81925 - History of Contemporary City

Learning outcomes

The course aims to provide knowledge about the history of the contemporary city and the actors involved in its transformation. The course explains design actions conceived outside the specialist disciplines of the project - economic, technological, social, cultural ones - and circumstantial events in which non-specialist actors, acting, transform the physical space. At the end of the course the students: know the discussion of the history of the image of the city; use knowledge focused on reality; exploit and consolidate their knowledge and references to the figurative arts, cinema, literature, as a means of understanding the reality of the territory and of living in it; read and critically analyze complex urban places

Course contents

In the two years, the course is coordinated with the course of History of Contemporary City (Prof. G. Leoni), and provides common activities between the two courses (exercises, seminars) both in the first and in the second year. In the first year - History of the Contemporary City - some of the lessons will be held by Prof. Andrea Borsari, while in the second year - Aesthetics for the City - some of the lessons will be held by Prof. Giovanni Leoni.

Images of the city and the city of man (the first year in the course of the History of Contemporary City)

Images of the city and the city of man (the first year in the course of the History of Contemporary City)

• Form and circumstances in XX Century Italian Cities
• Ernesto Nathan Rogers
• Adriano Olivetti
• Carlo Doglio
• Danilo Dolci
• Leonardo Ricci
• Aldo Rossi
• Exercise

The exercise consists of two parts:

- elaboration of a written text referring to the texts mentioned in the bibliography and audiovisual and seminar materials discussed during the course

- elaborate graphic, written or visual reading and interpretation of an urban site.

Anonymous and the City (during the second year in the course of Aesthetics for the City)

• Ruskin / Vence 
• Scarpa / Verona
• Mies / Chicago
• Venturi / Las Vegas
• Tàvora / Porto
• Dossetti / Bologna
• Exercise

The exercise consists of two parts:

- elaboration of a written text referring to the texts mentioned in the bibliography and audiovisual and seminar materials discussed during the course

- elaborate graphic, written or visual reading and interpretation of an urban site.

Readings/Bibliography

Images of the city and the city of man

• E. N. Rogers, Confessioni di un Anonimo del XX secolo, (1941-42) “DOMUS”, 158, p. 45; 159, p. 67; 160, p.59; 161, p. 69; 162, p. 69; 164, p. 31; 167, p. 17; 170, p. 94; 176, p. 333
• D. Dolci, Inchiesta a Palermo (1956), Sellerio, Palermo 2012
• A. Olivetti, La città dell’uomo (1959), Edizioni di Comunità, Roma 2015
• L. Ricci, Anonimo del XX secolo, Il Saggiatore, Milano 1965
• C.Mazzoleni Carlo Doglio: selezione di scritti 1950-1984, “Quaderni DU”, IUAV 1992
• A. Rossi, L’architettura della città (1966), Quodlibet, Macerata 2011; Id., Autobiografia scientifica(1990), Il Saggiatore, Milano 2009
• I. Calvino, Le città invisibili (1972), Mondadori, Milano 2016

Anonymous and the City

• J. Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, 1851-53 (excerpts)
• S. Bettini, Venezia, nascita di una città (1978), Neri Pozza, Vicenza 2006
• M. Tafuri, Ricerca del Rinascimento. Principi, città, architetto, Einaudi, Torino 1992, cap. I e VII
• R. Murphy, Carlo Scarpa & Castelvecchio, ed. it. Arsenale, Venezia 1991
• H.M. Mayer, R.C. Wade, Chicago: growth of a Metropolis, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago 1969
• Mies van der Rohe in Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago 1986
• R. Venturi, D. Scott Brown, S. Izenour, Imparare da Las Vegas: il simbolismo dimenticato della forma architettonica, ed. it. A cura di M. Orazi, Quodlibet, Macerta 2010
• H. Stadler, M. Stierli, Las Vegas Studio, Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurigo 2017
• F.Távora,DaOrganização do Espaço (1962), Ed. FAUP, Porto 2008
•  G. Dossetti, Libro bianco su Bologna, Tip. Il Resto del Carlino, 1956
• L. Gambi, Da città a area metropolitanain AA. VV., Storia d’Italia, Volume quinto, I documenti, Einaudi, Torino 1976, pp. 370-424
• G. Celati, a cura, Alice disambientata. Materiali collettivi (su Alice) per un manuale di sopravvivenza, Le Lettere, Firenze 2007

At the end of each lesson students will find materials and additional bibliography in the e-learning website.

Teaching methods

The course aims to provide tools for deepening the discipline. The course will take place through lectures, seminars, exercises, visits.

Assessment methods

To take the exam you must have completed the exercise. The exam is oral. The exam interview will focus on the topics discussed in classroom lessons and on the texts in the program, but it can also take the inspiration from any further study that the student will have presented orally during the lessons or in written form after the end of the course.

Teaching tools

The bibliographies specific to the different parts of the course will be analyzed and acquired during the various lessons, starting with the tools available in the texts indicated in the program. 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 course.

Office hours

See the website of Giovanni Leoni