By investigating issues related to the close relationship between Architecture and Urban Design, the Thematic Research Seminar proposes topics for reflection in direct connection with the cultural contents of the Master Course.

The seminar has the task of stimulating students to define their own and autonomous research topic, helping them to instruct and methodologically structure a themed work path that will become the reference paradigm for the elaboration of their Master Thesis.

The student:

- acquires knowledge and comprehension skills that allow him to become aware of the experimental research work and to elaborate complex and interdisciplinary work paths;

- manages to develop those learning skills that allow them to continue studying mostly in a self-directed or autonomous way

- will be able to communicate their conclusions, as well as the knowledge and rationale underlying them, in a clear and unambiguous way

The Twenty-first Century Grand Tour – learning from the relationships between architecture, city, landscape

This Research Thematic Seminar intends to stimulate participants to undertake architectural journeys to refine their understanding of what could be considered ‘virtuous’ in the architectural realm today. This proposal metaphorically seeks to revive, in a contemporary key, the meaning of the eighteenth century Grand Tour. As a matter of fact, according to that tradition, any formation or training wouldn’t be considered complete without a previous journey through Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, up to Selinunte and Segesta, the way towards Greece.

Participants will be asked to investigate some contexts in which the relationship between formal, linguistic and typological choices of architecture have given a particular substance to the urban and landscape identity of some European cities. In those cases, the relationship itself becomes a central point of both the construction of the city and the disciplinary and theoretical elaboration.    

The Seminar follows a twofold objective:

1. Restart the theoretical debate on design, and its foundations, within schools of architecture, according to a tradition of teaching and intellectual engagement that has historically characterized the Italian school of architecture, where design, reflection on design, cities and landscape are never separated.

2. Giving the students the methodological and critical tools to consciously and independently face a research path. And therefore, giving the students the ability to elaborate their own point of view on the architectural project.

We believe that both objectives can be achieved experimentally by setting up round table research groups, each with a different theme, considered crucial in the reflection of architecture and landscape design. These round tables will be chaired by a reference teacher and assisted by tutors and PhD students. Students will actively participate, coordinating themselves in a research group and identifying from time to time the most appropriate tools and methods to set up the chosen topic, organize their time and the people to be interviewed or invited to class, the bibliographies to consult and the base materials to use, according to a collective idea of the research.

The Seminar is articulated into three main streams:

A_ The Twenty-first Century Grand Tour – learning from the relationships between architecture, city, landscape.

The participants to the main research table are supposed to investigate the chosen context both in order to increase their awareness of the relationship between architecture, city structure and landscape, and to arrange a knowledge framework in which to develop an upcoming thesis project. According to the number of students the proposal regards 7 European cities: a1_Milan; a2_Berlin; a3_Athens; a4_Prague; a5_Skopje; a6_Paris; a7_Barcelona

B_ Landscape approach to the project and site-specific architecture.

The participants to this research table will be engaged in a landscape investigation focused on an upcoming thesis project. Note that only the complete documentation, analysis and intervention strategy phase will be required for the effects of the seminar examination.

C_ From theory to praxis.

This research table is a sort of an alternative table to the relationship between architecture and context investigated in the other tables. It is designed for those students who intend to start an experimental thesis path that moves from theoretical questions and attempts to translate them into compositional processes.

The Seminar structure is based on transversal communications between all working round tables. Every working round table takes place simultaneously to the others. These communications will be held by professors, architects, artists, intellectuals whose thoughts and critical visions about the working round table’s main subject are illuminating and closely related to the research. The discussions will be organized in turn by the different research groups.

A final seminar day will close the course. In addition, each working round table must present a “book” containing the contributions of its members. The ‘contributions’ to the book could be a written essay, a prototype, an annotated bibliography, an interview, a catalogue etc. and will be coordinated by the person in charge of the round table.

The aim of the Seminar is to aid and support architectural design thesis, architecture theory’s thesis, historical thesis, etc.

The Seminar is linked to the PhD programs on Architectural Composition of IUAV and Rome, for its reflection on the cognitive tools of making architecture and designing territories. Doctorates candidates and PhD researchers will be directly involved with the research groups.

NOTE: the specific bibliography for the cities programmed for the Grand Tour section will be communicated according to the city chosen.

All research work from every group is collected and arranged in a specific “book” that will be presented during the last seminar day.

The exam consists of the presentation and discussion of the work developed, highlighting the theoretical and methodological aspects on which it was conceived.