- Docente: Alberto Giorgio Cassani
- Credits: 6
- SSD: ICAR/18
- Language: Italian
- Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
- Campus: Ravenna
- Corso: Single cycle degree programme (LMCU) in Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage (cod. 8616)
Learning outcomes
At the end of the course, the student knows the main architectural languages from the Middle Ages to the contemporary age. In particular, it is able to place a building in the historical context of origin through a reading of the characterizing elements.
Course contents
The course is organized through lectures and workshops
The lectures (40 hours) will take place along a path that goes from the Late Antiquity to the Contemporary Age, with significant examples of the different languages of Western architecture, to acquire the fundamentals to be able to analyze an artifact, both from the point of view of the conceptual structure from the material one
The topics covered will be:
1) Late Antique, Early Christian and Byzantine architecture
2) The different European landscapes of the Romanesque
3) Gothic architecture in Europe and Italy
4) The return to ancient times in fifteenth-century Florence: Brunelleschi and Alberti
5) Beyond Florence: the fifteenth century in the Italian peninsula
6) The Renaissance in Rome: Bramante and Raphael
7) The "novitas" of Michelangelo
8) The close relationship between renaissance and mannerism. Giulio Romano, Palladio and Jacopo Barozzi known as il Vignola
9) The Baroque in Rome: Bernini and Borromini
10) The Baroque outside Rome (Guarino Guarini) and the European Rococo
11) The end of the classical age: Perrault, Piranesi, Boullée, Ledoux and Lequeu
12) Paris capital of the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century European between eclecticism and engineering
13) Late-beginning Austria: Wagner, Wiener Werkstatte and Adolf Loos. Ornament and crime
14) Die Neue Welt: Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
15) After the Modern. From Louis I. Kahn to Frank O. Gehry: the changing languages (and materials) of architecture, from the second half of the 20th century to today
The workshop activities (16 hours) will take place in direct contact with historic buildings in Ravenna and the Romagna area (visits to the basilicas of San Vitale and Sant 'Apollinare in Classe in Ravenna and to the Malatesta Temple (San Francesco) in Rimini are planned). The proximity to the factories will allow a deeper knowledge of the spatiality and materiality (and fragility) of the architectural work, showing its unique characteristics and therefore the need for the restoration of a deep knowledge of the monument-document
Readings/Bibliography
The reference manual is: David Watkin, Storia dell'architettura occidentale, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1990, 2016, 5th edition (original edition: A History of Western Architecture, London, Barrie & Jenkins, 1986)
On construction materials up to the industrial revolution it is useful: Umberto Menicali, I materiali dell’edilizia storica. Tecnologia e impiego dei materiali tradizionali, Florence, La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1992 (or, alternatively: Cirillo Atzeni, Giorgio Pia, Ulrico Sanna, I materiali dell’edilizia storica. Storia, tecnologia, applicazioni, Rome, Aracne, 2010); as well as the various issues of the periodical: "Materia. Rassegna tecnica di motivi d’architettura. An architectural review" (1989-2013); on the specific theme of the construction techniques of the fifteenth century architecture, one can usefully consult: Roberto Gargiani, Princìpi e costruzione nell’architettura italiana del Quattrocento, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 2003
Insights on the various historical periods can be conducted on the series: “Storia dell’architettura”, edited by Pier Luigi Nervi (Milan, Electa) and “Storia dell’architettura italiana”, various curators (Milan, Electa); useful dictionary is: Nikolaus Pevsner, Hugh Honor, John Fleming, Dizionario di architettura, Italian edition edited by Renato Pedio, introduction by Vittorio Gregoretti, Turin, Einaudi, 1981, 2005, 11th edition (original edition: The Penguin dictionary of architecture, drawings by Davis Etherton, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1966)
