The legacy of Riccardo Dalisi, theorist of a “poor” architecture

Felicori, Bianca [UCL]

Published on "Domusweb", 13 April 2022. Recently passed away at the age of 90, Riccardo Dalisi created a revolutionary practice which attempted to overturn the political, social and cultural schemes of the most problematic areas of his city, Naples. Riccardo Dalisi is one of the figures we usually associate with the great strand of Italian Radical architecture, not least because of his participation in the Global Tools school, considered to be the end of counter-design. Yet his personal cultural battle, which began in 1970 with the publication of Architettura dell’imprevedibilità, goes far beyond the founding principles of his colleagues from Superstudio, Archizoom and all the others. Riccardo Dalisi theorises a “poor” architecture, somewhere between radical thinking and Giancarlo De Carlo’s “participatory” architecture. The architect follows and proposes new ways of teaching that aim to reorganise public and community space through the construction of structures, models, objects and furniture. With the use of “a poor technique and collective participation”, Dalisi tries to overcome the urbanistic failures of the 20th century through talking, listening and social practice.