Ambassadors of Italy

This article explores the transmission of national identity through the “things” that a nation is capable of producing and the environments that it is capable of creating; the article does this through a specific case study—post–World War II Italy—and a specific vector—large passenger ships. “Things,” as Remo Bodei (2015, 42) has stated, are an extension of the human body, able to interact with women and men and to help them understand the meaning in which they dwell and live, suggesting to them “il modo per farle parlare” (the way to make them speak).1In this article, I examine, in particular, the things that are created as part of a unitary project of objects, furnishings, works of art, materials, new technologies, and references to history in the carefully designed rooms of the large vessels that maintained relations, almost exclusively until 1958, between the two sides of the Atlantic: ocean liners. The rooms of these ships collected a multiplicity of elements in livable spaces through a synthesis of different scales of project, skills, and contributions, which ultimately welcomed, even temporarily, a potential user, helping them establish a sense of space. These rooms allow us to look at architecture in its complexity and materiality and, as the Italian scholar Gianni Ottolini (1996, 4) said in his studies on the meaning of architecture, “in un'ottica semiologica che pone congiuntamente lo spazio e le pietre come veicolo corporeo e significante dell'architettura” (from a semiological perspective in which space and stone are jointly seen as the corporeal and signifying vehicle of architecture) and to observe how the design of the elements that equip and envelop architecture makes these spaces bearers of a universal meaning, uniquely interpreted by different peoples and cultures.2After World War II and through strenuous diplomatic efforts, Italy was accepted back into the community of democratic nations with relative ease, compared to other Axis nations. The Allies gave back to Italy its civil fleet, requisitioned during the last years of the conflict, allowing significant works of refurbishment, modernization, and new construction to begin. While the debate around the symbolic meaning of the liners had begun already in the 1930s, it was after the war that architects, engineers, designers, artists, and artisans adopted greater responsibility in their design of the vessels, acting as “ambassadors” of the renewed democratic culture of the nation.This article develops by examining a case study and its evolution during the period immediately following the war. In doing so, it tries to highlight that these ocean liners were realized by a harmonious chorus of different voices, of technicians, artists, and designers, who employed different means of expression. It retraces a variety of uses and gazes, emphasizing a complexity of objectives (of promoting the nation of Italy and shedding the Fascist shadow) and views and establishing the liners’ role as messengers.My analysis is concerned with how things and spaces are made. It does not consider a thing to be an “indeterminate obstacle that I face and that I have to knock down or circumvent”; rather, as Bodei (2015, 20) emphasizes, things and spaces exist as “nodes of relationships” in which human beings are involved without needing or desiring “to have . . . exclusive control.” Things are a substantial part of the image that Italy projects toward the outside world.3 Observing their form reveals the meaning they carry and enables an understanding of their role as vectors, as means of transport of an identity,4 thereby highlighting other possibilities for interpretation of an already well-known history, such as that of Italian American relations. As in mathematics, the vectors of transatlantic exchange are characterized not only by an intensity, which is solely a numerical value, but also by an orientation, characterized by both a direction and a magnitude,5 which oscillates between both sides of the Atlantic, affecting both American and Italian culture.6The things we are discussing were of different natures, from inhabitable spaces to small objects, books, and movies, or even foods, which rendered them transportable or not from Italy to the Americas. They were received through media that transformed them from what they were in Italy into what they would become on US soil7—directly experienced, used, or even inhabited.8 In their transatlantic movement, moreover, they addressed different audiences, distinguished by culture, way of life, and education, to whom “la stessa cosa si manifesta in modi diversi a seconda della sua diversa posizione nello spazio” (Husserl 2008, 9–10; the same thing manifests itself in different ways according to the different position in space). There were the Italians who designed and built things to proclaim a genuinely experienced Italy and who were driven by the desire to propel the nation toward a better future; there were also Italians who had emigrated and who received and relished these things through the eyes of those remembering with nostalgia their motherland as it was when they left and who had no experience of its present; and lastly, there were North Americans who looked at Italy and Italians and saw them as they would have liked them to be.The case study for this article is the ocean liners of the Italian Line9 in the decade following World War II, ships at the cusp of the reconstruction efforts of a new, democratic Italy after the dark years of Fascism and serving as symbols of the country's technical and artistic capabilities. The liners were fascinating and complex worlds, as Edmondo De Amicis (1890, 23) wrote in a well-known account of his crossing from Genoa to Montevideo in his novel on emigration, in which he described a liner as both “un'isola che mi porta e che mi serve” (an island that carries me and serves me) and “un frammento palpitante della mia patria” (a pulsating fragment of my homeland). Because of the liners’ physical and perceived complexities, they become subjects of in-depth studies, noted for both their great successes and dramatic failures;10 they served as a cross-section of the society in which they were developed, through the outer forms they assumed and their technical and constructive features. Archival documents,11 advertisements and pamphlets, movies and documentaries,12 reconstructions of spaces,13 and historical and contemporary publications all tell of a prosperous world of brief duration, lasting until 1958, a year in which the number of transatlantic passengers transported by air (1,292,000) exceeded the number of those transported by ship (959,325);14 subsequently, the liners were rapidly dismantled or decommissioned and in a few cases transformed