B020824 - HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM

English

The course outlines the development of architectural languages and urban forms in Italy from early modern times to the 19th century, focusing on major monuments and centres, outstanding architects, and issues of cross-relations in Western European culture. A basic knowledge of classical architecture and theories is required.
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 and Western 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.

Written paper; oral examination

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 early modern times to the 19th century, focusing on major monuments and centres, outstanding architects, and issues of cross-relations in Western European culture. A basic knowledge of classical architecture and theories is required.
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 and Western 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.


Antiquity and the Middle Ages
The Roman Empire: architecture, urbanism, technology
Pantheon, Baths of Diocletian, Villa Adriana, aqueducts
Christian architecture
Old St Peter's and early christian basilicas
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
New models: urban palaces, rural villas
Urbino, Poggio a Caiano
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 Church of the Gesù, 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: Haussmann's Paris and its influence
Building America’s architectural tradition: from Jefferson to Modernism

The Rise and Fall of the City of.
Las Vegas to Dubai, Celebration to Poundbury

Contexts in Western Architecture and Urbanism. Issues of method, interpretation, approach
Architecture and technology: from Brunelleschi’s Dome to Foster’s Reichstag
Learnig from Pienza: Italian Renaissance 'ideal cities' and their myth in contemporary urbanism
A House of Glass: buinding with light
Typologies and functions: museums, libraries, railway stations, shopping malls
'I am a Monument': Tour Eiffel, Guggenheim Bilbao, Burj Khalifa

On-site visits
Florence:
New functions for a Renaissance masterpiece: Brunelleschi's Innocenti in the 21th century
Rome:
Renaissance and Baroque vs 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
Barry Bergdoll, European Architecture 1750-1890, Oxford 2000
David Watkin, A History of Western Architecture, New York 2005
Frank Ching, M. Jarzombek, V. Prakash, A global history of architecture, New York 2011

Spiro Kostof, The city shaped: urban patterns and meanings through history, London 1991
Spiro Kostof, The city assembled: the elements of urban form through history, London 1992

R. Venturi, D. Scott Brown, S. Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas, Cambridge/Mass. 1972
R. Koolhaas, Delirious New York. A retroactive manifesto for Manhattan, London 1978
Yasser Elsheshtawy, Dubai: Behind an Urban Spectacle, London-New York 2010

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

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 research ilibraries 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, Yale University

Further readings and sites will be indicated during lectures