Learning objectives
The course will consider the historical experience of the town with examples relating to the situation in Emilia and Lombardy where the typology-morphology relationship, form of the building and form of the town have ideal, typical features with handbook elements that are presented as the basis for design.. The analysis of the historical relationship between typology and morphology is taken up as part of a theory of architecture (not just as a neutral scientific survey) and therefore as the identification and study of the rational rules of building and urban composition which design itself recognises and undertakes. Historical analysis is offered in such a way as to be interlinked with formal analysis and to contribute to the formation of a handbook. This is explained through the study of those moments in history in which the relationship between building and town became evident in standard forms (as in a handbook, in fact) with recognisable building types integrated with urban types that are just as recognisable in prescribed relationships (mostly conforming to an elementary geometry).
Course unit content
Theoretical concepts in building types and urban morphology: theoretical experience of the Modern Movement in the 1920s and 1930s, the Enlightenment position and changes in the late 1900s: definition of type and model by Quatremère de Quincy in the Dizionario storico di Architettura / going beyond historical types in the project theorised by G.C. Argan in Progetto e destino / revival of the Enlightenment definition by Aldo Rossi in Architettura della città / formalist and functionalist definitions within the Milan and Venice schools in the Seventies and Eighties: the position of G. Canella (typology as invariant of morphology), G. Grassi’s criticism of the notion of type / analyses of R. Moneo in La solitudine degli edifici and of C. Martì in Variazioni della identit: traditional technical definitions of building types: planimetric and volumetric, formal and functional classifications: formal attempts to classify residential and urban building types (Lavedan, Demangeon e Tricart ) / formal classification of residence types: block building, neighbouring block buildings, closed courtyard, open courtyard, high-rise / formal classifications of urban types: established cities-spontaneous cities / regular cities and irregular cities / orthogonal model and circular model / functional classifications (market city, castle city, bridge city, etc.). Elements of building type/city relationship: building type and lot, building type and block, built-up space, free space (courtyards, street squares, etc.) type and zoning. Types of residential buildings and types of public buildings / similarities and differences in formal types / functional classifications from manuals and treatises. Analytical interpretation and synthetic-symbolic interpretation / relative indifference of the technical evolution of surveying to theoretical goals – representative, scientific nature, intentionality. Phenomenology of historical cartography and canonical examples aimed at interpreting the relationship between typology and morphology: planimetric and volumetric surveying / 14th century plan of Opicino de Canistris of Pavia, 16th century plan of Imola by Leonardo / urban survey and building survey of old structures / 17th century plan by Nolli of Rome / 17th-18th century land registers / 18th century plan of Pinchetti of Milan / ground floor survey plans as the ideal study tool of the typology-morphology relationship from the marble plan forma urbis romae to the typo-morphological plans of today. The Roman city: single family Roman home domus and the multiple family home insula in the castrum / castrum and centuriatio / urban axes, regular subdivision of the land, walls and urban gates / residential types and ad quadratum block types / orthogonal layout and public buildings / adaptation of the regular layout to nature / transformation of the Roman block in subsequent eras: Pavia, Florence, Como; the medieval city: house with deep lot and narrow front and regular layouts of cities with foundations / long block / types of Cistercian and Carthusian monasteries, in the country and the city: monastery and order / city-walls-cathedral and public buildings; the Renaissance city: the palace in the real city and in the ideal city (the Sforzinda of the Filarete / castle and city in the Visconti-Sforza period / Palace and internal and external open space (courtyard, gardens, square, street) / form of the city and form of the walls (evolution of fortifications), the Baroque city: the scenographic relationship between building type and urban form: theatricality of open spaces (the Rome of papal axes, competition for the squares of Louis XIV in Paris, etc.), the middle-class city: loss of the relationship between building type and urban lot / loss of the relationship between the form of the walls and form of the city / disintegration of outlying areas and reduction of residential typological experiences (single-family home and multi-family row houses, high-rise, etc.) / crowded blocks and garden city / block and street layout in Hausmann’s Paris, in Berlin, Amsterdam / urban form-Zoning Plan / undifferentiated role of public buildings and facilities . The attempt to recover the relationship between building type and city form (by section) in neighbourhood approach of the Modern Movement in the early 1900s / regulation and standardization of residential building types and the relationship between building lot-street-garden / orientation, mixing of types / the experience of the German and Dutch Siedlungen (Gropius, May in Frankfurt, Oud in Holland); attempts to go beyond and destroy the building type as it relates to urban morphology in contemporary compositional approaches: architecture/sculpture/technology, continuity and breaking with the past, attempts to revive building types and historical urban morphologies in Italian architecture of the late 1900s (planning experiences of the Milan and Venice schools). Urban morphology: regular cities and irregular cities / lowland cities and cities on high ground / geometry and nature / Roman foundations (castrum, colonia and centuriatio) / medieval and late-Renaissance foundations / historical evolution and contemporary expansion / dissolution of the forma urbis / loss of the relationship between building type and urban morphology; special typo-morphology relationships and elements in history: fortifications and castle / porticos and streets / squares / theatre and urban block; general urban evolution in Piacenza, Modena and Fidenza; analysis of a number of morphology type examples in Parma: the Roman centre and formation of central squares, walls and rivers, public buildings and urban form (Pilotta, hospital, etc.); ring roads and growth of suburbs, public facilities and road system
Bibliography
Aldo Rossi - L'architettura della città. Giorgio Grassi - Scritti scelti di architettura. Carlos Martì - Le variazioni dell'identità. La città emilia, a cura di Carlo Quintelli
Teaching methods
The course has both a theoretical and practical approach and consists of both lectures and exercises. It has general aims and seeks to generate in first-year students an awareness of the rational processes underlying the relationship between architecture and the city, and at providing them with the tools required for studying urban forms with a scientific approach. The examination consists of: The discussion of a theoretical theme covered during the course and chosen by the student; the assessment of the applied research work developed by the student on a topic chosen by the student illustrating the relation between building typology and urban form; the assessment of a project collage, whose format can be freely chosen, containing historical buildings and cities plants and covering a topic chosen by the student (this can also be a team-work).