into cruise ships.These ships represented an ideal opportunity to demonstrate to passengers (possible future consumers) who were exposed to them for the duration of the crossing the skill and potential of Italian designers, artisans, and industrialists. Once the Marshall Plan15 was enacted and Law 75 of 194916 came into being, both of which helped the Italian government decide to rebuild the fleet, at least three groups dedicated to the outfitting of large ships were formed in Italy, and they were distributed throughout the main shipyards managed by FinMare in Genoa and Trieste.17 In Trieste the group was headed by Romano Boico, Aldo Cervi, Vittorio Frandoli, and Umberto Nordio (Nodari 2018); in Genoa by Gustavo Pulitzer Finali,18 who had returned to Italy with the fall of Fascism (Riccesi 1985); and in Milan by Gio Ponti (Piccione 2007a) and Nino Zoncada (Piccione 2007b). These groups continued the traditions of those operating in the prewar period, as in the Trieste case, where Boico, Cervi, Frandoli, and Nordio continued work Pulitzer Finali had begun before fleeing the country in response to the racial laws set in place during the war.The design and construction of the naval interiors were a collective job as they involved a multitude of skills from a range of different professions, so it was common among contractors to divide up the project and assign its parts to varying groups of designers, artists, and artisans, bringing together a wide assortment of hands and minds. This division had generated some tensions in the 1950s between those who, like Gio Ponti, would have preferred an exclusive contract (Ponti 1950) (as he was involved in the design both as a professional and as the editor in chief of the Italian architecture magazine Domus) and those who instead believed that collectivity was an added value, such as Giulio Minoletti (a Milanese architect who designed some of the most interesting bathing decks and pools on the ocean liners and for whom “dovrebbe quel ‘pezzo d'Italia’ essere, pur senza disarmonie e senza pretese campionarie, una ben fusa mostra viaggiante della nostra arte e del nostro gusto” [Minoletti 1951; that “piece of Italy” should be, though without disharmony and pretensions of trade, a well-blended traveling exhibition of our art and our taste]). That “documentazione emozionante del clima culturale, civile e umano del nostro Paese” (Ponti 1950, 3; fascinating documentation of the cultural, civil and human climate of our country), typical of postwar Italy and told “nel carattere degli ambienti e nelle opere d'arte di bordo, nella presenza culturale di libri, di pubblicazioni, di evocazioni figurative di nostri capolavori” (Ponti 1950, 3; in the characteristics of spaces and the works of art onboard, by the cultural presence of books, publications, evocative representations of our masterpieces), emerges precisely from the ability of different personalities and professions to work in harmony toward a collective goal: the design of habitable spaces evocative of their country of origin.The outfitters changed depending on the geographical origin of the design group and the reference shipyard. The Milanese group often worked with Officine Allestimenti Riparazioni Navali (OARN) in Genoa and with the Cantieri Navali dell'Adriatico in Monfalcone, partnering with the Brianza-based Cassina,19 the Milanese Enrico Monti–Cantieri Milanesi,20 and companies operating in the sector from the beginning of the century, such as the Palermo-based Ducrot.21 During the 1920s, Ducrot realized some of the most impressive neoclassical and art nouveau naval interiors, like those designed by the Casa Artistica Coppedè, those of the Conte Biancamano, and the Colonna Hall on the Conte di Savoia, inspired by the decoration of the homonymous Roman palace. For the creation of unique pieces straddling the border between fine craftsmanship and industry, especially in textiles, these companies turned to more specialized ones such as the Manifattura MITA in Nervi (Fochessati and Franzone which the of great and or in which work with during the of at in the to and materials, and the ships a for the technical and of these new As as for in and and were as in the of the Conte of the liners by the US at the beginning of World War II and returned to the Italian at the of the war (Piccione of these were to in his design for the Conte Ponti the of of his of che una (Ponti a that does not a naval in and the design groups from the of the were a few at a and in and small and most of the art was part of the design as decoration as an della of the The and of the served to the and of a a that the of a such as on the and of the on the Giulio or on the of the in on the The and skill in the also helped establish rooms as such as that of the created by De which was with in of the also on the or the by with the of for the on the These also a specific to a or a such as the to that created for the of the on the Conte These two are in the by on a by Ponti an of which the common and a of works created by as as Italian These were according to the and of the design groups or were by such as the and art Giulio who was in by the Italian to the of and pieces for the last two ocean the and the had in to be part of the art for the this how he had not only to works but e di e della with the and in the to a and this from the design in a synthesis that at be seen in the between architecture and the other works were an part of an at This in the design of a space in which it was to and with which so as to establish “un umano e a between a human and a of its position on the and the synthesis was with in the history of the country and its and the to the the of and artisans to a unique capable of not only and a work of art but also discussing its uses and e and together with “la . . . una di . . . an ideal of the which was to the North American as a of This of synthesis the of all design and their in It formed the of the and of the in Italy from the to in the and and a of origin that to its “la lo che e di the the the that and with the of a specific ability of engineers, artists, and to and all this complexity and to the technical of the of and and of the into an design that and the different scales “to form the of the represented the identity of Italy and its vectors of and means of transport for were to the of the two through different the ocean liners and, during of the rooms and collective were to transported through on the of in and in on the to North in of greater and headed to and Italy for history, and art of the experience of these spaces during the the and of the These be in a range of and of the the of the spaces and the of to all of as in this from a passenger traveling on the che una di e mia di e As the I was to and my was