Ridolfi, Mario

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Ridolfi, Mario (1904–84). Italian architect, a member of MIAR. He designed the Post Office in the Piazza Bologna, Quartiere Nomentano, Rome (1932–3), influenced partly by German Expressionism and partly by Italian Rationalism, but soon shed all traces of the former, especially after he formed a professional association with the German engineer Wolfgang Frankl (1907–94) that lasted from the 1930s until Ridolfi's death. The Rea Mansion, Via di Villa Massimo, Rome (1934–7), for example, designed with Frankl, was entirely Rationalist Modernist in style. After the 1939–45 war he published Manuale dell'architetto (1946) that seemed to favour stylistic Pluralism, and, with Aymonino, Quaroni, and others, designed the INA-Casa in the Tiburtino Quarter, Rome, where Pluralist leanings became apparent (1949–54). Yet, in the same period, he designed (with Frankl), the Casa a Torre, Viale Etiopia, Rome (1950–4), that was unequivocally Modernist and from which Pluralism was absent. By the 1960s his work became very coarse in its detailing, and almost wilfully crude (e.g. Infants' School, Poggibonsi (1960–1)). He died by drowning.

Bibliography

F. Bellini (1993);
Cellini et al.(eds.) (1979);
Kalman (1994);
Lampugnani (ed.) (1988);
Moschini et al. (1997);
Jane Turner (1996)

A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture

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Ridolfi, Mario

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