Learning objectives
At the end of the course the student is able to recognize, historically place and critically evaluate the major architectures of the contemporary era, to read their main constructive aspects and to frame them in the context to which they belong.
Prerequisites
Knowledge of Western history and culture from the Industrial Revolution to the second half of the twentieth century.
Course unit content
The course aims to provide in-depth historical knowledge of the constitutive themes of contemporary architecture, from the industrial revolution to the second half of the twentieth century. The main authors, buildings, events, but also cultural movements and fundamental episodes of artistic production are presented, in order to encourage the student to develop a personal critical and interpretative ability and a propensity for interdisciplinary and diachronic comparison.
Full programme
Iron and glass architecture in France and England
Urban planning in London, Paris and Barcelona in the nineteenth century
New urban visions: utopian socialism
Arts and Crafts
Art Nouveau in Belgium and France
Vienna - from the Ringstrasse to the Secession
Adolf Loos
The Catalan Renaissance and Antoni Gaudí
Charles R. Mackintosh
America. The Chicago School
Frank Lloyd Wright
Holland. Berlage and the Amsterdam School
Artistic avant-gardes: De Stijl
Germany. German avant-garde art: Expressionism
Peter Behrens and the Deutscher Werkbund. Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus
Artistic avant-gardes: Cubism and Futurism
Tony Garnier and Auguste Perret
Artistic avant-gardes: Russian constructivism
Le Corbusier
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Nordic Classicism: Gunnar Asplund and Alvar Aalto
The Other Modern Movement: Eileen Gray, Mallet-Stevens
Louis I. Kahn
Architecture and power. Marcello Piacentini and Giuseppe Terragni
Classicism and Rationalism in Italy in the 1920s and 1930s: Giovanni Muzio and Gio Ponti
Reconstruction in Italy in the immediate second post-war period
Radical Architectures and Megastructures. Italy on the big scale, from Superstudio to the Corviale
Architecture and engineering: Richard Buckminster Fuller, Jean Prouvé, Pier Luigi Nervi
The end of utopias. Rem Koolhaas, Venturi-Scott Brown, Postmodern
Contemporary architecture
Bibliography
For preparing the exam, students have access to the pdf of the lessons and the bibliography indicated below. It is also advisable to supplement the bibliography using the main monographs dedicated to individual architects and available in the library.
• Leonardo Benevolo, Storia dell’architettura moderna, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2001
• Marco Biraghi, Storia dell’architettura contemporanea I 1750-1945, Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, Torino 2008
• Marco Biraghi, Storia dell’architettura contemporanea II 1945-2023,Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, Torino 2023
• William J.R. Curtis, L'architettura moderna dal 1900, Mondadori, Milano 1999 (I ed. Phaidon, London 1982)
Teaching methods
Lectures and seminars.
Assessment methods and criteria
1. Oral exam
The exam consists of an interview relating to all the topics covered in the lessons and the contents of the bibliography. During the exam, the student is asked to be able to draw an explanatory sketch (plan, elevation, section, details ...) of the main architectures presented in class.
2. Carnet of hand drawings (optional)
On the day of the oral exam, each student can bring their own sketchbook of hand drawings of the entire History course.
3. Short article dedicated to one of the external events proposed by the professor
Other information
Students will be provided with the slides projected during the lessons in pdf format.
