A new interpretation of the work of Bramante, suggesting an agenda for
contemporary architectural practice
In On Bramante, architect Pier Paolo Tamburelli considers the work of
the celebrated Italian Renaissance architect Donato Bramante and through
this reappraisal suggests a possible agenda for current architectural
practice. Bramante, Tamburelli argues, offers an excellent starting
point to imagine a contemporary theory of space, to reflect on the
relationship between architecture and politics, and to look back--with
neither nostalgia nor contempt--at the tradition of Western classicism.
Starting from a discussion of the difference in the work of Bramante in
Milan (1481-1499) and Rome (1499-1514), Tamburelli highlights the
peculiarities of Bramante's architecture, especially in comparison to
that of his predecessor Leon Battista Alberti and successor Andrea
Palladio. This in turn opens up new possibilities for appreciating his
spatial experiments, and to derive from Bramante's abstraction and
disassociation of form from function a revised theory of space for
contemporary architecture. Such a theory might even advance a newfound
political understanding of classicism, and a model--perhaps more valid
now than ever before--for a public architecture.
The text is bookended by a series of color photographic plates of
Bramante's works by photographer Bas Princen.
