These premises underlie the project for the School of Mathem

These premises underlie the project for the School of Mathematics. The structure was designed with very “Pontian” principles of architecture; Ponti intended the structure to be “a crystal” and “a finite form” as further defined in the following years (Ponti, 1957, pp. 68–69). Probably carried out on his own after his collaboration with Enrico Lancia, the design and achievement of the School of Mathematics marked an important change in Ponti׳s activity. Ponti׳s work shifted from Milanese classicism to a more explicit modernism. Moreover, Ponti recurred to very characteristic architectural elements, which also appeared in his following projects albeit with developed technological features. Among these projects, the glass–cement skylight of the library, an advanced technological version of which was also proposed for the Montecatini building, elicited much interest because of its specific architectural value and material and constructive quality [Figure 7]. Still, the ll-37 Supplier that proves a strong cultural interlacement between Ponti and artists and between architects and industrial materials is the huge polychromatic glass window on the main façade achieved by Fontana Arte [Figure 8a and b]. This element is a sort of leitmotiv in the design of public buildings during those years and was also employed by Ponti in the project for the International Exhibition of the Catholic Print at the Vatican (1935) and in the Rectorate Building of the University of Padua (1933–1934).
Critical fortune and misfortune of the building The critical success of the building was immediate and widespread; until the Second World War, the School of Mathematics was considered one of the best modern university buildings in Italy and Europe. However, beginning from the post-war years, Italian critics banned it almost completely. Thereafter, it disappeared from the books dedicated to Ponti post mortem. The fortune of the building and that of its author survived abroad but, in Italy, both were ignored or subjected to a more explicit damnatio memoriae, as in the case of other masterworks built in the same years. In fact, the School was condemned as product of the fascist regime and culture, especially by architecture historians and critics of the Roman School who have presented a decisive cultural resistance toward any work of that epoch for many different reasons. Among them, Bruno Zevi exerted a determining influence on the critical reading of Ponti׳s work, anticipating its hardship. The other issues that have relegated the School of Mathematics into oblivion are due to the uncertain definition of Ponti׳s style of the thirties: notfully “classic” (as in the case of his typical houses) but not yet fully “modern” (as in the case of his first Montecatini building). Hence, based on the simple reading of the original drawings and pictures of the epoch, this work has been defined as “one of the most original buildings of the University Campus, a sort of Roman interpretation of the Milanese “neoclassicism” with an allusion, in the rear, to the rationalist language” (Ciucci, 1989, p. 133) and “one of the most interesting buildings, perhaps the one which more than others expresses the ambiguities and the oscillations of architectural research in Italy during those years” (Rossi, 1991, rec. 47) or otherwise considered meaningless and excluded from Ponti׳s works of the thirties (Romanelli, 2002; Miodini 2001). All in all, although a revaluation of Ponti and of his works remains ongoing, we cannot say that the School of Mathematics has regained adequate consideration, most of which is left to mere verbal means (1935–1985; La Sapienza, 1985). After years of neglect, a serious critical process of value assessment founded on scientific and historical bases remains entangled in a number of impediments. Although the Italian law has been protecting the building since 1989, Sapienza׳s institutional executive offices, administrators, students and professors, and the general public have not yet effectively acknowledged its value.