79889 - Aesthetics and Landscape

Learning outcomes

The evolution of the concept “landscape” will be studied by analyzing thought and works of philosophers and artists whose disciplines are related to architecture. The goal of this course is to address students in the search for themes of reflection and criticism on the relationship between architecture and nature.

Course contents

The course will examine the main lines of the philosophy of landscape that has reflected on the role of the ruins within the landscape and then proceed to the reconstruction of a possible aesthetics of the ruins, between nature and history, memory and oblivion. We will try to focus on the peculiar mode of perception and artistic appreciation that is established with the environment thanks to the presence of the relics of human construction on the background of natural processes that tend to take possession of them. For this purpose, we will refer also to narrative sources and to sources from visual culture (painting, photography, cinema etc.).

Readings/Bibliography

Georg Simmel, Die Ruine (1907), it. transl. Le rovine, in Id., La moda e altri saggi di cultura filosofica (1911), Milano, Longanesi, 1985, p. 101-114, and Id., Philosophie der Landschaft (1913), it. transl. Filosofia del paesaggio, in Id., Il volto e il ritratto. Saggi sull'arte, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1985, p. 71-83.

Walter Benjamin, Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels (1928), it. transl. Il dramma barocco tedesco, Torino, Einaudi, 1999 (in particular, Allegoria e dramma barocco (I)) and Id., Über den Begriff der Geschichte (1940), it. transl. Sul concetto di storia; Torino, Einaudi, 1997.

Georges Didi-Huberman, Écorces, Paris, Minuit, 2011, it. transl. Scorze, Roma, Nottetempo, 2014.

Hartmut Böhme, Die Ästhetik der Ruinen, in D.Kamper, Ch. Wulf (Hg.) Der Schein des Schönen, Göttingen, Steidl, 1989, p. 287-304.

Gérard Raulet, Die Ruinen im ästhetischen Diskurs der Moderne, in Id., Positive Barbarei. Kulturphilosophie und Politik bei Walter Benjamin, Münster, Westfälische Dampfboot, 2004, p. 41-66.

Marc Augé, Rovine e macerie. Il senso del tempo, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2004

Nicholas Pethes, Jens Ruchatz (Hg.), Gedächtnis und Erinnerung. Ein interdisziplinäres Lexicon, Reinbek, Rowohlt, 2001, it. edition edited by A. Borsari, Dizionario della memoria e del ricordo, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2004² (passim).

Paolo D'Angelo, a cura di, Estetica e paesaggio, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2009.

Teaching methods

The course comprises 24 hours of lessons.

Assessment methods

Conversations. Short texts written or discussed by students will be welcomed. In detail:

- the achievement of learning the analysis of thought and the work of philosophers and artists of the disciplines related to architecture on the notion of landscape will be verified through short individual texts that summarize their contents and read the themes in relation to single research paths ;

- the achievement of the educational goal of addressing students in the search for reflection and criticisms on the relationship between built architecture and nature will be verified through an individual interview of the interplay between these themes and the result of individual research projects.

Teaching tools

Specific bibliographies to the different research addresses of the lab will be developed during the various lessons, starting with the tools available in the texts indicated in the program, to switch to specialized databases and local documentary funds. The teaching material presented during the lessons is made available to the student in paper or electronic format via the internet, also following the access restrictions, according to the modalities that will be indicated at the beginning of the lab.

Office hours

See the website of Andrea Borsari