La figurazione dello spazio architettonico di Gaspare De Fiore

Since 1967, the year in which Gaspare De Fiore published The figuration of architectural space, exactly 50 years have passed, and yet the work preserves the same fresh relevance that it was possible to detect by reading it for the first time during the years of our formation. Affronting the problem of architec- tural space, De Fiore distinguishes between its ideation and its repre- sentation, in particular by addressing the latter from multiple points of view and in a time span that embraces the whole of human history, from preclassic to contemporary art, through the representation of Roman architecture, the conceptual dynamics of the Middle Ages, the optical certainty of the Renaissance and Baroque illusionism. In his book, De Fiore uses painting as a medium for expressing his relationship with architecture. Moreover, the title of the book clearly expresses the author’s intentions referring architecture to its ‘figuration’ throughout history, which almost seems to find a field of unilateral application for the reading of architectural space. Today reading this volume may probably seem anachronistic, and perhaps it is, but it seems necessary for those who deal with representation and, more specifically, with the history of representation conceived as a subject of study through drawing, and not as a simple excursus.