36 landscapes and architectural expression. of the first semester, in consultation with the DOCTORAL PROGRAM The second and third phase involve training supervisor. During the following five semesters, experience abroad, with participation in seminars the thesis is developed as other studies are carried IN ARCHITECTURAL COMPOSITION and research with which the doctoral candidate out, taking on a progressively more important role. is establishing relationships. The thesis is understood as research and must be characterised by cultural and scientific originality. Doctoral thesis It may or may not have a design aspect. The | 2011 PhD Yearbook Maximum importance is given to the doctoral doctoral candidate is required to report regularly thesis. It constitutes the core and the conclusion on the progress of the thesis and to attend open of the doctoral candidate’s study and is attributed sessions, held in the presence of the teaching staff 37 The doctoral program is understood as advanced learning, rooted in a very large number of credits. The theme and and the other doctoral candidates, at which the Chair: the history of the architect’s craft, of the profession and of the wealth the formulation must be defined before the end thesis is discussed. Prof. Daniele Vitale of architectural techniques. The objective is to train architects who are capable professionals from a general point of view, with solid historical/humanistic training and a strong theoretical base, but who Doctoral PROGRAM Board also have extensive knowledge of town planning and construction techniques and who are able to carry out architectural design. The Marco Biraghi Marco Dezzi Bardeschi Attilio Pracchi training consists of the imparting of organised contents, the sharing Salvatore Bisogni Carolina Di Biase Marco Prusicki of research, and participation in cultural debate. As is the case in the other arts, composition is understood as an ensemble of conceptual Pellegrino Bonaretti Mario Fosso Gianpaolo Semino and technical fundamentals that precede the design project and to Enrico Bordogna Alberto Franchi Angelo Torricelli which it refers. The faculty is composed of professors in the field of Giovanni Cislaghi Jacques Gubler Daniele Vitale ARCHITECTURAL COMPOSITION architectural composition, history of architecture, restoration and construction. Adalberto Del Bo Vincenzo Petrini Stanislaus von Moos Contents The course is based on a meeting between members of the teaching staff and external professionals from among those ADVisory Board at the forefront of international debate. This dialectic serves as a reference and as a source for research. The course is divided Klaus Theo Brenner Maria Patrizia Grieco into integrated phases. (Architectural School of Postdam, Berlin) (Italtel) The first phase consists of a redefinition of positions and Jean-Louis Cohen (Université de Paris) Rafael Moneo responsibilities with respect to transformation of the territory (Graduate School of Design, Harvard University) and to evolution in the profession, in which the doctoral candidate Elio Franzini (Università Statale di Milano) Carlo Olmo is required to participate through research and contributions. (I Facoltà di Architettura, Politecnico di Torino) It consists, in addition to participation in optional Polytechnic courses and in addition to a two-semester seminar in architectural design, Paolo Gavazzi (Banco di Desio e della Brianza) Boris Podrecca (Fakultät für Architektur, Stuttgart) of two specific courses given by several lecturers during Franz Graf (Accademia di Architettura di Bruno Reichlin two semesters («Architectural History and Design» and «Criticism Mendrisio, Università della Svizzera italiana) (Università della Svizzera Italiana, Mendrisio) and architectural theories»). The second phase consists of a more specific, in-depth undertaking and deals with the problems of composition in relationship to architectural design, on one hand through two courses («Figures SCHOLARSHIP SPONSORS of architecture and forms of construction» and «Conservation and design»), and on the other hand by means of a second architectural EuroMilano S.p.A. - via Eritrea, 48/8 - 20157 Milano design seminar. These courses will also involve several lecturers and New agreements and protocols are going to be made with other enterprises are divided into two semesters. The third phase consists of increased involvement of the doctoral candidates in more specific research and themes, ranging from the theoretical debate in Europe and in Italy to the question of the old/ new relationship, to the question of settlement- and founded-city structures, to research into the cultural and figurative identities of 38 Utopia AND ARCHITECTURE: STILL POSSIBLE BEDFELLOWS? Planning and formal outcomes PhD