Percorsi in ceamica 39

This issue of Percorsi is dedicated to the Grand Prix of Casalgrande Padana, which has arrived at its eleventh edition and now proudly asserts itself as a kind of careful and up-to-the-minute observer of international architectural production, in all its various forms considered by the prize. By recognizing the most significant works showcasing the company’s porcelain stoneware tiles in all their many variations and finishes, we can watch new architects emerge and make a name for themselves on the design stage, and see already well-known artists affirm their skill and dedication through the creation of works that become points of reference for contemporary architecture. The projects we have selected to present in these pages offer a mixed panorama, in which the richness of the different languages and different solutions adopted emphasizes just how definitively the world of design has freed itself from the “prejudices and inhibitions” dictated by the tired ideological legacy of orthodox modernism, as Paolo Portoghesi - to whom the second half of the magazine is dedicated - already said years ago. Paolo Portoghesi is the creator of Casa Baldi in Rome (built between 1959 and 1961), which he later restored. The building has now been transformed into the new Creative Centre of Casalgrande Padana while maintaining its original spatiality and the important characteristics, both current and methodological, that emerge from the meeting with him in Calcata, described in the article that closes out this issue of Percorsi. An issue that looks at the present scene, with a particular focus on the theme of modernity and its necessary recovery; with the knowledge that the reuse and transformation of the urban artefact is one of the principal working themes of architecture in the new millennium.