The Making of a Journal. Pedagogy and Research in Architecture
Alberto Calderoni
The Construction of the Idea
Walter Angonese
EXPERIENCES
Notes of a Professor
Emilio Faroldi
Kengo Kuma. ‘Learn by doing’ Architecture
Marco Imperadori
Empowering Architects for an Uncertain Future
Salvator-John A. Liotta
Ekphrasis and Creativity in Architecture
Jörg H. Gleiter
‘Classroom without Walls’
Georg Vrachliotis
The Urban Experience at Porto School of Architecture
Teresa Calix
The Magical Sequence
Ivan Cabrera i Fausto
Teaching Architectural Design in Transition Time
Andrea Campioli
PARADIGMS
About a Lecture: an Architectural Tale
Francesca Belloni
Formamentis. What orders complexity
Paola Magli
Universities
Marco
FORMAMENTIS
FOR A DIDACTICS OF ARCHITECTURE
Starting from the meaning of the Latin expression forma mentis (form of the mind) in its identity as a mental structure, specifically regarding the way of considering and understanding reality filtered by the individual, by nature and education, and applying it to the world of architecture and its teaching, an exercise is connected to the main themes that have always involved the profession of the architect.
The evident fragmentation and specialisation of knowledge and skills, the progressive modification of tools and working methods, the digitalisation of structures and networks, and the development of immaterial communication, represent phenomena that, concurrently, impact the economic, social, and cultural structures of production, in parallel with the physical and spatial transformation of the environment for which the architect is a guarantor.
Its training, positioned between the social and technical spheres, requires a radical reflection on the foundations of educational paths and tools, in light of the innovations in project production structures in conceptual and instrumental terms, confirming the evident need for relationship and coherence between thought and action that characterises the world of architecture.
The action stimulated by this work fits into a framework of increased uncertainties aimed at better recording times, phases, disciplinary sequencing, their relationships and integrations, specific contributions: ingredients that make the scenario of the transmission of architectural codes and related crafts even more complex and delicate. Likewise, stimulating comparisons between different cultural positions for a didactics of architecture and providing means and strategies of adherence to contemporary demands, implies an unavoidable activity (part of the Italian scenario), bearer of values inherent in the relationship of territorial transformations with the history and identity of places, connected to a constant reference to the international horizon, today a real node of comparison for the reformulation of professions.
The humus of architecture, in fact, resides within the places of teaching and learning that often identify with the history and culture of the school itself. The transmission of the knowledge of a craft within structures of a polytechnic matrix incorporates a cultural baggage of skills that moves its reasons from the cross-utilisation of knowledge, while respecting disciplinary autonomies.
The teacher is the custodian of knowledge, bearer of the task of disseminating its objective values: consequently, the learning that derives from it translates into a study problem of objective, physical, material, historical, and social phenomena. In this context, the path of internationalisation represents the strategic theme of a university that intends to meet the deepest needs of a multicultural, multiethnic, multireligious society. A transnational educational offer, based on principles of continuity and innovation: as far as we are concerned, the history of the Politecnico di Milano in the construction sector and the heritage of the Milanese and Italian architecture school represent the references and
comparisons on which to set up a debate aimed at enhancing disciplinary, cultural, and social differences, strengthening networks and synergies at a local and global level.
The dynamics of changing professional structures and the labor market, also extending reference boundaries beyond the national context, must base their assumptions on a high critical capacity and understanding of phenomena, enhancing the ethical and responsibility components, now more than ever necessary to face the challenge of the complexity of social, technological, and environmental changes.
In this context, the school’s ability to transmit the culture of the project, understood as the ability to operate through synthesis actions that enhance different disciplinary contributions and address complex problems through an aware creative process, takes on strong relevance in the configuration of the designed setup.
Today, dealing with cities, built heritage, landscapes, and the environment requires a multiple vision that combines the vocation of understanding problems and constraints with the openness to identifying opportunities: an idea of education in architecture that must be pursued, and that goes beyond the technicality of training, directed towards a culture of planning aimed at fostering the concept of adaptability over time.
In the face of a general horizon projected towards the search for active and dynamic balances between anthropised environments, process actors, available and preservable resources, the crisis of the construction sector should not be interpreted solely in its material limits, but should be addressed as an opportunity for innovation and activation of new perspectives. The task of education is to sensitise the future designer to acquire an integrated critical awareness that guarantees management capabilities to evaluate the facts, even subjective ones, that occur in the sphere of individual experience and project them towards future horizons, translating them into systemic and objective actions.
