Mario Ridolfi, INA-Casa, called the “Siamese house”, Terni, Italy, 1949 (view in Google Maps)

The house was designed by Ridolfi together with Volfango Frankl and built in via Giovanni XXIII, Italia, in Terni, Italy for the Municipality of Terni contracting INA Management House. The work on the design started in 1949 and the completion of the construction is dated to the year of 1951.

On February  1949 the Law wich alloweded to have more holiday workers and employers was aproved but the costruction only starts in Octomber in the same year. The details aof the drowings and the variations to prospects were finished only in 1950. The building itself was completed in 1951.

The INA house is a reflection of a post-war tendency of Mario Ridolfi, in which he chose to adhere to neorealist architecture that had the desire to re-read in a modern way the values of the past, its techniques, materials, and details, tending to recreate an ideal architectural space and typical residential environment of the countryside. The house matches perfectly with the vision of architecture which involves social and ethical issues.

The representation symbol of the doctrine neorealist is the intervention at the district Tiburtino in Rome , who are engaged Ridolfi and Quaroni , between 1949 and 1954 , together with a certain ideology of ‘ INA-House that well matches this vision of architecture linked to ethical and social issues of the place. The same architectural value is in the same years, the INA Towers Avenue in Ethiopia in Rome ( 1951 ), House Pallotta and the House Chitarrini in Terni, the most representative works produced in the heart of the historic center of this city.

References:

• http://www.fondoridolfi.org/FondoRidolfi/97_23/periodo/Edifici-INA-Casa-detti-case-siamesi-a-Terni.htm
• http://www.archimagazine.com/brido.htm
• http://www.ilmattinodifoggia.it/userUpload/Mario_Ridolfi_Cerignola.pdf
• https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Ridolfi

Reviewed March 2017 by:

Yue Shang

Xiaolin Lu

Lizhongyang Zhou

Adelina Muntean