04002 - Architectural Composition II (A)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the module, the student is able to address the architectural design with particular attention to the issues of the public building and its relationship with the size of the contemporary city.

Course contents

The Laboratory of Architectural Design IV B (C.I. 12 CFU) is mainly constituted of the characterizing teaching of Architecture and Architectural Composition II (8 CFU) and a Landscape Architecture Teaching (4 CFU).

The course addresses the theme of the design of the collective building as an element of sustainable development and armor of urban culture. The theme is precisely the design of a museum building considered within the city's theory for recognizable parts. Museum has been the expression of a particular historical moment between the manifestations of the modern and contemporary time and the buildings perhaps most fueled the theoretical research of architecture. The museum is built to represent as a repository of memories to be preserved and handed down and from this point, we could found a new world. The museum, likewise, has happily nourished the intrinsic meaning of architecture over the time. Through the museum, architecture always has expressed extraordinary formal, constructive and expressive potentialities itself. It is necessary to think of the city and its collective buildings, both in relation to the shape of the historic city and peripheral expansions, and in relation to the new cultural flows originating from the large and complex contemporary geopolitical framework. This means rethinking the role of the collective building project not only as the ultimate object of transformation of reality but above all as a representation of meanings capable of regenerating the role of urban phenomena now polarized on the contradiction between cultural homologation processes and claims of identity. Therefore, the design theme considers the role of collective buildings as the primary elements of urban form capable of revitalizing the culture of alienity - mainly that of art - reflecting in the architecture the contradictions of civil life. It is therefore evident that the architecture of the collective building is indissolubly tied to the civil and cultural life of an era and its development. The collective building was born as a modern city equipment and developed from the nineteenth century, especially by pursuing the concept of "utility" in relation to technological progress and economic transformations. However, if we consider the meaning of a collective building, we can see that it can change from one age to another, but its urban meaning and its form are subtracted - to a certain extent - to the action of time and technique Tend to form a dialectical image of the real in relation to the urban structure and its history. The study of this dialectical image constitutes the foundation and conceptual center of the design theme.

Readings/Bibliography

A. Rossi, L'architettura della città, Clup, Milano 1978.

A. Rossi, Architettura per i musei, in Teorie della progettazione architettonica, Dedalo, Bari 1985.

O. M. Ungers, La città dialettica, Skira, Milano 1997.

I. Clemente, Infanzia della forma. Opere e progetti di Aldo Rossi, Adda Editore, Bari 2008.

I. Clemente, Lucus. Intorno al significato nell’architettura di Gianugo Polesello, Aion, Firenze 2016.

I. Clemente, Hejduk impossibile in John Hejduk, Aion, Firenze 2015.

I. Clemente, Twisted. La poetica di Aldo Rossi in Aldo Rossi, Aion, Firenze 2017.

L. Basso Peressut, a cura di, I luoghi del Museo. Tipo e forma fra tradizione e innovazione, Editori Riuniti, Roma 1985.

F. Dal Co, T. Muirhead, I musei di James Stirling, Michael Wilford & associates, Electa, Milano 1990.

R. Schaer, Il museo. Tempio della memoria, a cura di S. Marzocchi,

E. Hooper-Greenhill, I musei e la formazione del sapere. Le radici storiche, le pratiche del presente, il Saggiatore, Milano 2005.

W. Prinz, Galleria. Storia e tipologia di uno spazio architettonico, Franco Cosimo Panini Ed. Modena 2006.

A. Marotta, Atlante dei musei contemporanei, Skira, Milano 2010.

M.T. Fiorio, Il museo nella storia. Dallo studiolo alla raccolta pubblica, Mondadori, Milano 2011.

A. Criconia, L’architettura dei musei, Carocci Editore, Roma 2014.

C. Storrie, Delirius Museum. Un viaggio dal Louvre a Las Vegas, Johan & Levi Editore, Milano 2017.

Jean-Loup Amselle, Il museo in scena. L’alterità culturale e la rappresentazione negli spazi espositivi, Meltemi, Milano 2017.

Sigmund Freud, L’interpretazione dei sogni, Bollati Boringhieri, Milano 2011.

Carl Gustav Jung, La psicologia del sogno, Bollati Boringhieri, Milano 1980.

James Hillman, Il sogno e il mondo infero, Adelphi, Milano 2003.

M. Gasseau,R. Bernardini, Il sogno. Dalla psicologia analitica allo psicodramma junghiano, Franco Angeli, Bologna 2009.

Maurizio Bettini, Viaggio nella terra dei sogni, Il Mulino, Bologna 2017.

Teaching methods

The purpose of the Laboratory is to acquire the knowledge of the methods of architectural composition by the student. This knowledge is based on the dialectical relationship between theory, history and practice of architecture. In this dialectical relationship, the concepts of conceptual, representative, expressive and technical-constructive aspects necessary for the development of an architectural design are also included. In this sense, the theoretical-historical analysis of urban and architectural form is the first moment of design work. At this first moment, the study of the typological form of architecture is associated. The historical-typological scope represents the rational logical moment of the inventive inventive foundation of the expressive moment of the meanings of the form of architecture. The theoretical-compositional study and the development of the design exercise will be based on the design of urban and architectural drawings and models of study. The Laboratory will be divided into two separate phases in the first and second semesters.

The first phase will be devoted to the study of the design area and the analysis of an existing museum project, considered in its conceptual, typological, figurative and expressive aspects. The second phase will be devoted entirely to the design of a museum building on the architectural scale. The design exercise will be complemented by a cycle of theoretical lessons devoted to the familiarization of the design theme, the aspects of the urban design and the typological definition of the collective buildings.

The lessons will be accompanied by periodic reviews of the project work, interrupted by collective seminars on the state of progress of the works. Participation in seminars is compulsory and consists in examining and delivering the state of progress of project work.

Assessment methods

The Laboratory of Architectural Design IV B (C.I. 12 CFU) is mainly constituted of the characterizing Teaching of Architecture and Architectural Composition II (8 CFU) and a Landscape Architecture Teaching (4 CFU).

The exam of the Laboratory of Architectural Design IV B is aiming to enhance each of students’ architectural ability hecne the students are asked to show how to comprehend all the contents through the whole studio class that make up the Integrated Laboratory and the exam is to take place in a single day.

In particular, the following will be evaluated: 1) the quality of the representation of the project drawings (evaluation between 1-6 points out of 30); 2) the architectural scale model of the project in relation to the design theme and its typological, formal and technical contents (evaluation between 1-6 points out of 30); 3) the elaboration of a written report explaining the meanings of the project work in which the motivations and cultural meanings of the project elaboration are exposed (evaluation between 1-6 points out of 30); 4) the appropriateness of the language used both to illustrate the project and in relation to the theoretical issues addressed during the course (evaluation between 1-6 points out of 30). The assessment of the teaching of landscape architecture will be added to the overall assessment (between 1-6 points out of 30). In this way, taking into account all the individual evaluations, the student can hopefully reach the maximum mark of 30/30. The final test will be preceded by a seminar to verify the successful completion of the Laboratory's design experience.

Teaching tools

The main teaching support consists of specific bibliographies on the design theme. In this case, the bibliographies will be oriented in relation to the design of the museum building. Therefore, such bibliographies are aimed at the acquisition of the cultural, philosophical and figurative spheres of the Museum idea.

The use of audiovisual materials and the programming of thematic-cultural seminars are expected, with the presence of external experts, aimed at exposing the fundamentals of the design theme.

Office hours

See the website of Ildebrando Clemente