24708 - Architectural and Urban Composition I

Learning outcomes

The museum as object of studies is intended as relief element inside the urban scene. It required some reflections inside the discipline which involve the knowledge learned from the student in the previous years. The goal is in fact verify thru the studies of a complex public buildings and consolidate such knowledge thank also to an in-depth study with the other scientific disciplines involved in the Workshop.

The composition exercise proposed, which will be held during the course with different phases should be allow the  acquisition of knowledge by the students of a systematization of the complexity process in design composition.  Main score is the in-depth examination of the theme "museum" studied in his urban context. A first part of the course will give to the students a series of lectures that will be a large overview on such type of public building.

The project in a first step will be studied at the urban scale, as a part of built reality, strongly structured. The second level of study, will be focused on the architectural scale with closer details. Both in the first such as in the second phase of studies, the student will have to investigate the theme, thru the instruments which are the tools of the architectural work itself. A rational process will be explicate with drawings able to describe the project idea.

Course contents

As composition exercise of the Workshop is proposed as topic the realization of a museum built in the historical or hight density urban context of an Italian city. This topic is proposed because of its social relevance inside the layout of the town. This is because the museum is the "guardian" of the collective memory of a specific urban environment of a reality always in progress. Because of that this a peculiar building inside the space were it is realized. The symbolical significance of the museum, project over itself into a different dimensions of meanings.

It will be necessary to study the genesis of the word "museum" in order to understand how are the cultural roots that determinate the creation of such site of conservation and why this institution is still today important. Because of that, there will be the research on the significance of the word museum and the different meanings of it in order to understand it's role in the contemporary cities. Parallel to this theoretical research it will be study the birth of the building itself by the first realizations until the last realizations of the contemporary age. It will be very important to go back over the origin of a building for the exposition of a collective cultural heritage and to study the examples that better solve on the different levels of meanings the issues on it convoyed. The knowledge of the different modifications that such type of building had thru the centuries will be the starting point in order to delineate new hypotheses of work.

Visit to similar buildings will be held together meetings of curators and registrars of important museums nearby the local reality and also during a study trip in some Europeans towns, this will be an important part of the proposed educational process.

Important related issue is the notion of the word "character" of such type of public building, so it will be required an in-depth examination on this direction in order to better define the theme of the museum, for the definition of design hypothesis which will be able to give coherent answers to the multiple solicitations of the contemporary.

This particularity symbolic complexity, conjuncted with his educational essence and at the some time, with the importance of conservation of a cultural heritage, makes the museum a very interesting exercise of architectural composition. Not last is important to underline how this topic is very actual, non only for the many realizations in progress in Europe and in Italy but also for the local reality.

Readings/Bibliography

Etienne-Louis Boulée, Architecture. Essai sur l'art; a cura di H. Rosenau: Boullée's Treatise on Architecture, Alec Tiranti, London, 1953; a cura di L.-M. Pérouse de Montclos:Etienne-Louis Boullée Architecture. Essai sur l'art, Paris, 1968 (comprende altri scritti di Boullée); tr. it. Architettura Saggio sull'arte, introduzione di Aldo Rossi, Padova, 1967, pp. 72-74.

Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy, Dictionnaire d'Architecture, Encyciopédie méthodique, I, Paris, 1789; 2 voll, 1832; tr. it.: Dizionario Storico di Architettura, Fratelli Negretti, Mantova, 1842-1844, voce Monumento, pp. 143-144; voce Galleria, pp.  ulteriore traduzione italiana parziale a cura di Valeria Farinati e Georges Teyssot,Dizionario storico di architettura. Le voci teoriche, Marsilio, Venezia, 1985, p. 234.

Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, L'architecture considérée sous le rapport de l'art, des moeurs et de la législation, Paris, 1804; una seconda edizione postuma con l'aggiunta di altre tavole, a cura di Daniel Ramée, fu pubblicata nel 1847; rist. anast; in 2 voll. di entrambe le edizioni: Paris, 1961; rist. anast. dell'ed. 1804: Hildesheim, 1980, Nördlingen, 1981.

Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Recueil et parallèle des édifices de tous genre, anciens et modernes, Paris, 1800 (ed. accresciuta a cura di J. g. Legrand: Raccolta e parallelo delle fabbriche classiche di tutti i tempi..., Venezia, 1833).

Paul Planat, Encyclopedie de l'architecture et de la construction, voll. V,  parte 2ª, Aulanier et C.ie, Paris, 1889-92 . voce Musée vol. V, pp. 736-746 e Museum vol. V, pp. 746-753.

Julien Guadet, Elements et théorie de l'architecture , Paris 1901 - 04, u.e. 1929 - 30, vol. 2, capitolo VII, Les edifices d'instruction publique, pp. 327-379.

Daniele Donghi, Manuale dell'architetto, voll. 10, UTET, Torino, 1905-1935, vol.II, Parte I, Sez. V, pp. 1-208.

Nikolaus Pevsner, A History of building types, Washington D.C., 1976, ed italiana Storia e caratteri degli edifici, Palombi, Roma, 1986, pp.137-167.

Luciano Semerani, Dizionario, critico illustrato delle voci più utili all'architetto moderno, C.E.L.I., Faenza, 1993, voce Museo, pp. 114-125.

Luca Basso-Peressut (a cura di), I luoghi del museo. Tipo e forma tra tradizione e innovazione, Arsenale, Roma, 1985.

Virgilio Vercelloni, Museo e comunicazione culturale, Jaka Book, Milano, 1994.

Patrizia Montini Zimolo, L'Architettura del Museo con scritti e progetti di Aldo Rossi, Città Studi Edizioni, Milano, 1995.

Frances A. Yates, L' arte della memoria, Einaudi, Torino, 1996.

Teaching methods

The Workshop will be organized into two main parts: the first on theoretical research end the second on the transposition of the knowledge learned during the first sections of lectures, with the realization of a project defined at the architectural scale.

During the first part there will be a series of theoretical lectures with the presentations of remarkable exempla. Together with the lectures the students works will be periodical reviewed thru collective presentations of the work in progress, at this presentations will be invited other professors. Weekly the students will received handouts and specific bibliographies. To the students in the firs part of the course, will be required the study of a museum realized. Will be ask to redesign a museum by the help of plans, sections, elevations and axonometrical drawings. This will help to understand the existing hierarchies or the relationship between the public spaces of the town and the museum itself. During the second part the student will have to work on a project for a museum into an assigned site.

Assessment methods

To obtain the idonety to the Workshop, every student will have to develop a project related to the specific major proposed at the Workshop "The Architecture of the Museum", following the indications better illustrated during the opening lectures.

Together with the assignments of the major course the students will have to present for the final exam the work prepared with the other professors of the Workshop during the entire academic year.

Teaching tools

Digital projector, PC, overhead projector, studio space, printer and plotters A0 format.

Office hours

See the website of Francesco Saverio Fera