RESTORATION OF COMEZZANO’S CASTLE

The Castle of Comezzano, set in the Po Valley near Brescia, was built in the 15th Century around a preexistent tower. Entirely made of bricks it has the typical plan of the Castles of the Italian plain, both in dimensions and shape, with a flooded ditch all around the rectangular complex of buildings, lift bridge, towers and a generous internal court. Subsequent additions and demolitions deeply modified the complex. The greater intervention, dated in the second half of the 19^th century, saw many secondary volumes demolished and a complete redefinition of the main residence. During the 20^th century some volumes also collapsed, because of neglect.

The restoration of this castle is the most representative intervention on heritage conservation designed by our studio to date. Besides, for our studio and more generally, at least in Italy and Europe, it's more and more frequent to operate on existing buildings instead of starting from scratch.

The intervention on the complex focuses on three main areas, i.e. the restoration of the remaining parts of the 15th century Castle, the reconstruction of some volumes partially collapsed during the second half of the 20th century and a few new additions to the existing buildings. A new definition and use of the open spaces of the internal court and the ditch is also detailed.

Every minute part of our work has been supervised by the local Commission for the Architectural and Landscape Heritage (The Italian “Soprintendenza”).

For each of the three main areas, restoration, reconstruction and new additions, we adopted different strategies, nevertheless all referred to the same theoretical approach to restoration and reuse of ancient buildings, as here detailed.

At the basis of this approach there's the will to pursue a conceptual clarity aimed at maintaining the peculiar state of the building and therefore to avoid a disrespectful design path that would degrade its meaning and its power.

Thus the restoration handles the theme of intervention on the ancient volumes with the aim to keep as much as possible the original parts of the building maintained to the present. This is pursued with non-invasive and localized interventions, using traditional materials. Conservation of the the physical matter is the main goal we have tried to reach, often trying to maintain parts substantially deteriorated when this could not be a harm for the preservation of the building itself and for its usability.

The reconstruction of the collapsed volumes has probably witnessed the most difficult choices. We think to have chosen a subtle solution, which is at the same time effective, culturally sustainable and understated. And we are very proud of this understatement.

The language used for the reconstruction of the fallen portions of the historical buildings allows to clearly acknowledge the typology and morphology of the original complex.

We pursued an autonomy of the rebuilt volumes and a balance of these with the remaining ancient ones. This strategy can be likened to a composition in a composition from which originates a good dialogue between the different parts.

Consequently, the rebuilt portions are easily recognizable compared to the historical ones, as they are slightly simpler than the original in masonry detail, they adopt squared off timbers for the roofs and horizontal structures and the treatment of their walls is uniform. Nevertheless they do not 'appear' as 'modern', they just subtly and not plainly denounce their modernity, and, while not seeming ancient at all, they remain subsidiary to the historical structures.

We'd like that this intervention could be seen as pencil sketch that, with its light lines, meaningful and identifiable, could help to enhance the readability and the general substance of an enigmatic ancient ink drawing.

A totally different approach has been chosen for the actual new parts of the complex, which are just two and very limited in dimension. A little recent and utilitarian addition, set to the north of the main building, built in the 1950s and almost generally collapsed in the last decades, is reconstructed with a wooden facade that aims to make it appear secondary and at the same time definitely contemporary compared to the ancient walls it stands close to. The same treatment is used for the closure of a first floor loggia that is transformed in an apartment. These new elements are designed with a modern use of materials (wood and glass) and detail, counterpointing the historical brick walls. The design of the wooden facade is inspired by Peter Zumthor's 'Gugalun House', where vertical and horizontal planks are intertwined determining so a plastic facade. Other sources of inspiration are Frank Lloyd Wright's George C. Stewart House (the first inspiration for Zumthor himself?) and the less known house Paul Schweikher designed for himself in Illinois in 1937-38. While all these sources of inspiration share a similar (but not equal) juxtaposition of timber planks, our solution nevertheless differs in detail from all these three houses both because the planks are detached one-another and thus constitute a ventilated facade and because all the planks are laterally confined by vertical ones, a system that enhances the feeling of a facade applied to a hidden masonry structure set behind.

