Cesare De Seta | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

Dante Benini and his Studio are at present realising several large-scale projects in Italy and abroad, from Turkey to Russia and China. Benini expresses a cutting-edge architecture showing a constant sensibility towards questions of energetic sustainability in the planning of his great buildings, and always finds innovative solutions beautifully interweaved with the fundamental coordinates of his formal research. This research seems truly inexhaustible and multishaped, constantly dictated by a main idea which guides both great-scaled and contained projects; but at the same time is characterised by a constant, almost obsessive attention to detail, expressed through the accurate selection of materials and the inventiveness lavished even for the most marginal details. This attention derives from his first teacher, Carlo Scarpa, from whom he soon absorbed the care of details and qualities of materials in architecture.Further influences, more or less close or personal, can be found in Benini's long professional parable, from Oscar Niemeyer to Frank Gehry, from Richard Meier to Daniel Libeskind.
Nonetheless, though variously influenced by the demands of each single project, his architecture has always been expressing a peculiar character 'a sign all of his own' as Bruno Zevi said, commenting on one of Benini's early works. Personality and originality in both projecting and executing, commitment to the demands of purchasers, overall view of meaning and challenges of architecture and craftsmanlike care in each step of the work: this volume reveals many of the qualities that make a great architect.