The workshop recorded here was entitled Contemporary architecture in the historical context, and was run as a joint programme with a research unit of the architecture faculty of Sapienza University of Rome — the unit concerned with architecture, innovation and sustainability within the department of architecture and design.
What the workshop was about
It was conceived as an introduction to the processes by which contemporary architecture can be understood inside a historical context, approached through lectures and through visits. Among its central concerns was light: the role of natural and of artificial light is treated as a fundamental element of contemporary architecture, and therefore as one of the main concepts of the programme.
The structure rested on two legs — theoretical knowledge delivered in lectures by a team of nine teachers, and the real experience of space obtained by visiting buildings. Each day ended with a meeting focused on the main topics raised, so that the visits fed back into the theory rather than standing apart from it. Participants received an official certificate issued jointly by the university and the institute.
Visits in Rome
The visit programme set contemporary works beside historical ones in the same city:
- MAXXI museum
- Auditorium
- Nuvola congress centre
- Jubilee Church
- Ara Pacis Museum
- Tiburtina station and Termini station
- Colosseum, Pantheon and the Forums
- Piazza Venezia and the Capitoline Hill
- Ponte Milvio and Ponte della Musica
- The EUR district
The list is the argument of the workshop in compressed form: a museum and a congress centre of the last decades, two railway stations, two bridges a century and two millennia apart, and the monuments around which the modern city had to arrange itself.
The names of the teaching team, the application form and the contact details that appeared on the original page are not reproduced here.