The project gives again a proper spatial identity to the ditch, dried up of water since the beginning of the 19th century, which is treated as a grass lawn with no trees, with a hedge that encircles it and mediates its relationship with the surrounding countryside.

The main court, treated as an internal garden serving the dwellings, is rethought with a paving that underlines the geometry of the spaces and the built volumes, leaving the great part of the spaces as a meadow. A great oak is inserted in relationship with the buildings’ masses and integrates the garden.

The open spaces act as a catalyst for the many built volumes of the complex, enhancing its unity as a whole.

With the end of 2010 the first phase of the realization was finished with all the roofs and the facades completed, while the general completion of the work with the finishing is scheduled for the next decade.

Bruno Tonelli

(civil engineer, head of

architecture at Studioartec)

Matteo Gorlani

(architect, Studioartec)

DISCLOSING THE GENIUS LOCI

This article is published on EDGEcondition Vol.05

Questo articolo è pubblicato su EDGEcondition Vol.05

The first design steps in my practice always start with a reading of the context, and, whenever this happens, we realize that a proper perception of the place just comes while sketching it, while putting on paper its values, both natural and man-made, through hand-drawing.

It is actually renown among architects that the best way to know a place or a building is to sketch it. Every time you perform that simple act you discover details you hadn't noticed before.

It's perhaps not so well known that the relationship between the perceptive values of a place and the ability of man to understand it is primarily physical rather than just visual. The act of drawing is both visual and physical, as Juhani Pallasmaa has deeply disserted in the recent years, but the relation between the phisicality of a place and man's ability to understand it goes far beyond the very act of drawing.

The term 'drawing' derives from the proto Germanic 'dragan', which means to pull, and in particular to pull an object in a place, exactly like when we pull a pencil on paper. The equal term in Neo-Latin languages derives instead from the Latin 'designare', which means to mark with a sign, to choose through a mark. Today we also say design, from designare, with the same meaning of choosing between different possibilities.

The first architectural marks in history were stones and timbers, that, pulled to the right place could mark it with the sign of man and make it a chosen place.

Thus it's the making of things that makes us understand, feel the identity of a place and feel it as 'ours'. The understanding of the natural environment does not precede building: it's the very act of building that makes us completely understand a location, that makes us feel it as 'our place in the world', and comprehend its realm among our deepest psychological experiences.

These latter concepts have been first and systematically investigated by Christian Norberg-Shulz in his 'Genius Loci', where the author has developed a complete theory of a phenomenology of architecture related to the concept of place. This theory is also an architectural explanation of Heidegger's writings on the inhabiting, through which the philosopher expresses the idea that man's fundamental need is to experience his existence as meaningful. The act of settling, says Norberg-Schulz, is not just the making of a physical refuge, but the act of entering an existential dimension and need, from which man finds his place in the world. Architecture is the existential foothold of man.

Placemaking is thus an ancestral experience, through which man identifies himself as belonging to a greater whole that constitutes an understandable realm and thus that let man himself experience his acts as meaningful.

Is every later experience of place a repetition of this primeval emotion, related to our mood and to what we are performing? Related also to our level of understanding of the place and of our role in it? What is the role of place regarding our self-awareness?

Architecture is a framework of meaning, the physical structure of our minds in the world. Building is for bodies. Architecture for souls. Buildings and architecture should be inseparable, as our beings are.

The role of rite is attributed to architecture from the beginning of time. The most ancient architecture of history is Göbleki Tepe, a stone-age sanctuary up to twelve thousand years old, made before the invention of agriculture. The most important lesson that Göbleki Tepe tells us, says K. Schmidt, its discoverer, is that "First came the temple, then the city". First came architecture, then building.

It is difficult to operate with these concepts today, after so many decades of urban sprawl. Architecture seems a lost art, at least regarding common building. The spontaneous quality of vernacular settlements seems almost anymore reachable. Nevertheless a re-appropriation of historical approaches to design could be the only way out alienation and a good way to take back man to feel the place he lives in as his own so to experience life as meaningful.

