Cinema Airone by Adalberto Libera and Giuseppe Capogrossi. Survey, restoration, reuse. Chronicle of
a story
The survey of the Airone cinema built by Adalberto Libera and frescoed by Giuseppe Capogrossi between
1953 and 1954 began in 2004. At that time it appeared disfigured, abandoned but someone had the idea
to turn it into a garage or supermarket.
The survey, the archival and photographic documentation of the period, as well as the many Libera’s sketch
drawings, have allowed us to trace a scientific framework aimed at its safeguarding and restoration. The
public hall for the show was designed with the shape of an ovoid.
For the interior, Libera asked Giovanni Capogrossi to fresco the ceiling of the entrance staircase so that,
he writes, the spectators were already introduced to the perception of a first show. The ovoid canopy of the
room lowers towards the projection booth and swells like a “large sail” furrowed by fiberglass strips that
accentuate the dilated perspective towards the screen.
This survey work has allowed, through the new digital technologies, notable possibilities of multidisciplinary
and multi-scalar knowledge suitable for the manipulation of information and the structuring of intervention
project proposals.
The support of the architect Pio Baldi (at that time, director of the General Direction of Contemporary
Art and Architecture) brought the much desired safeguard of the work.
