Giuseppe Terragni, Cemetery Chapel for Leonardo Pirovano, Campo C, Monumental Cemetery, 1930-31
The Pirovano Chapel can be considered a variation, or rather a metamorphosis in progress of the same design theme proposed for the cemetery chapel designed in the same years for Gianni Stecchini. This project brings the relationship between the sacred and the representative value to complete definition. Terragni no longer needs to resort to styles with the use of the tympanum and columns, but he simplifies geometric forms through abstraction. He proceeds to the isolation of the cell, the two columns at the entrance become pillars and are incorporated into the wall of the cell itself, even the tympanum disappears, replaced by the subtraction of material in the front characterised by the inflection of the side walls that take on plastic values. Inside, instead, the barrel vault has been reintroduced. Compared to the Ortelli chapel, both Stecchini and Pirovano do not receive light from above; light filters through the bronze and crystal doors. For this tomb, Terragni also designed the sacred furnishings with new shapes: a flower stand and an altar lamp, both in polished copper.
