The Meaning of Geometry in Land Art: The Architecture of the Woodpecker in Milano Marittima

The paper aims to discuss the role of geometry within the Land Art movement, focusing on the ways in which the Euclidean geometry has been declined starting from the American movement that originated it, born at the end of the 1960s. The experience of the former discotheque, now abandoned, designed in the same period in Italy by the architect Filippo Monti is then analyzed: the Woodpecker discotheque in Milano Marittima, in the province of Ravenna. The designer is thought to have been influenced by this artistic movement, or in any case to all intents and purposes to present some of the typical characteristics of Land Art. In Monti’s work there is a geometry that transcends its own limits, going beyond the traditionally attributed characteristics and functions. It is a unique “geometry beyond geometry”. Starting from the recognition of the values of the Modern movement, Monti developed a new form of architecture for the “mathematical countryside of Romagna”. Monti experimented with functionalist language in the field of contrast-comparison between surfaces, moving on to the fluidity of space and compositional plasticity. Woodpecker is his greatest example. The area where this work was built, like all the works attributable to Land Art, is located in a desolate, deserted and isolated space and is an example of the application of Euclidean forms to architecture.