The University as a Settlement Principle; Territorialising Knowledge in Late 1960s Italy; First Edition

The 1960s and the 1970s marked a generational shift in architectural discourse at a time when the revolts inside universities condemned the academic institution as a major force behind the perpetuation of a controlling society. Focusing on the crisis and reform of higher education in Italy, __The University as a Settlement Principle__ investigates how university design became a lens for architects to interpret a complex historical moment that was marked by the construction of an unprecedented number of new campuses worldwide. Implicitly drawing parallels with the contemporary condition of the university under a regime of knowledge commodification, it reviews the vision proposed by architects such as Vittorio Gregotti, Giuseppe Samonà, Archizoom, Giancarlo De Carlo, and Guido Canella, among others, to challenge the university as a bureaucratic and self-contained entity, and defend, instead, the role of higher education as an agent for restructuring vast territories. Through their projects, the book discusses a most fertile and heroic moment of Italian architectural discourse and argues for a reconsideration of architecture’s obligation to question the status quo. This work will be of interest to postgraduate researchers and academics in architectural theory and history, campus design, planning theory, and history. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Table of Contents 8 List of figures 10 Acknowledgements 13 Timeline 15 Introduction: University by (urban) design 18 Notes 28 PART I: Beyond campus: Chronicle 32 Prologue I: Another campus 34 Note 37 1. The campus phenomenon 38 Urban revolution 38 The fate of Jefferson: Campus neutralised 40 1963: Academic community dissolved and reclaimed 43 Cedric Price: The large scale of higher education 48 Notes 53 2. Imagining an urban Italy 56 Anxiety 56 A new urban dimension 58 ... or città territorio 64 Claiming originality: A temporary pause 67 Notes 70 3. Reform or revolution 73 The chimera of autonomy 73 Minimalist reformism 76 Revolution and restoration 77 A precedent to reject 79 The university in academe 83 Notes 87 4. Architecture or system: A parable in four episodes 92 The controversy of competitions 92 Florence, 1970: inside, outside, or neither 94 Cagliari, 1971: University workplace 101 Calabria, 1972: The spectre of the campus 104 Salerno, 1973: the triumph of system 111 Notes 119 Epilogue to Part I: End of an illusion 124 Notes 126 PART II: Academic territories: Four takes 128 Prologue II: The principle of concentration 130 Notes 132 5. Exemplars of order: Vittorio Gregotti, Giuseppe Samonà, and academic gigantism 133 Ordering eagerness 133 ‘New directions in Italian architecture’ 136 Ambiente totale and the anthropogeographical project 137 Continuity or amnesia 140 Partisan interests 141 Cities with no outside 145 The concentration conundrum 152 Notes 155 6. Information à la carte: Archizoom and territorial deinstitutionalisation 158 From knowledge to information 158 The Marxist-Operaist helix 162 Exaggeration or project 165 The deschooling helix 168 Territory of learning webs 172 Notes 173 7. Reversing the pyramid: Giancarlo De Carlo and the dilution of the university 177 The founding of Universicittà 177 Urbino (or the cell and the collective) 179 Dublin (or disciplinary reshuffling) 182 Pavia (or diluting the university) 187 School buildings: why/how? 191 Notes 195 8. The anti-city: Guido Canella and the nomadic university 200 A system of learning 200 Politecnico di Milano 1963–74: experiment with a mass university 202 The complication of school 204 Theatrical pedagogy 207 The university is everywhere 210 Rappel à l’ordre 214 Notes 218 Epilogue II: Academic instability 222 Notes 224 Conclusion: Towards academic commons 225 Notes 227 Appendix 1: Conference on university design, ISES (Istituto per lo Sviluppo dell’Edilizia Sociale), Rome, 1–2 October 1970 229 Appendix 2: Designing the Italian university: Four competitions 230 Appendix 3: Higher education: An international architectural discourse, 1960–1977 235 Bibliography 241 Index 253 Focusing on the crisis and reform of higher education in Italy, this book investigates how university design became a lens for architects to interpret a complex historical moment that was marked by the construction of an unprecedented number of new campuses worldwide.