ARCH5111E The Great Beauty: The design of an aesthetic clinic and a fashion house HQ in the former slaughterhouse complex in Rome (Design Studio in collaboration with the Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology)
2016‐17 Term I
Instructor: STEFANO MILANI contact info: [email protected]
Student Assistant:
Still image from the movie The Great Beauty (2013)
DESCRIPTION This studio will be executed in parallel with the Chair of Public Building/Architectural Composition of Delft University of Technology (TUD) led by Michiel Riedijk. There will be the opportunity for students from the different universities to exchange, collaborate and share their insights on the project through workshop and review. The project is part of the activities activated by the Bilateral Teaching Exchange 2016‐2017 between CUHK and TUD aiming to develop a cultural bridge between East and West where students exchange information and ideas and during a series of shared workshop‐meetings. Students will experience the impact of working in a different physical and cultural context and learn from each other’s methodologies.
Students signed up for the studio must travel to Rome for the workshop/ review. School of architecture will provide minimal subsidies for this travel at approximately 3,000 HKD per student. Students will be responsible for the remaining costs. Introduction Despite the stereotypical definition of the ‘Eternal City’ ‐ conventionally attributed to Emperor Adrian and traced back to his Memories ‐ Rome has undergone many radical transformations throughout the centuries that left numerous evidences of unresolved conflicts in the resulting urban form which became one of the most peculiar characters of the city.
The Studio The Great Beauty will investigate the theme of the residual in urban transformation of Rome. In particular the studio focuses on the Testaccio area whose characterising Monte Testaccio [Testaccio hill], also knows as Monte dei cocci [Pottery hill] that in the imperial roman was used as a landfill and, in particular, as a pottery dump, unexpectedly resulting into an artificial landscape absorbed into the successive urban developments. In the proximity of the Monte dei cocci is the former municipal slaughterhouse designed by Gioacchino Ersoch at the end of XIX century and abandoned at the beginning of the ‘70ies. Since then this huge complex underwent a slow process of requalification but still leaving a large portion un‐programmed and abandoned, that will be the specific focus of the design studio.
The Studio Assignment: The design of an aesthetic clinic and a fashion house in the former slaughterhouse complex in Rome
Today, the slaughterhouse is cursed and quarantined like a boat carrying cholera. In fact, the victims of this curse are not butchers or animals, but the good people themselves, who, through this, are only able to bear their own ugliness... The curse (which terrifies only those who utter it) leads them to vegetate as far as possible from the slaughter‐houses. They exile themselves, by way of antidote, in an amorphous world, where there is no longer anything terrible. Georges Bataille (1997, 22).
Damien Hirst, This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home (1996). Movable structures containing a sliced pig in formaldehyde.
The envisioned program for the transformation of the former slaughterhouse complex represents the enzyme for the transformation of the large area of the complex still vacant. More specifically, the design program for an aesthetic clinic and a fashion house aim to introduce an alternative transformation challenging the current strategy devised by the municipality centred on the notion of “preservation” of the large spaces of the slaughterhouse while leaving their programmatic use unspecific. In syntheses, the project aims to research a new productive dimension, and a public relevance of the complex, that goes beyond its transformation into a ‘museum’.
Birdseye view of Monte testaccio and of the slaughterhouse complex (meat packing district) Rome, 1970. The area at the centre‐left bottom the design area.
Gioacchino Ersoch, Design for a slaughterhouse and market, site plan, 1891
Gioacchino Ersoch, Design for a slaughterhouse and market, plan, 1891. Framed in red the design area.
Deliverables The documentation for the exam will consist of 7 A2 panels vertically oriented. 1 frontispiece/main characterising image communication the project idea and/or the design approach 2 site analysis; program analysis 3 description design idea; clarification of the relationship between design idea and findings analytical research 4 project documentation 1 (main plans, façades, cross‐sections, 5 project documentation 2 (main interior and exterior views) 6 main architectural details 7 main representation of the design intervention
OBJECTIVES The studio aims: ‐ To develop an innovative transformation of the former slaughterhouse complex in Rome ‐ To formulate a new urban strategies for the requalification of the Testaccio area, in Rome ‐ To elaborate and apply a comprehensive urban research and innovative design methodologies
LEARNING OUTCOME ‐ Students will be formulate a highly individualised design approach ‐ Students will be able to apply innovative design methodologies and creative techniques ‐ Students will be able to select and apply comprehensive constructive techniques ‐ Students will be able to express and represent their architectural ideas
ASSESSMENT SCHEME • 70% for final project • 20% for mid‐term (process) • 10% for participation, etc.
COURSE FORMAT Lectures; pin‐up presentations; desk‐crits; bi‐weekly assignments; field trip in Rome
Monday’s program 13.30 – 14:00 Lecture/Session introduction 14:00 – 15:30 Student Presentation (first part) followed by collective discussion and feedback 15:30 – 15:45 Break 15:45 – 17:15 Student Presentation (first part) followed by collective discussion and feedback 17:15 – 18:15 Assignment for the next session and conclusion
Thursday’s program 13:30 – 18:15 Studio Desk‐crits, assignment for the next session
FIELD TRIP A field trip in Rome is planned in the fourth week (26‐09 – 30‐09). The trip is organized in collaboration with the Chair of Public Building ‐ Architectural Composition, Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology, led by Professor Michiel Riedijk.