I like to define what I try to do with my practice as an act of disclosing. Both with new buildings or on existing ones, both in natural or urban places. Disclosing means designing something that enhances the existing quality of a place, or, paraphrasing Kahn's sentence 'what a building wants to be', disclosing means, through the act of building, revealing what a place wants to be.

When architecture realizes itself it gives us "an instant of beauty", wherein we perceive a place as a complete whole. In this moment we lose the perception of ourselves, while at the same time our feelings get enhanced, thus architecture is revealed to us as a world in itself, a world complete. When this happens we feel the genius loci, the spirit of the place, and what we call placemaking happens.

When this happens, adds Peter Zumthor, our observation embraces a presentiment of the entire world, because there is nothing that cannot be understood.

There are no fixed recipes to start again to disclose places. Within my practice I have nevertheless discovered that you begin having a design strategy directed to placemaking, instead to designing 'objects', when it's placemaking that you care for. It's also an act of humility, a way to say something with your surroundings and not to them. This act is very similar to what Robert Venturi calls inflection, i.e. a design device not strictly related to the single building but to a greater urban whole, with the building becoming de facto part of it. As I have already and better detailed in the article published on Edge Condition Vol#01, my design method uses paths near to critical regionalism, to the use of local/natural materials, to shape a proper atmosphere for each function of the building/place and to reinvigorate the civic values of the site.

An approach like this can favour the appropriation of the place in personal and collective memory and ease both the conscious and unconscious perception of it as a part of personal experience; it can foster relationships and social interaction as well as casual encounters.

Everybody knows that climbing to a high point with a great view gives pleasure. The reason, as here explained, is that a panorama gives knowledge, and with knowledge self-awareness and thus meaning. Good architecture can act exactly like that panorama, and tell us that our lifes are meaningful.

Ci sono due case Farnsworth a Plano, Illinois....

Ci sono due case Farnsworth a Plano, Illinois. Una è l'eterea scatola di vetro e acciaio a cui siamo abituati e che ci è tanto familiare, sospesa sul terreno e di purezza cristallina: quella che abbiamo sempre visto nelle fotografie.

L'altra è fatta da tutto ciò che tocchiamo: il marmo dei pavimenti, i tendaggi, la pelle delle sedie e dei divani, il legno dei mobili, la legna del camino, le foglie cadute nel giardino, l'erba, i tronchi degli alberi e il vento che li muove. E la pioggia, e il sole che ci scalda.

La casa Farnsworth non è una casa. E' un cottage americano, un luogo dove ci si ritira nel weekend dimenticando Chicago e il lavoro, dove ci si porta l'essenziale in una 24 ore e dove ci sono pochi mobili.

La prima casa, quella di vetro, ci protegge dalle intemperie e si fa 'quasi nulla': nella sua astrazione e nella sua purezza misura lo spazio e lo rende dell'uomo.

La seconda casa, quella con cui entriamo in contatto, quella con cui conviviamo, ci rivela chi siamo davvero. E, insieme alla prima, ci regala la libertà di esserlo.

BEYOND GESAMTKUNSTWERK

Questo articolo è in relazione al Vol. 3 di Edge Condition, che ha come tema conduttore l'Arte e l'Architettura. L'articolo non è pubblicato sulla rivista.

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Today architecture seems to be on everyone's mouth. The number of web sites specialized in this matter keeps growing as much as the interest of people in the discipline or in the related disciplines such as product and interior design.

At least when for 'architecture' we mean houses or, to say it better, our home. And at least when the word 'architecture' can be easily accompanied with such words as 'fancy', 'cool', 'luxury' and so on. Maybe most people have stopped asking themselves if architecture is still a kind of art.

It's been more than a century since Adolf Loos stated that architecture as an art is limited to the tomb and the monument, as "The house has to please everyone, contrary to the work of art which does not. The work is a private matter for the artist. The house is not."

