Ephemeral Architecture as Structural Milestone? Stunning Exhibition Pavilions in Italy in the Fifties / Arquitectura efímera como hito estructural? Pabellones espectaculares en Italia en los años Cincuenta

In the post-war, Italian industry feels the need to identify what has been called a “cultural policy”, while, following U.S. models, it attempts to define an authoritative and recognizable corporate identity. Since the early fifties in some large companies arises the idea of being able to combine the renewal programs of the neo-capitalist theories about public institution with the aesthetic sense of fine artists or cultured engineers. Therefore, in a wide variety of activities, the corporate image is also expressed through spectacular “advertising architecture”. In particular, the Milan Fair, considered the largest Italian exhibition of postwar, became big business for the main site to show the new facies. Since 1951, communication skills and modern visions of corporate identity are shaped in temporary structures. However, how stunning advertising architectures are designed? How architects and engineers meet customer demands? How does the "image" of the industry for the general public is built? These works can be considered milestones of structural short lived technology? The contribution aims to answer these questions by analyzing the forms, techniques and decisions taken by the industry in developing large complex systems, temporary facilities, with new pavilions. The contribution also aims to investigate the technical construction of the architecture of Baldessari (Breda, Sidercomit), but also of Bianchetti and Pea (Montecatini, Italviscosa), Scoccimarro (Fiat), Zavanella (OM) Bacciocchi (ENI). These architects built stunning pavilions from the technological point of view (no longer existing), which are part of a network composed of words and visual images with a background full of rhetoric and of the “architectures to communicate”.