Learning objectives
The course aims to supply a theoretical support to the project activities carried out in the architectural project laboratory and to stimulate students to think critically about architecture by discovering the most important works of 20th century architects, their research and their teachings. <br />
Critical thought, when used as a method, becomes a cognitive tool for investigating and interpreting reality, context, and that which surrounds us, in order to rethink and redesign it: it is like finding yourself in front of a black sheet of paper, which if you read in a careful and knowledgeable manner, allows you to understand the world and some of the rules which regulate it. The design, therefore, becomes the design of reality, by which is meant a new proposal of reality and history from a contemporary viewpoint, such as the perceptible interpretation of locations, emotions and the conventional experiences of daily living. <br />
The teaching of Distributive Features of Buildings presents a theoretical opportunity to verify how the rules of architecture modified during the 20th century and allowed the introduction of new rules. <br />
Reflection on typology, morphology and distributive features does not limit itself only to architecture but also includes landscape and territory: typology and morphology meaning reduction, distributive features meaning verification of the evolution of living in the 20th century. <br />
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Course unit content
The course will be conducted in two cycles of lessons and exercises. The first cycle of lessons, which takes place during the first trimester, will examine the contribution of some of the greatest exponents of Italian architecture who operated around the 1950s. Reviewing the experience of Ignazio Gardella, Franco Albini, E.N. Rogers, Gio Ponti, Mario Ridolfi, Ludovico Quaroni, Giuseppe Terragni, Adalberto Libera, Luigi Moretti, Giovanni Michelucci, Carlo Mollino and Carlo Scarpa, allows us to compare the extensive Italian architectural production with that of the European masters of Modern Architecture and to critically establish the common themes and the theoretical differences with the architectural culture which developed transversally within the wider intellectual debate of the 20th century. <br />
The second cycle of lessons, which will take place in the second trimester, proposes a critical reading of the experiences associated with the most recent contemporary research, where the heterogeneous panorama of numerous architectural languages suggests the need to trace the theoretical and formal conditions capable of guaranteeing an orientation within the varied architectural and artistic production. The aim is to observe, while bearing in mind contemporary dynamics, in order to understand and interpret the numerous components and conceptual processes associated with architecture, with particular reference to the central role played by designers in relation to the location, intended not only in a spatial sense but also in a social and cultural context, in which to find new ideas. Extensive attention, therefore, will be focused on those pre-existing such as the position of the location, the starting point, the initial reference, and the sedimentation, which, at the same time, have been re-interpreted and used as stimulus, as awareness of location, and as latent virtue to reveal tradition as transmitted by history, from a contemporary point of view. Examples from Peter Zumthor, Herzog & De Meuron, Rem Koolhass, Rafael Moneo, Zaha Hadid, Kazuyo Sejima, Carlos Ferrater, Steven Holl, Alvaro Siza, Rudy Ricciotti and other contemporary architects demonstrate the importance of the inseparable concept of design and location and, at the same time, supply the necessary critical tools to stimulate an intellectual curiosity in architecture which is increasingly interdisciplinary and where art, music, cinema and photography make decisive contributions to the synthesis where typology, morphology and location define the entire project. <br />
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Bibliography
Obligatory bibliography <br />
The bibliography below is obligatory for following the course in its entirety and its contents will be discussed together during the exam. <br />
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-Bruno Zevi, Saper vedere l’architettura, Einaudi Editore. <br />
-Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Esperienza dell’architettura, (edited by) Luca Molinari, Skira, Milan, 1997. <br />
-Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Gli elementi del fenomeno architettonico, (edited by) C. De Seta, Mariotti, 2006. <br />
-Steven Holl, Parallax. Architettura e percezione, Postmedia srl, Milan, 2004. <br />
-Giovanni Michelucci, Brunelleschi mago, (edited by) Mario A. Toscano, Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Tellini, 1990. <br />
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General bibliography <br />
For further exploration, the following texts are recommended. Further texts will be recommended during lectures, revision, and during discussion of the projects on specific subjects: <br />
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-Alan Colquhoun, Architettura moderna e storia, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1989. <br />
-Bruno Zevi, Storia dell’architettura moderna, Einaudi Editore. <br />
-Emil Kaufmann, Tre architetti rivoluzionari: Boullée, Ledoux, Lequen, Milan, Franco Angeli, 1976. <br />
-Jurij M. Lotman, La cultura e l’esplosione. Prevedibilità e imprevedibilità, Milan, Feltrinelli, 1993. <br />
-Jean Francois Lyotard, La condizione postmoderna, Milan, Feltrinelli, 1981. <br />
-Rafael Moneo, La solitudine degli edifici e altri scritti, Allemandi, Turin 2004. <br />
-Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York. A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan, Rotterdam, 010 Publishers,1994, trad. it., Delirius New York, Milan, Electa, 2002. <br />
-Manfredo Tafuri, Progetto e Utopia, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1973. <br />
-Manfredo Tafuri, Storia dell’architettura italiana,1944-1985, Turin, Einaudi, 1986. <br />
-Peter Zumthor, Architektur denken, Lars Muller, Baden, 1998; Thinking architecture, Basel, Birkhauser, 1999; ed. italiana Pensare architettura, Electa, Milan 2004. <br />
-Rem Koolhaas, Junkspace, Quodlibet, Macerata, 2006. <br />
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Detailed editions of the"El Croquis" magazine: <br />
Jean Nouvel, Herzog e De Meuron, Rem Koolhaas, Rafael Moneo, Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito, Kazuyo Sejima, Gigon e Guyer, MVRDV, Bolles e Wilson, Steven Holl <br />
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Reading of the most important Italian architecture magazines: <br />
Domus, Casabella, Area, Materia, Abitare. <br />
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Viewing of the films: <br />
Godfrey Reggio, Koyaanisqatsi, music by Philip Glass, 1984 <br />
Ridley Scott, Blade Runner, from the novel by Philip K. Dick, 1982 <br />
Kahn Nathaniel (edited by), My architect. Alla ricerca di Louis Kahn, 2005 <br />
Stanley Kubrick, 2001 Space odyssey, 1968 <br />
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Consultation of the following links: <br />
www.mduarchitetti.it <br />
www.europaconcorsi.com <br />
www.archiportale.com <br />
Teaching methods
Project exercises <br />
Students are expected to do exercises during the Distributive Features of Buildings course in order to stimulate a cognitive investigation of architecture through design and project. Firstly, students must re-design a piece of architecture by one of the architects studied during the theoretical lessons in the modality and time which will be explained further during the lessons. <br />
Secondly, students must relate to the project by writing an essay on the “architectural narration”: the design of the “cube house” becomes an opportunity to explore and understand how to articulate “composition materials”, to point out the internal consistencies, steps forward, stylistic cross-references, and aporias, in the architectural construction process. <br />
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Exam <br />
The final exam and assessment of work carried out consists in the exhibition and discussion of all the material produced during the year in the laboratory, including the design project exercises carried out as part of the Distributive Features of Buildings course. Students must demonstrate, by their design projects, to have acquired the material taught during the course. <br />