the the and the received were of the liners is even more by the passenger which were with of well-known personalities in and with whom it was to and of these and among other and as as and like and and are also such as Giulio and The was a and fascinating and were in the of all and the with of to in which the on the were (the the designed by with with the of The in a few and to in of the it was to in also the liners during their in the the in at least came on These were in national and with national The ships were also to national of and designers, as in with the of the for and The of these was precisely to allow to and desire Italian with to and and identity of the ocean liners and, by way of of Italy were by the of a and at the same an it was through the of this that Italian these in advertisements in and such as and In the of desire was the Italian in both of these in a of symbolic of the the of and with the is more to . . . more to . . . on the to as as to in the same way the ship from that year the image of a in which the is by his and The of Italy for the men are a it was the same year by an with the new an image of the ocean liner in a In the on such as image an passenger in a the . . . The ship . . . with a of and a with between . . . on the The advertisements the of the crossing through the the and are for . . . Italian in these ships a of and that was into for the American The of were for such as for their on and for on the or by the pools on or for The same of were in an of for men in of the in the and in of a of the with a of and a of this of and described the new ships received from both and the with and on such as that on on the by the Italian American of who received Italian at Hall the of the when it to become that liners were no the main of between and the it was to them into cruise ships to as means of allowing Americans to both of transatlantic as as different and with the outfitting of the ocean liners and with great all the highlighting Italian in the design of its interiors and emphasizing the role of art as a decoration of The large by in the was in and by of all the artistic elements employed by that The by Gio Ponti in the of in its US with from different and or the spaces the complex that were Italian passenger the Italians who designed and built them and the Americans and Italian Americans who received These were by place of culture, and and the in which ocean liners not only a means of transport a for to an of a renewed that to be not only an interesting but also an the Italians involved to the of the image of the Italian and, the of the of for of war and years of Fascist according to a US in Italy in to to be from the and Fascism is through a of the of as a a dark and that the of in to in the reconstruction of the Italian and nation and to Italy as a for the Allies and the in particular, it was to be this Italy that Italians to was an not its and a country in the of years by a and the of the and the of the the of art and of the evolution of art and and of the of of which was in the form of architecture and in its ability to and debate the role of ocean liners and of the in Italy and its image in and in naval and architecture where Gio Ponti served as editor at the the through the during which Ponti was the design of and to naval Ponti noted that a ship di per in di carattere degli ambienti e nelle opere d'arte di bordo, nella presenza culturale di libri, di pubblicazioni, di evocazioni figurative di nostri emozionante del clima culturale, civile e umano del nostro Paese” not a means of transport for in Italy, but It the of the environments and the works of art onboard, in the cultural presence of books, publications, figurative of our documentation of the cultural, civil and human climate of our looked at Italy—and as a a as a world toward which they both and The was described and by movies, and books, from a perspective of and at so and Italy was but also a but as 4) during a in to his what I that make a already seen of it in the these great the for the and the ability to it to the not only in and projects but also in art, movies, and for Americans both an of great and a of from their culture, which was more to and with the and of Italian and skills was by the US so so that in the was as a synthesis between the US of to the and the of and the Italian and looked more to and This was capable of both different and in its as had already in the and of its historical traditions with new means by changed as Italians the crossing to the as and Italian The Italy they saw was the country of their to them as a of and a more a through which they were of a in which they no in this for in was in Italy to a for a described to to his country of per di una una che che nostalgia di e sua for of a a that does not the country he with a few by his nostalgia and by his the same the that the of Italy and were more in their for who how to they were for the American and for those they had great as a with their country of For Italian who carry with them a culture in which a come to a and as in a as that in their a sense of and ocean liners for Italian on US the of the Ponti designed the and the in and as or and designed by were in the While these space in the the of an architecture project, from a few the designed by the Milan as as some by was and instead those already in the often who had before the war and were by already into the professional The Italian was and ultimately into a of spaces in was to the and culture of the country in which it and cultural a between the understanding of forms by those who design them and the understanding of those who in that be distinguished not by their but by the in which they are and it is in a between of the and understanding of that we the of what Italy the of the of a who were no in Italy, they emigrated from it or had only for a a The or ways of of Italy, and to the ability to the and that were from the of those who had and new and to so and without The transatlantic Italian ocean liners of the 1950s were the space in which these possibilities of and were and its its that between what is and what is perceived a image of the but great and The of the in Italy was built the years on this and in of not only the forms of its but also the of its and we of Italy and of we not only to a country and its its geographical but also to a community by an and a of life, of which ocean liners are a a island in which Italy without its where Italy itself as of the and of that from the of who have those in

Geography · Political science · Balkan and Eastern European Studies · Historical Geography and Cartography · History · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology · Geology · Oceanography

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