Planning Obsolescence: Bramante at St. Peter’s Available to Purchase

This article revisits the early phases of the sixteenth-century reconstruction of St. Peter’s Basilica, particularly the vision of a cyclically regenerating building adopted by its first architect, Donato Bramante, to reveal mechanisms of planned obsolescence embedded in his project. Since the publication of Andrea Guarna’s Simia in 1517, Bramante has been known as the “ruining master,” and other sources report his fury in demolishing the church that preexisted the rebuilt Vatican complex. Bramante’s strategy of calculated expediency, however, implied the ruination of his own creations, producing structures designed to be simultaneously provisional and durable. This article explores the reasons behind his shockingly open-ended approach and reconstructs how architectural cognoscenti rejected or embraced it. By identifying drawings that reacted to the transient nature of Bramante’s architecture, it shows how the struggle between oblivion and renovation at St. Peter’s generated new notions of authorship and a powerful tool for long-term planning.