“Architecture as a Purely Visual Fact”: Gulio Carlo Argan’s Formalist Interpretation of Guarini

Its long-time relevance makes Gulio Carlo Argan’s article “La tecnica di Guarini” an exceptional contribution among the papers presented at the 1968 conference Guarino Guarini e l’internazionalità del barocco. In this paper I analyse Argan’s interpretation of Guarini and the meaning of the phrase “architecture as a purely visual fact” that he uses to qualify Guarini’s conception of architecture.