Architecture will have to intercept and attempt to solve the challenges of the new era that revolve around the contemporary, with regard to the use of resources and the regulation of phenomena inherent in a civilisation oriented towards multiculturalism and multiethnicity, aware that critical consciousness is attainable through the knowledge of complex systems and moves from the awareness that architectural design has the task of addressing articulated and diverse problems of scale and complexity. In this sense, the definition of criteria, rules, and procedures that provide universities the possibility to constantly adapt, without procedural viscosity, the setting of study programs to the evolution of the social demand for training and changes in the production system as well as the labor market, conforming it, likewise, to the specific research and teaching lines pursued over time by the individual training centers, is a priority.
The school, therefore, as an entity capable of performing by induction a structural role in the cultural configuration of the architect and the complementary, expressing the need to shape a type of designer prepared
to master, in synergy with the compositional criteria of this activity, the technological, constructive, procedural aspects linked to the survival of the work.
An architectural universe stimulated by that renewed sensitivity towards integration and connection between settlement areas and historical, cultural, physical, and environmental characteristics, which the architectural designer we intend to train will pursue with tenacity and poetry.
Emilio Faroldi and Maria Pilar Vettori
TEACHING ARCHITECTURE
BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE
MARIA PILAR VETTORI
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING, POLITECNICO DI MILANO
Maria Pilar Vettori is architect, PhD, and associate professor at the School of Architecture Urban Planning Construction Engineering (AUIC) at the Politecnico di Milano, specializing in technological design. She is actively involved in research and design activities, focusing on structures and infrastructures related to work, wellbeing, and sport. She has participated in and organized conferences, seminars, and workshops on these topics and has authored various studies and publications. As an architect, she engages in professional practice in architectural and technological design across multiple scales – urban, architectural, and constructive. She has designed and overseen the construction of both public and private buildings for offices, leisure, and production in Italy and abroad, receiving awards and recognition in national and international publications.
CODIFIED FORMULAS FOR TEACHING ARCHITECTURE
THE USEFULNESS OF MULTIPERSPECTIVITY
OYA ATALAY FRANCK
EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION FOR ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION, SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, DESIGN AND CIVIL ENGINEERING ZÜRCHER HOCHSCHULE FÜR ANGEWANDTE WISSENSCHAFTEN
Oya Atalay Franck is an architect, historian of architecture and urbanism, and professor of architecture. She is dean and managing director of the School of Architecture, Design and Civil Engineering at ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Winterthur, Switzerland. She is past president of EAAE/AEEA European Association for Architectural Education – network and lobbying body of the architecture, design, and urban planning schools of Europe. She has taught Architecture and Construction, Urban Design, and Architecture theory at RPI Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, at ETH Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and at ZHAW. Her research areas are a.o. design research methods with focus on research by design on all scales and design driven doctoral research in artistic fields, as well as higher education policies. She acts as an expert in various scientific bodies and funding agencies on categories of art, art history, architecture, design, urbanism, and city planning, a.o. Swiss National Foundation of Research, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia of Portugal, FWO Research Foundation Flanders of Belgium, as a regular member in peer review committees, scientific conferences, and quality assessments, and as expert reviewer in professional competitions.
NOTES OF A PROFESSOR
THE DIDACTICS OF THE PROJECT IN THE POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL
EMILIO
FAROLDI
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING, POLITECNICO DI MILANO
Emilio Faroldi, architect and PhD, is Executive Vice-Rector responsible for the development and enhancement of university spaces at the Politecnico di Milano, where he is full professor.
Formerly Deputy Rector of the Politecnico di Milano from 2017 to 2022 with responsibility for architecture, spaces and sustainability, he has been Vice Rector of the Polo Territoriale di Mantova of the Politecnico di Milano in 2023.
He carries out teaching and research activities dealing with issues related to architectural design with a focus on the relationships between conception, design, and construction of architecture. Author of numerous publications in the field of architectural and technological design, he presided over and coordinated, for over a decade, the study programmes in Sciences of Architecture and Architectural Design at the Politecnico di Milano.
Founder in 1990 of EFA studio di architettura, based in Parma, he has participated in numerous design competitions, receiving awards and mentions. He has carried out works in Italy and abroad, some of which have been published in leading magazines.
