Paola Ardizzola is the winner of the Bruno Zevi Prize 2010

The 2010 Bruno Zevi Prize was awarded to Paola Ardizzola for the essay entitled The Heterodox Line of Bruno Taut in Turkey, or a Possible Conciliation between Tradition and Modernity, by the jury composed of: Antonietta Iolanda Lima, Josep Maria Montaner, Vera Pallamin, Lucio Passarelli.

Fleeing in 1933 from Nazi Germany, Bruno Taut initially arrived in Russia, followed by a period in Japan from 1933 to 1936 and, from 1936 to his death in 1938, in Turkey. These last two years, when Taut assumed the direction of the Faculty of Architecture at the Fine Arts Academy in Istanbul and the Government Architectural Office of the Turkish Ministry of Education, are the object of the lucid and meticulous investigation made by Paola Ardizzola.

As the jury pointed out, the essay “offers an incisive focus on the theme of the relationship between local tradition and modern architecture – still important and rarely resolved – examining above all the evolution of the social, technical and spatial principles of the Modern Movement in relation to a context other than that of large European capitals, and demonstrating how it adapts to local languages and traditions, respecting the specific culture of space. Furthermore, by making reference to both Taut’s architectural production and his contribution as a professor and theoretician of architecture during this period, the essay reveals
how his poetic was permeated by the concept of architecture as a tool for social advancement”.

Paola Ardizzola graduated with a degree in Architecture from the “G. D’Annunzio” University of Pescara. She holds a PhD in History of Architecture and Urban Planning from the same Faculty. A guest lecturer at the Fine Arts Academy of L’Aquila, she is currently president of the MusAA –
MuseoArchitetturaArte in L’Aquila. She works primarily as an architectural historian, art critic and exhibition curator, in addition to lecturing at several universities and cultural centres in Italy and abroad.