Yearbook | 2011 PhD Yearbook Cecilia Bischeri 39 Utopia and architecture: still is Utopia’s primary characteristic, more obvious, the search for possible bedfellows? The title is the one that distinguishes it a solution – to what had been clear enough – and controversial from any truly unrealizable idea thought an unchallengeable enough: for this juxtaposition – from ideas, that is, that give destiny – provides an of Utopia and architecture has reality the slip – and from barren opportunity for society to take a long history involving not only ideologies. stock of itself. Awareness of the various meanings given to this critical condition, diagnosed “Utopia” but also differences in The “transformative” role I from various points of view, is understanding the relationship propose in this study to attribute now widespread. of each with architecture. to architecture is structural in intent. It acts within that “The idea of an all-powerful This rich variety of relationships very framework of “practical market without rules, in which ARCHITECTURAL COMPOSITION is doubtless due to the fact Utopian” sentiment which, as politics has not a word to say, 1. Kostantin Mel’nikov, Club Rusakiov, 2. Fruto Vivas, the “Los Erasos” 3. Alexandre Delijaicov, Andre Takiya, that architecture has its own Ernst Bloch points out, tends to is folly... The era of laissez-faire Moscow, 1927, external view barrio [shanty town], Caracas, Wanderley Ariza, Rogerio David Rizk, 1991, studio sketch Combined Education Centre, São inherent Utopian susceptibilities, be the driving force in any act is finished”. So says not Fidel Paulo, Brazil, 2003: the disc of the which make it “predisposed” of transformation that properly Castro but President Nicolas nursery school (left) and the main to such concepts. This Utopian stems from experiments in which Sarkozy, who wooed and won classroom building vocation, if we briefly try to a committed designer meets the voters by promising yet abstract from the manifold an enlightened patron (often less government and more quotation from Bloch suggests periphery, wherever and as symptomatic of a renewed tendencies that proliferate in an unusually progressive city market.[...] The idea that the that, like philosophical however these imbalances critical awareness, and of architectural culture, is to be council), and the two engage present financial catastrophe knowledge, architectural appear) and of citizen behaviour demands that are now being seen in the power which the in an all-encompassing plan to is the beginning of the end of experimentation – founded in a (a more evolved and appropriate urgently pressed. practice of architecture wields transform both city and society. capitalism is widespread, and method structurally aware both organisation of the functional over any given initial conditions Furthermore, as the term has so largely accepted on all sides, of what is real and of what is systems for living in society). – the power to transform their many meanings, the relationship whether with glee or regret”. being designed – should never What it seeks to establish, looks, if nothing else. We need, between architecture and Utopia (MOISES NAI M , But capitalism isn’t settle for mere contemplation of accordingly, is the ability of this therefore, to define briefly what needs to be set in a historical finished, in “L’Espresso” LIV, n° the present but, on the contrary, theme – “Utopia” – to point the we mean by “Utopia”. context if only to forestall any 41, 16 October 2008) must strive to become a tool for culture of architectural design temptation to “make all things planning the future. and teaching in the direction The term “Utopian” has ossified: new” – and to bring Rogers’ Clearly, then, architecture must of a “broad highway in which nowadays it generally means watchword, “the Utopia of act, and act from within a The basic argument of this expertise and consciousness can just “imaginary”. Philosophically, reality”, up to date in our “Utopia” (i.e. a framework for study, then, is the need for be organized” (Guido Canella). though, behind its multiplicity present-day circumstances. action) that allows for a way an architecture that can of interpretations it expresses out of the present stagnation . rediscover a Utopian viewpoint, For further evidence of returning something that must have the Moreover, the desire to give Indeed, “knowledge conceived meaning realistic project interest in the issues raised potential to become quite real, the subject another airing is as conscious theory-with- design that undertakes to by the present transition, one and in the near future too. unavoidably bound up with the practice refers to Becoming play its transformative part might point to the convention According to Karl Mannheim in