Former editor-in-chief of the scientific magazine TECHNE-Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment, he is director of the University Master in Sport Design and Management and head of the PhD course titled ‘Italian Architecture and Construction from the Post-War period to nowadays. Dialogues between Inheritance and Project’.
Professor of the International Academy of Architecture, he is member of the scientific committee of the CSAC, Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione at the Università di Parma.
EMPOWERING ARCHITECTS FOR AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
NURTURING PLURALITY IN ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION
BRUXELLES
SALVATOR-JOHN A. LIOTTA
FACULTÉ D’ARCHITECTURE LA CHAMBRE HORTA, UNIVERSITÉ LIBRE DE BRUXELLES, ÉCOLE DES PONTS PARISTECH, PARIS
Salvator-John A. Liotta is a tenured associate professor at Université Libre de Bruxelles, Faculty of Architecture La Cambre Horta and at École des Ponts et Chaussées-Paris Tech. He runs a young yet recognised architecture practice based in Paris and Favara and is a long-time correspondent of Domus magazine. Liotta’s journey took him to Japan from 2005 to 2013, where he completed his PhD and delved into architectural practice and research at the Kengo Kuma Lab, University of Tokyo. His Paris-based office is a hub of innovation, emphasising both practical design and groundbreaking research. The office has successfully executed residential, cultural, and educational projects in France, Italy, Spain, Morocco, and Japan. Liotta has received numerous international awards for his work. His projects have been prominently featured in esteemed global publications such as Domus, Abitare, AMC, and The Plan, among others. Additionally, his work has been exhibited at several venues, such as MoMA in New York, the Venice Architecture Biennale and the National Art Center in Tokyo. Liotta has published several books on Japanese architecture including Tokyo Guide of Modern and Contemporary Architecture (Lezard Noir, 2023), What is CoDividuality? Post-individual Architecture, Shared House and other stories of openness in Japan (Jovis, 2020) and Patterns and Layering: Japanese Spatiality, Nature and Architecture (Gestalten, 2012).
and employing the same analytical tools, we can proceed to envision the projects presented by Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell in Milan on that March evening solely and exclusively through their sections. In a way, Grafton Architects’ works also stage the dual nature of things – the internal and the external – and they do so through a volumetric articulation – the exteriority of what appears – that conceals and simultaneously enhances the mechanisms of what does not appear – the three-dimensional organisation of space.
Characters
Therefore, all that remains is to investigate the secret of architecture by the very means of the discipline, just as Councillor Krespel sought to find, paradoxically at least, the secret of music by dissecting violins. One of the most striking images presented during the lecture is the direct comparison between the section of Sir John Soane’s Museum, the renowned house located at 13 Lincoln’s Inn Field in London, and the section of the Marshall Building for the London School of Economics and Political Science, completed in 2022 by Grafton Architects, right opposite the city’s largest public square. ‘Neighbours in space and time,’ the first two characters share a common personality and look at light as the subject of architectural action from the same point of view:
to accommodate a wide range of uses in the Marshall Building, from offices to lecture theatres and a large sports hall, a rotating structure was developed to address the need to transfer from small spans at the upper levels to the ever increasing spans required at ground and lower-ground levels. This led to a weave of ‘tree-like’ columns and beams which direct the forces of gravity to the ground, through the increasing outward spread of tapered diagonal ‘branches’. Under these branches at the ground floor, an expansive new social space is created, the Great Hall. Within the Great Hall, the visitor moves within the forces of gravity. Light de-materialises structure, defying gravity, generating a contradictory air of lightness – a sensation not unfamiliar for visitors to the Soane.2
Other projects exhibit similar features, like in a theatre play in which the individual characters not only refer to each other, but also define their own personality through their mutual relationships and the events involving them. Like the Marshall Building, also the Town House of Kingston University in London, completed in 2019, develops around a central covered courtyard that organises the entire building from the ground floor, with the aim of defining an open, permeable space, available for use by students and visitors. This central common space, the living soul of both buildings in Penrhyn Road campus, is, however, interpreted in a completely different manner compared to the London School of Economics. This shows how the nature of the brief for the program is translated into spaces that, while reflecting the social and educational ethos of each institution, possess a distinct architectural nature. The Town House of Kingston University thus stands as a kind of alter ego of the Marshall Building; conceptually
In the works of Aristotle, it is described as ‘what being something of determined can be separated from thought.’
