival System (SAN). The first experiments in design took place during university studies, between 1956 and 1962. In 1961, he created the prototype of the Nastro chair with Franca Stagi, and in 1963, they founded the Leonardi-Stagi studio. In 1966, the studio designed a sports center in Vignola, a territorial-scale park where sports activities coexist with the river environment. In the field of design, the Nastro chair was followed by the Eco chair and the Dondolo, fostering a production centered on the use of fiberglass and the principle of 'resistance through form.' In 1968, the three pieces went into production by Bernini in Figline Valdarno and were exhibited at the 8th Milan International Furniture Fair. In subsequent years, Leonardi and Stagi developed many other projects in fiberglass, and from 1969, a series of lamps for the Lumenform company in Marghera. The Dondolo was exhibited in 1970 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London during the Modern Chairs 1918-1970 exhibition, and in 1972 at MoMA in New York during the Italy: The New Domestic Landscape exhibition curated by Emilio Ambasz. During 1967-1968, Leonardi participated in Parole sui Muri, an impromptu festival dedicated to avant-garde artistic production and visual poetry, held in the streets and squares of Fiumalbo, a town in the Modena Apennines. In 1970, the Leonardi-Stagi studio won the competition for Parco della Resistenza in Modena, with the project that was the subject of Leonardi's thesis. This was followed by projects for Parco Amendola in Modena, Piazza Michelangelo in Imola, the Vignola and Mirandola Swimming Centers, which combined the theme of parks with sports and leisure facilities, and the 17th-century complex of the San Carlo College in Modena, the only significant restoration project of the studio. Meanwhile, Leonardi developed an autonomous artistic research, especially in photography. In 1978, he exhibited his photographs first at the Galerie Olivetti in Paris with Franco Fontana and Luigi Ghirri, then in a solo show at the Civic Gallery of Modena. That same year, he was commissioned by Lanfranco Colombo to set up the Italian photography section at the Rencontres internationales de la photographie festival in Arles. In 1982, after twenty years of research, he published the volume The Architecture of Trees. In 1983, he began research on the Acentrated Reticular Structure (SRA), applied to park and territory design, culminating in 1988 with a description of its theoretical foundations, methods, and experiments conducted up to that point. The only work built with this system is the Bosco Albergati park, completed in 1990. That same year, he resumed his design activity, developing handcrafted solutions called Solids, furniture solutions made with yellow wood used for concrete formwork.

Architecture
Leonardi-Stagi Studio Projects

1963 competition for the Museum of Deportees for Political and Racial Reasons in Carpi, second prize
1965-1966 Intermunicipal Sports Center Vignola, urban and landscape project
1965-1968 Casa Montanari and Laboratory, Modena
1970 competition for Parco della Resistenza, Modena, winner
1971 competition for the expansion of the San Cataldo Cemetery, Modena, special mention
1972-1974 Michelangelo Square Park, Imola
1972-1981 Parco Amendola, Modena
1973-1980 Swimming Center, Mirandola
1973-1982 Intermunicipal Swimming Center, Vignola
1977-1982 San Carlo Church, Modena, restoration
Projects by Cesare Leonardi

1987-1989 Cispadana Road and SS 12 Abetone-Brennero, landscape project
1987-1990 Casa-studio Leonardi, Modena
1988-1996 Bosco Albergati Park, Castelfranco Emilia
1994-1998 Expansion of Casa Montanari, Modena
Industrial Design
1961 Nastro Armchair for Bernini
1966 Eco Armchair (Shell) for Bernini
1966 rocking chair for Bernini
1967 Zeta Chair for Bernini
1967 Bernini Dial Table
1968 Side table ¾ and ¾ Tris for Fiarm/Elco
1969-1971 lamps for Lumenform (Bowling, Elica, Jeep, Metro, Molla, Pupa, Ritto)
1970 Fruit Holder XYZ for Fiarm/Elco
1970 Cuneo and Lenticchia umbrella stands for Fiarm/Elco