NOTE: students interested in the studio field trip shall be responsible obtaining travelling visa if necessary
Draft Program field trip in Rome (I) 26‐09 ‐ 30‐09 (Advised departure from HK 24 – 09)
Monday 26‐09 11:00 – 18:00 pm Welcome and site visit Meeting point: MACRO Testaccio, (address Piazza Orazio Giustiniani 4, 00153 Roma)
Tuesday 27‐09 9:30 – 13:30 Research session on site Meeting point: MACRO Testaccio, (address Piazza Orazio Giustiniani 4, 00153 Roma) 15:00 – 18:00 Walk along the Tiber River (followed by visit Rome’s hot spot)
Wednesday 28‐09 9:30 – 13:30 Research session on site Meeting point: MACRO Testaccio, (address Piazza Orazio Giustiniani 4, 00153 Roma) 15:00 – 19:30 Visit Musei Capitolini (address Piazza del Campidoglio 1, 00186 Roma)
Thursday 29‐09 9:30 – 13:30 Research session on site Meeting point: MACRO Testaccio, Piazza Orazio Giustiniani 4, 00153 Roma 15:00 – 18:00 Visit Maxxi Museum and Lecture (address: Via Guido Reni 4a, 00196 Rome)
Friday 30‐09 9:30 – 15:00 Presentation field work (joint session with TUD students) Meeting point: MACRO Testaccio, (address Piazza Orazio Giustiniani 4, 00153 Roma) 16:00 – 18:00 Symposium at KNIR (Royal Netherlands Institute Rome) (address: Via Omero 10‐12, 00197 Rome)
REQUIRED READINGS Giulio Carlo Argan, and Christian Norberg‐Schulz, Roma Interrotta (Rome, Officina Edizioni, 1979). Rem Koolhaas, ‘Junk Space (2001)’, in October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002), 175‐190 Yve‐Alain Bois, ‘Abattoir’, in Yve‐Alain Bois and Rosalund Krauss, Formless (New York: Zone Books, 1997), 43‐51. Georges Batailles, ‘Slaughterhouses’, in October, Vol. 36, Georges Bataille: Writings on Laughter, Sacrifice, Nietzsche, Un‐knowing (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1986), 10‐13.
RECOMMENDED READINGS Maier Jessica, Rome Measured and Imagined. Early modern maps of the eternal city, (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2015) Holdaway Dom & Trentin Filippo eds., Rome, Postmodern Narratives of a Cityscape, (London, Pickering & Chatto Publisher, 2013) Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1989) (1930). Caterine T. Ingraham, Architecture, Animal, Human: The Asymmetrical Condition (London: Routledge, 2006) Angelika Taschen ed., Aesthetic Surgery (Cologne: Taschen GmbH, 2005)
RECOMMENDED MOVIES The Great Beauty (2013), by Paolo Sorrentino The Belly of an Architect (1987), by Peter Greenaway
REFERENCE PROJECTS Rem Koolhaas, Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture (final project), 1972, London, United Kingdom, 1972 OMA. Rem Koolhaas, Parc La Villette (competition entry), Paris, France, 1982 OMA. Rem Koolhaas, Prada Foundation, Milan, Italy, 2008‐ongoing Dogma, A Field of Walls (project), Rome, Italy, 2012 Franco Purini, Parco Centrale [Central Park], Rome, Italy, 1979
IMPORTANT NOTE TO STUDENTS ATTENDANCE: Class attendance is required in all courses. For an excused absence, the instructor must be notified and presented with documentation of illness or personal matter. Please note: Three (3) or more unexcused absences may result in a failing grade for the course.
ACADEMIC HONESTY: Attention is drawn to University policy and regulations on honesty in academic work, and to the disciplinary guidelines and procedures applicable to breaches of such policy and regulations. Details may be found at: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/. With each assignment, students may be required to submit a statement that they are aware of these policies, regulations, guidelines and procedures.
STUDENT WORK: Submission of studio documentation in correct and complete format is required of each student. Without submission of the documentation folder no grade will be submitted for the course. This may result in a failing grade for the course and may delay graduation.
SCHEDULE The course will be developed through by weekly appointments, consisting of thematic lectures discussion finalized to the development of the assignment, collective presentations (Mondays) and studio desk‐crits (Thursdays). The studio sessions will be structured as follow:
05‐09 Course and assignment introduction. Theoretical and methodological approach.
08‐09 Program and the site. Organisation of the graphic documentation. First assignment: site analysis
12‐09 Part 1 – Site and program analysis
15‐09 Part 1 – Site and program analysis
19‐09 Part 1 – Site and program analysis
22‐09 Part 1 – Site and brief analysis. Organization field work
26‐09 ‐ 30‐09 – Site visit in Rome
03‐10 Part 2 – Conclusion analytical phase and design proposal
06‐10 Part 2 – Implementation design proposal
10‐10 NO CLASS
13‐10 Part 2 – Design development
17‐10 Part 2 – Design development
20‐10 Part 2 – Design development
24‐10 Part 2 – Design development
27‐10 Midterm Presentation Students will present phase 1 and phase 2 the case study and the draft version of the 3 drawings. (Note: Pin Up, and PPT presentation. )
31‐10 Part 3 – Design development and representation
03‐11 Part 3 – Design development and representation
07‐11 Part 3 – Design development and representation
10‐11 Part 3 – Design development and representation
14‐11 Part 3 – Design development and representation
17‐11 NO CLASS
21‐11 Part 3 – Design development and representation 24‐11 Part 4 – Exam preparation
28‐11 Part 4 – Exam preparation
01‐12 Part 4 – Final review
08‐12 Final Presentation (**)
(**) The final presentation will be attended by (at least) two external respondents.
In the midterm and in the final presentation, each student will have 10 minutes for presentation followed by c.ca 10 minutes for clarifications, questions, and feedbacks (midterm).