Zucchi is also the author of the brilliant and passionate afterword a Case Milanesissime , the text in which Alvar embarks on a counter-narrative of the Lombard capital using the language of real estate advertisements and a series of cadastral plans, namely the zero degree of architecture , the one with which almost anyone in life, and not just an architect, can deal with.
Zucchi writes: "The surreal, or rather hyperreal plants (in a world of 'augmented reality', Alvar Aaltissimo's drawings seem to consciously pursue the ideal of a 'diminished reality') that illustrate the imaginary apartments ; offered for rent or sale by a Milan in eternal waiting to be admitted to the club of the great European capitals, thus becoming an element of critical reflection on the housing dimension of the metropolis. The captions that accompany them are the cornerstone of their interpretation, and constitute the key to decipher the graphic cryptogram and the trap of an unexplored pyramid where the sancta sanctorum (the virtual inhabitant whose physical attributes and morals should necessarily be shaped on the very specific characteristics of the environment represented) is perpetually hidden from our view and left to our imagination ”.
If there is anything more targeted by the satire of architecture, it is the architects themselves . In a nice book from a few years ago, Architectural Caricatures (Quodlibet), Gabriele Neri reviewed one hundred and fifty years of mocking projects and designers destined - or not - to make history. There is Casa Milà , Gaudí's masterpiece in Barcelona painted like a garage, and there is the famous episode of The Simpsons in which Frank Gehry , in charge of designing the Springfield auditorium, ends up being inspired by the sheet of paper that he himself had crumpled and thrown on the floor after hours of useless exhaustion at his desk.
"The key to interpreting the book" explains Neri ", however, is not that - which is currently very much in vogue - of the all-round accusation against architecture and architects, to which a once again superficial reading of these cartoons could lead. In fact, a more careful analysis often leads to unmasking, behind the attack on a building or a designer, issues that transcend the usual themes of architecture , taken as a scapegoat or exploited for more complex plots of political, social, economic and demagogic character ".