Sturdy as stone, vibrant as ceramics: Italklinker and Modern Movement architecture in Italy

In the 1930s Giovanni Muzio imported for the first time in Italy a new building material, the klinker. This event marks the beginning of a close collaboration between designers and the Italian ceramic manufacturing industry, aimed at the development of a local production and of an evolutionary product process, in response to the new technical and aesthetic demands of the modern architecture. Italklinker or lithoceramics, combining characteristics of stone and ceramics, is promoted in the autarchic period as a hygienic, eternal and incorruptible material. The versatility of its shape, color and finishing gives rise to vibrant, colorful and iridescent surfaces. The productive process, the technological connotation and the composition qualities are investigated through some works of the Italian Modern Movement masters. The paper intends to highlight the peculiarities of this “modern skin” and to raise awareness about the correct conservation of this widespread building technique, often compromised by unaware recovery interventions.