The course aims to deepen the problems related to the history of architecture and the city - and their theories - from the second post-war to the first decade of the 21st century. The course intends to focus on the most significant authors, works and urban contexts of Western (European and American) and Eastern (Asian) cultures, reaching the narrowest contemporary. During the lessons will be presented the methodologies of reading the architectural work and the urban design, highlighting the plurality of interpretations and the mutation of the relationships and perspectives set up in the contemporary period between the project and history, architecture and transformation of the city. The aim is to start the student in critical reading of the architectures and texts, in relation to the main interpretive schools and the framing of the main developments in the history of architecture.

The course is divided into ex cathedra lessons, exercises, visits, possible tests in the itinerary. In terms of competences, the expected results of the course consist first of all in learning and knowledge of the history of contemporary architecture, particularly in its latest developments, from the Second World War to the present, including the most significant theories connected to it. In terms of capacity, instead, the course intends to activate the student with a critical awareness capable of producing a stand-alone judgment of authors, works, urban contexts, architecture theories and historical methodologies.

According to the Dublin Descriptors (DdD), passing the exam certifies the acquisition of the following results:

DdD 1 knowledge and understanding

- knowledge and understanding of the most relevant aspects of the cultural debate and of contemporary architectural production.

DdD 2 ability to apply knowledge and understanding

- ability of interpretation and historical-critical reading of the architectural project and the cultural phenomena of contemporaneity.

DdD 3 (autonomy of judgment), 4 (communication skills) and 5 (learning ability)

- ability to communicate the issues of contemporary architecture in a clear and autonomous way of judgment (DdD 3 and 4).

Architecture and space

The course addresses its attention to the evolution of the notion of space in architecture and urbanism, from the end of the 19th century till the 1970s.

The spatial component of architecture, its theoretical conception and its practical realisation, constituted during the 20th century one of the main issues of modernity in architecture. The various »forms« of space produced by architects, artists and urbanists reflected the diferrent answers to historical, sociological and aesthetical questions that aroused in different geopolitical contexts in the decades following the modernist revolution.

During the semester the development of the spatiality of form will be analyzed through a series of lectures, seminars, readings and field trips. From Camillo Sitte to Le Corbusier, from Russian Constructivism to Dutch Neoplasticism, from Mies van der Rohe to Louis Kahn, from Frank Lloyd Wright to Bruno Zevi, from Luigi Moretti to Carlo Scarpa, from the spatial experiments of the Team X to those of the 1960's utopias, from the American Minimal and Land Art to the Yugoslavian Monumental Architecture, the course will address its inquiry to the mutual influences between the aesthetic of art, architecture, sociology, technology and history.

Oral exam focused on the knowledge of the main concepts discussed through the semester, through the description of the exemplary projects.

A specific (individual or group) work will be required – regarding the number of students participating in the course – dedicated to the graphic and theoretical analysis of the notion of space.

Non-attending students:

Although lessons and exercises represent a significant part of the course, the exam modality for non-attending students will be similar to the one described for attending students. The non-attending students should get in contact via email with the professor at the beginning of the semester. For the final exam, Zevi and specific chapters by Curtis and Cohen (to be discussed by email), should be the base of the discussion during the oral exam.