Billiani: Edizioni 2024, 36 45

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Bianca Felicori
Graduate of the Politecnico di Milano with a thesis
in architectural history, is a researcher at UCLouvain.
Since 2019, she has been managing the Forgotten
Architecture project, which is a platform dedicated to
forgotten architecture, which has also become a book
by Nero Editions. The inspiration for this project includes
the architecture of Marcello D’Olivo in Friuli Venezia
Giulia, among others.
Even the works of great masters, such as Carlo Scarpa’s
Villa Veritti in Udine, struggle to emerge in architecture
books, giving precedence to his other famous projects like
the Brion Tomb and the Olivetti shop.
A masterpiece completed in the late 1950s (1955-61),
this single-family villa which embodies all the characteristic
and recurring elements of Scarpa’s architecture: Venetian
stucco, limewash treated plaster, hammered concrete, and
his marvellous mahogany panelling. This may be a choice
influenced by a critical bias, which may have been made over
time, perhaps due to a geographical disadvantage, despite
Udine being a city rich in great architects, all of whom,
however, having passed through the IUAV, which in some
way made them a “Venetian product,” like D’Olivo himself,
Gino Valle, Gianni Avon, Angelo Masieri.
In recent times, many companies have chosen to
highlight their products through a careful selection of the
architecture that serves as the backdrop to their editorials,
whether they be a design object or a clothing collection.
Yet, Billiani seems to go further, as it does not only
aim to work on the relationship between product and
architecture in its shots, but also to build a narrative
around the locations chosen as a backdrop. And this, for the
company, is a way to tell the product’s story and provide a
new, almost intimate, personal perspective: a tale of Friuli
Venezia Giulia through the history of the product and its
local area. A completely Friulian look, to shed light on these
wonderful and forgotten places that deserve to be valued.