from heritage to living language · 2018. 8. 14. · arch acopo enede - niversity of oma re -...
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1arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
From Heritage to Living Language:Learning from Historical Settlements
Jacopo Benedetti, architect
University of Roma TreDepartment of Architecture
Rome, 16.06.2016
International Making Cities Liveable53rd International ConferenceCaring for our Common Home
Poster Session
2arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
Two scenes from the fresco cycle The Legend of St.Francis by Giotto Upper Church of San Francesco at Assisi (1297-1300)
(2) « [...] beatus Franciscus, proprio dorso submisso, ne caderet, sustentabat [...] »
(1) « [...] “Francisce vade, repara domum meam quae tota destruitur [...] »
3arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
In reading into our own built tradition, we can learn some invaluable lessons to help us caring for our common home, finding in a seemingly distant heritage the keys to develop
truly contemporary, truly contextual architectural languages
4arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
our common home“why are historical cities coherent, meaningful environments? ”
« [...] in the profiles and curves of the streets, in the patterns of the squares, in the rich and layered grouping of the mon-uments, in the logic and harmonious struc-ture of the urban fabric, we notice regu-larities, common features that cannot be explained as the effect of chance [...] »
G.Giovannoni, 1935
Anticoli Corrado, a small town with a population of 943 on the eastern outskirts of Rome
5arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
Sinuous street in Gubbio, Umbria - Italy from G.Giovannoni’s Vecchie città ed edilizia nuova (1935)
Street with porticoes in Aibar, Navarra - Spain from B.Rudofsky’s Architecture Without Architects (1964)
6arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
The Corso in Arezzo, Tuscany - Italy
The Corso in Città di Castello, Umbria - Italy
7arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
the language of the built environment“no true caring is possible without true understanding ”
« [...] An atomized environment … encour-ages focusing on disconnected items, vi-sion handicapped by blinders, which can-not but interfere with intelligent behavior … [whereas in] an undisturbed urban set-ting as an old Italian or Dutch town ... every building addresses us with a discourse so compellingly understandable that we can-not ignore it, and the coherence of a whole street or square prevents us from limiting our attention comfortably to one item at a time [...] »
R.Arnheim, 1977
A series of images of the same ricetto, or fortified hamlet, in Piemonte - Northern Italy
8arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
Contemporary addition to the historical urban fabricFoligno, Umbria - Italy
Contemporary addition to the historical urban fabricVenice - Italy
(1) Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
(2) Furiously sleep ideas green colorless.
N.Chomsky, 1957
9arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
« [...] The reader will probably not find that the curve in fig. 3 is entirely “right”. The curve in fig. 4 is “better” [...] »
« [...] [perception] involves acceptance or rejection of one thing by another or by a context of others ... if a visual configuration is not entirely balanced a certain part may appear not simply as “out of place”, but as “a trifle too high”, “too much to the left”, “too heavy”, and so on. In this sense [our mind] often tends to improve given situations by pointing to changes which would result in such improvement [...] »
W.Köhler, 1966
10arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
a working hypothesis“from the causes to the effects: the visual perception of the built environment”
« [...] What is ornament? The answer to this question has been clouded by those many critics who ... inquired into the ca-nonical meaning of each part in attempt to find a closed system or grappled with the question of the historical origin of every form. I am in a more fortunate position as I only need to know one thing: what is the effect of ornament? [...] »
H.Wölfflin, 1886
Two images from G.T.Buswell’s 1935 experimental studies on vision: a Cathedral and how people look at it
11arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
« [...] The subjective impression of a defi-nite height of the sky is caused by the in-terplay of the height of the surrounding buildings and of the expansion of the floor. It is strongly influenced by the contours of eaves and gables, chimneys and tow-ers. Generally the height above a closed square is imagined as three to four times the height of the tallest building on the square [three-dimensional space, above left]. It seems to be higher above squares which are dominated by one prominent building [one-dimensional space along the vertical, above right], whereas over wide-open squares such as the Place de la Concorde in Paris, the visual distance of the sky is only vaguely perceived [two-di-mensional space, below][...] »
P.Zucker, 1959
the qualitativedimension
of space
12arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
the qualitativedimension
of space
Even two streets from the same historical settlement can provide two very different perceptual experiences.
Narrow but fully three-dimensionalCittà di Castello, Umbria - Italy
Narrow, vertical Città di Castello, Umbria - Italy
13arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
« [...] In functional geometry I distingui-sh figure characters and ground cha-racters. Figures have attributes of soli-dity, substantiality; grounds, are loose, empty [...] »
figureand ground
character
« [...] In functional geometry I distingui-sh figure characters and ground cha-racters. Figures have attributes of soli-dity, substantiality; grounds, are loose, empty [...] »
W.Köhler, 1929
« [...] In functional geometry I distingui-sh figure characters and ground cha-racters. Figures have attributes of soli-dity, substantiality; grounds, are loose, empty [...] »
« [...] In town, a street is visually a three-di-mensional canyon, an elongated duct, for-med by the buildings and the ground [it is a figure]. To some extent, the facades do not even end at street level but fold at a right angle and continue across the pave-ment to rise again on the opposite side – the street is an unbroken container [...] »
R.Arnheim, 1977
14arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
immediateand sequential
spaces
Reading a sequential interiorArezzo, Tuscany - Italy
The understanding of an immediate street (above) - Walking along a sequential street (below)Ferrara, Emilia - Italy (above) - Città di Castello, Umbria - Italy (below)
15arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
« [...] [The dynamics of recession begins] when architectural elements on different planes are substantially different between them ... to understand the nodal points of a given architectural composition, the ob-server will be then compelled to connect what is happening on different levels [i.e. to move his eye away from the plane] [...]»
from plane to
recession
H.Wölfflin, 1915
Two examples of dynamics on the plane and of dynamics of recession by H.Wölfflin
Palazzo della Cancelleria, planeRome - Italy
The Galleria Borghese, recessionRome - Italy
16arch. Jacopo Benedetti - University of Roma Tre - Department of Architecture International Making Cities Liveable - 53rd Conference - Rome, 16.06.2016
scope & perspectives
« [...] [with the collapse] of the Tower of Ba-bel ... a single mirror, the mirror of mankind ... was shattered into a thousand shards ... Since the fragments are now scattered ... their reflected light is somehow distorted ... but what was sunlight in the beginning, is still sunlight, and what was mirror be-fore, is still mirror. To look for the shard in each of our cultures is, I believe, the true great endeavour of our culture, of anthro-pology, of mankind [...] »
A.M.Cirese, 2008
Martian canals by P.Lowell (1905): the image actually shows the shadow of the blood vessels on his own retina
“to look for the universal in the local, to understand the local through the universal ”