The disappearance of Renato De Fuscowhich took place in his home in Posillipo in Naples at the age of 94, represents a serious loss, and not only for architectural culture. De Fusco he was, in fact, professor emeritus of History of Architecture at the Federico II University and a reference figure for the Neapolitan school of architecture, his works and his innumerable publications constituted a fundamental contribution to the development of the culture of architecture, of design and the arts from the second half of the twentieth century to today.
Dedicated with great passion, until the end, to university teaching, he trained entire generations of architects and scholars, creating his own school. Among the students they must be mentioned Benedetto Gravagnuolo, Gabriella D’Amato, Pasquale Belfiore, Cettina Lenza, Roberta Amirantemyself and others.
Colleague and friend of eminent exponents of the world of international culture and architecture, from Kenneth Frampton to Joseph Rykwertfrom Umberto Eco to Rosario Assunto, from Giuseppe Galasso to Cesare de Setawith them and many others he shared a long and intense cultural journey, leaving concrete traces of his passage and his intense intellectual sharing with friends and colleagues.
Before obtaining his degree from the Neapolitan faculty in 1953, he joined the artistic movements of the Neapolitan avant-garde, militating first in the Southern Painting Group, then in the Mac (Concrete Art Movement).
Among his youthful experiences, the trip to Paris, following the winning of a scholarship, and the one to Milan, where he worked in the editorial office of «Casabella-Continuità» in Ernest Nathan Rogersdebuting in 1954 with an exhibition dedicated to the tenth Milan Triennale.
Before dedicating himself completely to architectural and design historiography, he worked as a designer both in the field of interior fittings and furnishings and in the context of public housing, creating a complex of buildings in the Montedonzelli area together with Francesco Sbandi.
Having returned to Naples, his academic career began in 1955, entering the Institute of History of Architecture of the Neapolitan University, directed by Roberto Pane, his teacher, until becoming full professor of History of Architecture in 1972.
In 1964 he founded the magazine «Op.cit. Selection of contemporary art criticism” (dedicated to architecture, design and visual arts) – still active and directed by him with passion, rigor and punctuality for sixty years -, born in the cultural climate of the Il Centro di Arturo gallery Carola, to whom she is initially attached. In 1967, the magazine received the Inarch Award.
Starting from the end of the 1950s, having undertaken an academic and journalistic career, he systematised his historiographical cornerstones through the elaboration of numerous contributions, among which are: Il floral a Napoli, 1959; The idea of architecture. History of criticism from Viollet-le-Duc to Persico, 1964; Architecture as mass medium. Notes for an architectural semiology, 1967; Segni, history and project of architecture, 1973; History of contemporary architecture, 1974; History of design, 1985; A thousand years of architecture in Europe, 1993; Naples in the twentieth century, 1994; Artifices for the history of architecture, 1998; Treatise on architecture, 2001; Philosophy of design, 2012 and many others.
An activity always carried out inside and outside the academy, also through conferences, conventions and articles in major newspapers, a well-known writer of «Il Mattino» for many years, he received the Adi Golden Compass for his career in 2008 He subsequently received the Mannajuolo Prize for culture at the Blu di Prussia gallery, where he used to hold conferences with a large and qualified audience and where as a young man he made his debut as a painter in the Mac group.
Although he never left Naples and his beloved Posillipo – to which he dedicated a book in 1988 for Electa Napoli, with photos of Mimmo Jodice – Renato De Fusco has gained greater notoriety outside the Neapolitan sphere and abroad.
Naples loses one of its most illustrious internationally renowned architecture and design historians.
I lose a friend, the teacher, an irreplaceable reference.
The funeral will be held at 11 am in the church of San Luigi Gonzaga in Naples, via Francesco Petrarca n. 115.
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