04757 - History of Architecture II

Learning outcomes

Architecture is a real phoenomenon.
It is, above all, to give substance built to things that go beyond the pure response to practical issues and functional.
It answers - like the arts in general - a precise existential reasons, which translates into shapes in space.
The forms space has been done with special techniques, the result of scientific knowledge of a particular moment in history, from which stem certain formal languages.

It isn't said that every age corresponds to the use of a particular technology. The technology itself is folded to aspirations, meanings, programs that underlies the project; it happens so that the language developed to a certain age goes to the next steps, or different languages survive side by side, inside  the same historical period.
For example, the Classic Greek and Roman, when it is introduced in the Near East from Ellenismo, develops near indigenous languages, which absorbe changed and in turn changing the original.
The German Baroque eighteenth century insists on exceptional solutions, when France and Italy have already passed to other research.
The Italian Rationalism produces his masterpieces as "art of Power", while endures at his side, during the'30s, a classical style Novecento no less cultured, which goes up today.

The complexity of the general framework within which is the history of architecture and built environment, must therefore be read as condense of many stories; history of the human environment, history of the ways to manage it, history of intellectuals who have tried to build politics, methods and practices, finally history of languages.
This space dialectic gives reasons for the multiplicity of proposals behind the whole affair Architecture, but mainly also outline the plurality of paths. The search for meanings, the effort to interpret them within the time and culture that they have determined, is the ultimate goal of our work.
Students will be placed in front of the complexity of languages and try to understand that you can not penetrate the meanings Architecture considering it only product and consequence of a specific current in a given historical period.
The Course has essentially three objectives:

1) Communicate critically a series of events considered basic for the development and understanding of these considerations.
2) Verify, through the "laboratory" theories, programs and contents of lessons, with: visits to buildings, urban places deemed, in this regard, particularly significant.
3) Verify the critical skills acquired by students with a series of tutorials.

Course contents

4/3/2008

The history of modern architecture: its specificity. The relationship between modernity and tradition, internationality and nationality, regionalism and localism.