Non-attending students are also required to study two texts chosen from those listed and which belong to two different historical periods (the volumes are listed in chronological order based on the date of publication of the first edition in the original language):
- for Late Antique, Early Christian and Byzantine architecture
Richard Krautheimer, Architettura paleocristiana e bizantina, Turin, Einaudi, 1986 (original ed.: Early Christian and Byzantine architecture, Harmondsworth, Penguin books, 1965)
Sergio Bettini, Lo spazio architettonico da Roma a Bisanzio, Bari, Dedalo, 1978, 1992
Eugenio Russo, L’architettura di Ravenna paleocristiana, Venice, Veneto Institute of Sciences, Letters and Arts, 2003
- for medieval architecture
Otto von Simson, La cattedrale gotica. Il concetto medievale di ordine, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2013 (original edition: The Gothic Cathedral. Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order, Princeton (N.J), Princeton University Press, 1956)
Claudio Tiberi, Culture e momenti d’architettura antichi e medievali, presentation by Piero Cimbolli Spagnesi, Milan, Jaca Book, 2011 (only the part concerning the Middle Ages)
Carlo Tosco, L’architettura medievale in Italia, 600-1200, Bologna, Il mulino, 2016
- for modern architecture
Rudolf Wittkower, Principi architettonici nell’età dell’Umanesimo, Introduction by Richard Krautheimer, translation by Renato Pedio, Turin, Einaudi, 1964, 2007, 7th edition (original edition: Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, The Warburg Institute, London , 1949)
Antonio Forcellino et alii, La materia e il colore nell’architettura romana tra Cinquecento e Neocinquecento. Storia e progetto, Florence, La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1991
Christof Thoenes, Sostegno e adornamento. Saggi sull’architettura del Rinascimento. Disegni, ordini, magnificenza, introduction by James S. Ackerman, Milan, Electa, 1998
Alberto Giorgio Cassani, La fatica del costruire. Tempo e materia nel pensiero di Leon Battista Alberti [Afterword by Massimo Cacciari], Milan, Unicopli Editions, 2000, 2004, 2nd revised edition
Arnaldo Bruschi, L’antico, la tradizione, il moderno. Da Arnolfo a Peruzzi. Saggi sull’architettura del Rinascimento, curated by Maurizio Ricci and Paola Zampa, Milan, Electa, 2004
Maurizio Gargano, Forma e materia. Ratiocinatioe fabricanell’architettura dell’età moderna, Rome, Officina edizioni, 2006
Storia dell’architettura come storia delle tecniche costruttive. Esperienze rinascimentali a confronto, edited by Maurizio Ricci, Venice, Marsilio, 2007
Paolo Portoghesi, Roma barocca, Inventory of architects and their works by Stefania Tuzi, [Rome], international editors gathered, 2011
- for contemporary architecture
Paolo Portoghesi, Dopo l’architettura moderna, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1980
Kenneth Frampton, Storia dell’architettura moderna, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1982, 2008, 4th Edition (original edition: Modern Architecture. A Critical History, New York-Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1980)
Alessandra Muntoni, Lineamenti di storia dell’architettura contemporanea, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1997, 2013, 7th edition
Giovanni Fanelli, Roberto Gargiani, Storia dell’architettura contemporanea. Spazio, struttura, involucro, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1998, 2005, 6th edition
Adam Caruso, In sintonia con le cose. La base materiale della forma nell’architettura contemporanea, Genoa, Marinotti, 2016 (original edition: The feeling of things, Barcelona, Ediciones Polígrafa, 2008)
Marco Ferrari, Architettura e materia. Realtà della forma costruita nell’epoca dell’immateriale, Macerata, Quodlibet, 2013
Maurizio Bradaschia, Massimiliano Modena, Alessandro Zilio, La costruzione tecnologica dell’architettura. Architettura, materiali, tecniche, costruzione, gestione, dismissione, Trieste, EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2018
Teaching methods
Frontal lessons and workshop moments
Assessment methods
The exam consists of an oral interview on the topics covered during the course
Teaching tools
The lessons will take place with the support of analogue (slide) and digital (Keynote) images. The latter will be made available to students
Office hours
See the website of Alberto Giorgio Cassani
SDGs
This teaching activity contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.