To separate, divide, or distinguish: to lead the plural to the singular, the collective to the individual. Form guides us to the discovery of differences and to the affirmation of identity: a unity distinct from others and continuous over time.
As such, form does not admit of more or less; it either is or is not. Let us think of form as a number: it cannot admit of more or less of its being, as, if it were increased or decreased, it would become a different number. Therefore, form is translated, in aristotelian terms, as the actual being of things: the means by which the potentiality of matter is transformed into the actuality of substance.
However, recalling the lessons of Edgar Morin, we uncover its complexity, made up of whole and parts, wherein the combination of the former (the whole) generates a result richer than the parts themselves.
The same water molecule, the same chemical composition, can be gaseous, liquid, or solid depending on the environment that hosts it: three forms of matter determined by the same structure. Surprisingly, the creation of a complex system reveals that, given the same content, it is in the moment of tangency with the container that the mental structure is formed. Thus, the ‘Mentis’ is revealed.
The concept of content/container originates from Freud’s notion of projection, the nervous one that travels from the epidermis to the brain. Freud’s view leads us to understand how, when faced with the same stimuli, each individual processes and assimilates them in different ways: discarding the unacceptable, emphasizing the desirable, and neverthless affirming the uniqueness of one’s identity. This is the uniqueness of ‘FormaMentis’.
Let us immerse ourselves in passion and imagine the concrete physicality of the human body as an architecture, a sequence of spaces: each occupied, inhabited by a muscle, an organ, a bone… Yet, let us transcend these primary elements and focus on what is interstitial, on what remains, on the void, on what is defined as the negative: in a plan filled with black, it is generally identified as structure; it is FormaMentis.
Within the thickness of these spaces, we carve out drawers and shelves, hollows and compartments, where life finds its place: we speak of life in terms of memory and knowledge, emotions and values: culture. And just as every house is different, even simply because architecture (to be defined
as such) is inevitably contextual, FormaMentis is unique, not so much for its contents, but for the way they are arranged and organised.
Piero Angela, when speaking of childhood, compares a child’s brain to a chessboard, and the first years of life to a chess game. At the beginning, any move is possible; then, gradually, the combinations diminish, and the game begins to take a certain shape.
This parallelism although in a simple manner, effectively describes the construction of the mind, the creation of a system of thought that we define as FormaMentis.
With the exception of genetic inheritance, the zygote is the only moment in life when all living beings are equal, as they are devoid of experiences and ideas. At that moment, it does not matter whether one is the child of an intellectual or an illiterate person: only chromosomes are passed down from parents, only the biological substrate. Soon after, in the fetus, the intellectual vacuum and the complete absence of mental constructions are gradually stimulated by the materials provided by the external environment: vibrations, sounds, nutrients. Until that moment, culture does not enter into chromosomes: no child, at birth, retains any trace of the books read by their father.
Let us now consider the driving force behind it all, the one that compels distinguished representatives from around the world to engage in discussions about education, the one that leads to this publication, the effort to fix words on paper.
What emerges is the fundamental and incisive aspect of responsibility that education plays in the development of the individual and their FormaMentis.
With determination, each contribution in this collection gives voice to the importance of transcending information and practical goals, elevating itself to formation, to the transmission of values.
Information responds to a fleeting volcanic curiosity, it is tied to the immediacy of time; formation is the friend of a cyclical vision of time, of a dormant curiosity that must be stimulated, cultivated, and fed. Theories, methods, and experiences: those who act in these terms are the magister. Every single word they say moves a piece on the chessboard, awakens receptors, and rearranges teachings within the interstitial fabric. However, it is increasingly difficult to convey values that transcend the mutable and volatile character of society and the time in which we live. Crises lead to disorientation, and the role of the magister is to provide models for analysis and thought, not temporary solutions: not to replace, but to experience the testing ground for the theories and methods transmitted. Thus, the child evolves into a thinking and unique adult. Each individual is born suspended between the past and the future: they carry within themselves the entire history of life and the cosmos, and at the same time, they are projected at an increasing speed towards a new world, for which they must develop the necessary adaptations. Thus, we arrive at the definition of a paradigm, a model of complex but intelligible declination, as it is organised and ordered by FormaMentis.
