I will always remember my first lessons of architectural composition at the university.
The teacher was an architect Mr. Marcello Rebecchini.
It was November 1986 and Maradona, a poet of the goal, had recently won the Mexican World Cup of football.
Mr. Rebecchini was not the only one to teach me architecture, there was also another teacher an engineer Mr. Luigi Biscogli; he led me into the world of shape and taught me that matters, their shapes and their colours could express energy.
I want to remember these two men, even if in this context they could appear unusual, as unusual were their lessons at the department of engineering.
All those hours of slides showing and of difficult equations about form-function now seem to me so far, now that I have learnt how impossible to realise can be architecture in Italy.
Perhaps should I thank them for part of my passion.
In the directrices, in the symmetries, in the perspective and in the diagonals that draw the geometric perfection of some dioramas, or in the balance between the actions and the strength of some model soldiers, I have my recollections.
I hope not to exceed here, and I don’t want to tag any author with an architectural style, on the contrary, the style itself changes from one model soldier to another independently from the period to which it refers.
We can soon recognise the classicism in Ivo Preda ‘s "Alix".
The flag, whose direction is opposed to the one of the horse, against logic, makes a balance between the figure and its centre.
The elliptical redundancy of Signanini’s "Duroc" or of his "Bugler of the Third Regiment of Poland Lancers", don’t have something baroque? (Leibowitz sculpture, Signanini peinture).
In this last work, there’s the pretence of the soldier holding the trumpet, but in reality holding his arm, and in this sense there is a balance between the hinted rotation of the soldier’s bust, and the parabolas drawn by the plume and by his sabre.
Absolutely in contrast with the previous model soldiers, the functional rationalism typical of Bauhaus can be found, in my opinion, in Didier Dantel’s lancer, or in the "Official of the Fourth Regiment Huntsmen" by Mariano Numitone; on the contrary, the energy of Marchetti’s Hospitaller, ricorda recalls Zaha Hadid or Gunther Benisch’s deconstructivism.

As it regards the "Celtic Warrior" painted by Paolo Leonori we recognise Tadao Ando’s contemporaneous brutishness, or Mies Van Der Rohe’s splendid sincerity.
The “organic rationalism” of Alvar Aalto (I beg his pardon if I dare to define him), seems to be the main theme of this “Official of the Dragoons” by Nello Rivieccio (?).
Allevi Giumelli’s harquebusier is full of rococo’s style.
Decidedly gothic are Mike Blank’s "Braveheart", and Laruccia-Forconi’s "Villanoviano Warrior" in their stretching themselves towards the sky searching for a divine light that can give them earthly justice. Biberain's knight is decidedly Renaissance.
Very Romantic is the French officer by two authors Azzarà Cartacci, while the deco style seems to be Russian Vityaz' style.
In "Capitain Danjou" by brothers Cannone, we can easily find Frank Lloyd Wright’s whole expressionism, whose works can be found at the Guggenheim Museum of New York; here, the officer’s woody hand collapses from his shoulder, while the right one is the opposite because of the energy of its wrapping up impetus, while he draws out his sword from the sheath.
Directly imbued with the Roman era is the classical attitude of Laruccia’s "Germanic Warrior" painted by Gianni Coniglio and the stately haughtiness as a dictator of Jula’s praetorian tribune di Jula (unknown painter) seem to cover with travertine the “inexistent” outlines!
It is important to stress that the most in the van author of model soldiers seems to be Ludovico Carrano for his architectonic pursuit.
He is in balance between the "Marlborought War" deconstructivism and the whole architecture of Wright’s Wright’s “House on the Fallwhich can be found in the diorama on the Canadian war.
At the Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao we can find Frank O. Gery’s chaotic attack of light cavalry.
It is difficult to say where the work begins or where it finishes, but above all who is supporting what.

Deconstructing...

Stefano Castracane

(traslate by Stefania Valente)