B020824 - HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
ITALY AND WESTERN CULTURE FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY,
AND BEYOND

Prof. Mario Bevilacqua
Prof. Riccardo Pacciani


The course outlines the development of architectural languages and urban forms in Italy from Roman times to the 19th century, focusing on major monuments and centres, outstanding architects, and issues of cross-relations in Western European culture.
A multidisciplinary approach emphasizes different interpretations of architecture, and their development over the centuries from the birth of the discipline to our days.
Special attention is dedicated to the role of Italian historical models in 19th and 20th century design and urban planning.
The course includes lectures, guided readings, on-site visits in Florence and other Italian centres.

Roman architecture
Pantheon
Baths of Diocletian
Villa Adriana
The Roman Empire: architecture, urbanism, technology

Late antiquity and the Middle Ages
Rome and old St Peters
Florence and Arnolfo di Cambio (Palazzo Vecchio; S. Maria del Fiore; city walls; Orsanmichele)
Italian Gothic architecture in the European context

The Italian Renaissance
Florence from Brunelleschi to Alberti (S. Maria del Fiore; S. Maria Novella; Rucellai Palace)
The Ideal City: Pienza, Ferrara, Urbino
Rome from Bramante to Michelangelo: new St Peter’s
Florence under the Medici: Michelangelo, Vasari, Ammannati, Buontalenti (Sagrestia Nuova and Laurentian Library, Uffizi, Pitti, Cappella dei Principi)
Italian Counter-reformation architecture (the Gesù in Rome)
Palladio and Palladianism: Italy-Europe-America

Masters of the Roman Baroque
Bernini
Borromini
Pietro da Cortona

Age of industrialism and colonialism
Athens vs Rome: neoclassicism and historicism in European architecture (from Piranesi to Schinkel)
European urban models in the age of industrialism
Building America’s architectural tradition: from Palladio to Jefferson, and Modernism

Seminar
Western Architecture: methodological approaches
Architecture and technology: from Brunelleschi’s Dome to Foster’s Reichstag
Urban dreams, architecture and sustainability: Pienza-Dubai, the aesthetics of the perfect city
Urban functions: Rome of Sixtus V, Napoleon III’s Paris and baron Haussmann
A House of Glass: light and architecture from early-Christian to Baroque architecture.
A House of Glass: The Sainte Chapelle, Paxton’s Crystal Palace, Philip Johnson’s Glass House

On-site lessons
Florence:
From Roman Florentia to the medieval metropolis
Brunelleschi and S. Maria del Fiore
Leon Battista Alberti, the Rucellai family, and Renaissance Florence
Michelangelo in Florence
Grand ducal magnificence: Vasari and beyond
Contemporary Florence: Michelucci and his influence
Rome:
Walking tours through Renaissance, Baroque and contemporary Rome





Suggested Readings
John Summerson, The Classical Language of Architecture, London 1980
Marvin Trachtenberg, Isabelle Hyman, Architecture from Pre-History to Post-Modernism. The Western Tradition, New York 1986
David Watkin, A History of Western Architecture, New York 2005
Frank Ching, Mark Jarzombek, Vikramaditya Prakash, A Global History of Architecture, New York 2011

Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, London 1949
H. Millon, V. Magnago Lampugnani, The Renaissance: From Brunelleschi to Michelangelo, Milano 1994
Rudolf Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750, eds. J. Connors, J. Montagu, New Haven 1999
Barry Bergdoll, European Architecture 1750-1890, Oxford 2000

Ugo Procacci, History of the Italians, Harmondsworth 1971
Andrew Wilton (ed), Grand Tour. The Lure of Italy in the Eighteenth Century, London 1996

www.architectura.cesr.univ-tours.fr: Italian and Western architectural treateses and books published 16th-18th centuries
www.kubikat.org: collective catalogue of the leading German scholarly research institutes in art and architectural history
www.jstor.org: free access to hundreds of scientific art and architectural history journals (access through unifi.it only)
oyc.yale.edu/history-art/hsar-252: Ancient Roman architecture, a series of lectures by prof. Diana Kleiner

Further readings and sites will be indicated during lectures