Programme

This course covers a temporal space between the last decade of the XIX century and the end of the XX century and gets through the complexity of historical tangles, which carried out to the birth of the modern forms and their rise. It is considered as a wide-ranging space that comprises not only the works of the innovative architects, bound up with the avant-garde or with the great ideals (like the design of machinery or the organicism), but also the works sometimes revolutionary that refers to the vernacular tradition.
This course is divided into different lines: the great, general themes (the historical contest, the programmes, the ideas, Modern and Tradition); the great figures of architects; the philology and constructive analysis of works (both realized and only planned) and the historiographical interpretations.

Core Documentation

Sigfried Giedion, Space,Time and Architecture, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,1954.
William J. R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, London: Phaidon Press,1996.
Elie G. Haddad, David Rifkind (ed.), A Critical History of Contemporary Architecture:1960-2010,Oxford: Routledge, 2014.

Reference Bibliography

Reyner Banham, Architettura della prima età della macchina, Calderini, Bologna 1970. Alan Colquhoun, Architettura moderna e storia, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1989. Marco Biraghi, Alberto Ferlenga (a cura di), Architettura del Novecento. Teorie, scuole, eventi, vol I, Einaudi, Torino 2012. Marco Biraghi, Alberto Ferlenga (a cura di), Architettura del Novecento. Opere, progetti e luoghi, voll. II-III, Einaudi, Torino 2013Marco De Benedetti, Attilio Pracchi, Antologia dell’architettura moderna. Testi, manifesti, utopie, Zanichelli, Bologna 1992. ANTHOLOGIES Marco De Benedetti, Attilio Pracchi, Antologia dell’architettura moderna. Testi, manifesti, utopie, Zanichelli, Bologna 1992. Joan Ockman, Architecture Culture 1943-1968, Rizzoli, New York 1993. Michael K. Hays, Architecture. Theory since 1968, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass 2000. ON 20TH CENTURY ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE: Manfredo Tafuri, Storia dell’architettura italiana 1944-1985, Einaudi, Torino 1986. Giorgio Ciucci, Gli architetti e il fascismo. Architettura e città 1922-1944, Einaudi, Torino 1989. Francesco Dal Co (a cura di), Storia dell’architettura italiana. Il secondo Novecento, Electa, Milano 1997. Giorgio Ciucci, Giorgio Muratore (a cura di), Storia dell’architettura contemporanea. Il primo Novecento Electa, Milano 2004. Marco Biraghi, Storia dell’architettura italiana 1985-2915, Einaudi, Torino 2013.

Type of delivery of the course

The course will be held alternating between in-class lectures and distance learning via the Microsoft Teams platform. The lectures will be given by the course holders and, in some cases, by visiting professors.

Attendance

Students must attend at the least the 75% of lessons to be admitted to the final exam

Type of evaluation

The evaluation is based on an oral examination. The student will have to answer some questions related to the course program and will have to demonstrate a good knowledge of the topic addressed. The student must also prove to be able to draw plans and elevations of the buildings discussed. In the case of an extension of the health emergency from COVID-19, all the provisions that regulate the methods of carrying out the teaching activities and student assessment will be implemented.

Programme

This course aims at providing a critical approach towards the “changing ideals” of contemporary architecture, starting from the opposing forces of the notions of classical and modern during the Age of Enlightenment. Through descriptions of different historical and geographical contexts, a selected series of masterworks from XIX to XX Century will be discussed in terms of form, structure, functions, specifically considering how they have contributed to past and contemporary architectural debate.

Core Documentation

R. Middleton, D. Watkin, Neoclassical and Nineteenth Century Architecture , New York 1987
W. Curtis, Modern Architecture since 1900, London 1996
N. Pevsner, J. Fleming, H. Honour, A Dictionary of Architecture, London 1975
W. Benjamin, L’opera d’arte nell’epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica, Torino 1966 (1936)
N. Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Movement, London 1936
M. Tafuri, Progetto e utopia, Roma-Bari 1973
P. Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde 1974
P.R. Banham, Megastructures. Urban futures for recent past, 1976
C. Rowe, Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays 1976
M. Tafuri, La sfera e il labirinto, Torino 1980
F. Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism , 1991
M. Baxandall, Patterns of Intention, 1985
J. Ackerman, Distance Points, Milano 2001 (1991)

Reference Bibliography

- Quatremère de Quincy, Dizionario storico di architettura, a cura di V. Farinati, G. Teyssot, Venezia 1985 [ad vocem: carattere, stile, tipo]. - A. Vidler, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux 1736-1806, Milano 1994. - J. S. Ackerman, La villa. Forma e ideologia, Torino 2013. - John Soane architetto, a cura di M. Richardson, M. Stevens, H. Burns, Milano 2000 - M. Scimemi, Profilo biografico, in Adolf Loos 1870-1933. Architettura utilità e decoro, a cura di R. Bösel, V. Zanchettin, Roma 2006, pp. 131-143. - M. De Michelis, Bauhaus-Bauhaus 1919-1933, in Bauhaus-Bauhaus 1919-1933 da Klee a Kandinsky da Gropius a Mies van der Rohe, a c.d. M. De Michelis, A. Kohlmeyer, Milano 1996, pp. 13-35. - A. Avon, La casa all’italiana, in Storia dell’architettura italiana. Il primo Novecento, a cura di G. Ciucci, G. Muratore, Milano 2004, pp. 162-179. - M. Dalai Emiliani, Musei della Ricostruzione in Italia, tra disfatta e rivincita della storia, in Carlo Scarpa a Castelvecchio, a cura di L. Magagnato, Milano 1982, pp. 149-170.

Type of delivery of the course

The course is conceived as a series of lessons in chronological sequence, preferably by unstreamed classes when allowed by competent authorities. Each week, objects, ideas, and events will move in and out of the European and North American frame, with a strong emphasis on relational thinking and contextualization and encouraging student participation and dialogue. Classes may happen in joined courses (canal A and B) and an optional seminar is organized to experience selected topic and architectural works discussed during the semester. Students enrolled have at their disposal a dedicated web site providing all the materials necessary to prepare the final exam. Attendance is recommended as well as active participation.

Attendance

Students must attend at the least the 75% of lessons to be admitted to the final exam

Type of evaluation

The final exam is individual and oral on the Bibliography (general and specific) and it is required the reading of two essays picked from the list provided below (Essays). Every student is asked to elaborate sketches and freehand diagrams - best in plan - inspired by the architectures discussed during the course. All the drawings must be collected in an individual sketchbook or “Taccuino”, which testifies to the attendance of the student and will be evaluated at the end of the course. In the case of an extension of the health emergency from COVID-19, all the provisions that regulate the methods of carrying out the teaching activities and student assessment will be implemented.