Le architetture dell'acqua di Enrico Pani. Il caso di Villacidro e Terralba / The water-related Architecture by Enrico Pani. The Case of Villacidro and Terralba

MAIS, STEFANO

2015-01-01

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Abstract

The wash-house with the respective public fountain of Villacidro and the aqueduct of Terralba with its related works are examples of nineteenth-century growth of Sardinia, able to express international cultural lines and to establish a relationship of affinity with European architectures. These works were designed by Ing. Enrico Pani at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Consisting of 36 tanks covered by an iron roof (from Fonderia Pignone of Florence), the wash-house is one of the few examples of iron architecture in Sardinia in the nine-teenth century. As well as being perfectly in line with the European contemporary architectures, this is also a wonderful object to the use of the water thanks to its elegant structure and its fountain made of trachyte, originally embellished with sculptures by Giuseppe Sartorio, stolen during the last century. Enrico Pani gave the same architec-tural features to the washhouse of Terralba, central artifact of the aqueduct project, of which today remains only the design draw-ings. The operation of Terralba is however interesting for its sheer size and complexity of technical and aesthetic solutions, which lined up the forefront of the contemporary art scene of the time.