The Florentine School

Born in 1917, Leonardo Savioli was a Tuscan architect and urban planner. Savioli’s works, whose dates range from the 1940s to the early 1980s, focus on the creation of a modern architecture consistent with the built vernacular of Tuscany. Thus, working primarily in Florence and its surrounding areas, Savioli participated in the formation of what is known as the “Tuscan School,” a group of architects with a similar interest in the development of modern architecture in the region. In addition to being an esteemed architect, Savioli was also an active artist whose work in painting and drawing shaped his architecture and planning strategies. Indeed, his work as an artist further manifested itself in Savioli’s process as an architect, which emphasized iterative drawing that ranged from the intuitive to the highly constructed. The intuitive pieces of Savioli’s process are extremely evident in the diverse and seemingly random character that many of his buildings take on in spite of being extremely rationalized. Savioli’s works range from unique single family homes, to office buildings, to full on residential developments which embody his principles of urbanization. While his interest in prefabrication and building techniques such as beton brut is consistent throughout, each project also embodies his interests derived from his work as an artist: individual character, playfulness, and relationship to the human scale.