Antonioni and Monica Vitti, a trip to Sardinia in the 60s
This story is set in the late 60s. We are in the Italy of the economic boom, of Milan to drink, in the golden age of Cinecittà. These are also the years in which art and architecture experimented with new forms, more harmonious and on a human scale. We can start this story on a small rental car, a Fiat. Inside the car there is a loving couple. He is Michelangelo Antonioni, she is called Monica Vitti. Both characters in this story have just entered the history of cinema thanks to the film “Red Desert”. The place where they are located is a winding road in the north of Sardinia, on the Paradiso coast, right in front of the island of Asinara.
A relationship outside the box
The relationship between Antonioni and Monica Vitti was a very popular gossip at the time. He, an emerging director able to tell his era without veils. She, one of the most talented Italian actresses, endowed with a poignant beauty and a very rare skill in characterizing her characters. A sentimental relationship is established between the two, which is not always easy and is characterized by the need for both of them to have their own space and autonomy. Suffice it to say that in Rome the two lovers lived in two overlapping apartments connected by a trap door and a spiral staircase, as if they had to hide their relationship.
A strange couple, strange house
But let's go back to Sardinia, on the Paradise coast. The small car whizzes among the Mediterranean scrub bushes that in flashes reveal the blue of the sea. Antonioni decided to impress Monica Vitti by having a villa built there to spend the summer. But this is not just any villa. He chose the project of an innovative, in some ways revolutionary architect: Dante Bini. Architect Bini is the inventor of the so-called “binishell”.
The "binishell", a revolutionary way of conceiving architecture
In fact, the structures created by Bini are very reminiscent of a shell ("shell" in English). This construction technique is literally based on inflating a reinforced concrete structure, thus creating a dome in a short time and with reduced costs. In practice, the metal elements and the concrete are placed on a large air chamber, a sort of mega balloon, thus giving the structure a semi-spherical shape. Once the cement has hardened, the bladder is deflated to be reused later.
Dust to dust (of stars)
Bini actually created two domes for Antonioni, one for the director and one for Monica Vitti, a little smaller and a short distance from the main one. This too was due to the need of the two to have their own spaces. If you look today at the Antonioni Dome, as it was defined, it appears completely abandoned. Although studied in architecture universities around the world, this structure now looks like a reminder of a bygone era. The plaster that covered the great dome yields to the salt carried by the wind and falls to the ground. Just like in that finished love story, only melancholy and dust remains in that place.