6/3/2008 For a critical appropriation and bibliographic approach to architecture and their stories Authors: Semper, Durand, Rondelet, Violet le Duc, Choisy, Worringer, Giedion, Pevsner, Hitchcock, Fletcher, Zevi, Benevolo, Tafuri, Dal Co, Ciucci, De Seta, De Fusco, Frampton, Rowe, Watkin, Curtis. 7/3/2008 Bologna at the start of XIX Century: Cincinnato Baruzzi, Giovanni Antonio Antolini, Giovan Battista Martinetti, Filippo Antolini. 11/3/2008 The architectural Idea at the start of XIX Century: Architects and Social Transformations: Ledoux, Schinkel, Soane, Nash. The architecture in the reformed Academies. 13/3/2008 Architecture in Italy at the end of IXI Century and the Eclecticism diffusion in Europe 14/3/2008 Transformations in european towns: Munich, Paris, London. Cities in south America and their models 18/3/2008 The Haussmann Paris and the transformation of the urban landscape. The idea of capital city: new containers for new features. Haussmann models outside France: Brussels, Florence, Rome Capital, Bologna, etc.. Easter Holidays VIII Lesson London 1850: international expo. Paxton and Crystal Palace. Findings in France: Eiffel. Engineers and architects across applications iron. IX Lesson Plantatio Urbis. European cities outside Europe X Lesson The representation of urban space and natural in the Nineteenth century: Impressionism. XI Lesson Art Nouveau: iron, glass, ornament. Victor Horta and Hotel Tassel. Van de Velde in Brussel an Weimar. Hector Guimard in Rue de la Fontain in Paris. Mackintosh in Glasgow. XII Lesson Antoni Gaudi in Barcellona. Naturalism, tradition, rationalism, vernacular. The debut of Otto Wagner in Vienna XIII Lesson Wagner Schule (Wagner, Hoffmann, Olbrich). Darmstadt. Reading: Moderne Architektur. Stoclet Palace in Brussel XIV Lesson Adolf Loos: Ornament and crime. Reading: Spoken in to the void XV Lesson The condition of architects in Italy at the beginning of the'900: D'Aronco, Muggia, Sironi. The concrete. Perret, Hennebique, Le Corbusier e la Maison Dom-ino XVI Lesson New models and urban reorganization: the Città Nuova of Sant'Elia. The Garnier Industrial Town, Hebrard, The King of New York myth, the debut of Le Corbusier e the "machinism" myth XVII Lesson Tour at the Esprit Nouveau Padiglione XVIII Lesson The Deutscher Werkbund - art and industry: Muthesius, Peter Behrens, Walter Gropius, Bruno Taut in Lipsia 1913 and Colonia 1914. XIX Lesson Origins and development of the Futurism XX Lesson The american dream: Frank Lloyd Wright. Reading: An Autobiography XXI Lesson “The swedish grace” and the Northern Classicism. Lindegren, Markelius, Asplund, Saarinen and the young Aalto. Reading: The white table by A. Aalto XXII Lesson Cubism, Neoplasticism, De Stijl and new spatial conditions: from Braque to Picasso; Mondrian, Berlage, Rietveld, Van Doesburg XXIII Lesson Nederland. Workshop of modern architecture, visiting professor Maristella Casciato XXIV Lesson The debut of Le Corbusier: from Istambul to La Chaux de Fond and Paris. How do you form an intellectual of architecture. Reading: Voyage d'Orient XXV Lesson Le Corbusier. The white villas. Purism and international commitment. Tour in images through the Rue Nungesser et Coli atelier-apartment XXVI Lesson The mondial city, the Mundaneum, the debate with Karel Teige, visiting professor Anna Ciotta XXVII Lesson The Society of the Nations Building. XXVIII Lesson The condition of URSS architecture before and after NEP XXIX Lesson Urbanism in URSS: Leonidov, I Vesnin, Melnikow, Tatlin. The common housing. The El Lissitzky Moskow plan XXX Lesson Walter Gropious, Peter Behrens, Mies Van Der Rohe in Berlin. Mendelsohn in Postdam. XXXI Lesson Architecture and Revolution. The international Expo about housing. The Stuttgardt Weissenhof and the Wien Werkbund XXXII Lesson Urban Social Reformism. The Siedlung Idea and the Red Wien Experience. Bruno Taut in Magdeburg and Berlin. XXXIII Lesson The debut of Alvar Aalto: works until Imatra XXXIV Lesson Foundation Cities: Italy and Colonies XXXV Lesson “Transparence”, new spatial problems: Le Corbusier and Mies. The extreme syntesis: Mies in Barcellona and Brno. Le Corbusier at the Ville Savoy XXXVI Lesson Regional and International Systems. Alberto Sartoris and functional architecture elements XXXVII Lesson Figini and Pollini and the "Gruppo 7". The Razionalismo diffusion in Italy XXXVIII Lesson The post-war architecture in Italy XXXIX Lesson Towards the Contemporary Architecture. Conclusions.

Readings/Bibliography

Leonardo Benevolo, Introduzione all'Urbanistica, Bari, Laterza, 1960

Kenneth Frampton, Storia dell'architettura moderna, Bologna, Zanichelli,1982 (ed edizioni successive)

Leonardo Benevolo, Storia dell'architettura Moderna, Bari,  Laterza, 1961 (ed edizioni successive)

Sigfried Giedion, Spazio, tempo, architettura, (cap. 2-3) Milano, Hoepli, 1965 (ed edizioni successive)

Renato De Fusco, Mille anni di architettura in Europa, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1993

William Curtis, L'architettura moderna del Novecento, Milano, Bruno Mondatori, 1999

Amerigo Restucci, a cura di, Storia dell'architettura italiana. L'Ottocento, Milano, Electa, 2005

Giorgio Ciucci, Giorgio Muratore, a cura di,  Storia dell'architettura italiana: il primo Novecento, Milano, Electa, 2004

Giuliano Gresleri, a cura di, Guida di architettura: Bologna, Torino,  Allemandi, 2004

Assessment methods

Oral Examination at the end of the course

Office hours

See the website of Giuliano Gresleri

See the website of Andrea Morpurgo

See the website of