Dandy, intellectual and really snob he's probably not been completely understood to date, due to his sometimes criptic and contradictory writings and behaviour. He's long been considered a proto-modernist or even a father of modernism. At the same time in his late years he rejected modernism (Corbu's one, just to be clear) as 'just another language among others' and he never really abandoned classical architecture, using with abundance cornices or basements and designing his Chicago Tribune building proposal as a giant doric column.

But what was he really saying regarding art and architecture? Is there a relationship between his new way of seeing architecture and the almost contemporary birth of psychology in Vienna, where he lived and worked? What was for him architecture then, if not an art?

Maybe the real innovation of Loos was his real attempt to avoid a language, that is to avoid to conceive architecture as a means to transmit a message. A message is precisely what all art is instead created for, so maybe it's actually since Loos that architecture can be something different. He said that "Architecture arouses sentiments in man. The architect's task, therefore, is to make those sentiments more precise". Making a sentiment more precise can also be giving it a home. An apt and different place for each sentiment.

He gave counsels, he helped his clients, but he let them choose the furniture and the pieces of art they liked, in clear opposition to his Viennese colleagues of the Secession, who instead preached the total work of art.

The Germans know it all. They have always the right word: gesamtkunstwerk. An architecture that is completely fused with sculpture, paintings and even furniture to give a single unified and complete impression. That is to transmit a message. As a real work of art.

This was the Secession but this had also been gothic cathedrals or Greek temples. Or palladian villas or..maybe all architecture before Adolf Loos? (Fig. 1 and 2)

Thus Loos' was a new way of conceiving architecture: beyond gesamkunswerk. So new that's been misunderstood by his contemporaries and even by modern masters, who instead sometimes were deeply attracted by the fusion of the arts. Think of Le Corbusier and some of his buildings filled with his paintings or murales.

Another reason for the misunderstanding was Loos' insistence with the use of classical details, for which he has never been considered really modern. We can now, after modernism, understand that that was due to his desire to avoid a new language, so classical devices were just his way to use something everyone was used to.

What kind of art can then architecture be? What does it mean "to make sentiments more precise"? To give an apt and proper place for each sentiment and activity of the human beings?

I see Adolf Loos thoughts and buildings as an anticipation of some of the theories of phenomenology. As Gaston Bachelard has sublimely evidenced in his 'The poetics of space', the relationship between our feelings and architecture are so vast and deep that architecture can be with no doubt be considered the most influential of the arts for our lives or, to say it with Ernest Dimnet, "Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but the most surely, on the soul".

Peter Zumthor is considered among the greatest architects that today explicitly refer to phenomenology. I find a strong correspondence between his concept of architecture as an art and what Loos stated architecture had to be. Zumthor says, above all in his 'Thinking Architecture', that architecture is neither message nor sign, but a sensible recipient for the passing of life. A recipient that has to be differently sensible to the different activities of men. He also says that maybe art is the unexpected truth and the role of architecture should be that of revealing to us something that we never previously understood in that way.

Could we live or work constantly listening to Beethoven 5^th simphony or to Let it be? We all like them but we surely couldn't. Architecture is not music or sculpture, and what it has to reveal to us is a possibility we have to fully live our lives, or to say it again with Loos, to make our sentiments more precise.

Another parallel between Zumthor and Loos is the absence of language, that meant the use of classical details for the Austrian and the use of modernist and minimal details for the Swiss one century later.

The aim of the present article is to introduce an idea trying to see its evolution in history of architecture and trying to develop a discourse around it. The argument is so vast that of course a single and short article can't be exhaustive, but, trying to make it more complete, I add a final line of reasoning that regards buildings when they are conceived as recipients for other arts.

What can beyond gesamtkunstwerk be when we have to display sculpture or contemporary pieces of art? What can be a true and authentic relationship between architecture and other visual arts?

I think the recipe should be the same: a sensible recipient that creates the right atmosphere, the right mood for people to let them fully understand the works of art displayed.

I have recently visited 'La Congiunta', the tiny building in Giornico, Switzerland, designed by Peter Märkli to host the sculptures of Hans Josephsohn (Fig. 3 and 4). The way this building defines 'a world apart' to display art is so exemplar that it seems to me the most proper example as a case study for what I'm saying. The atmosphere is so powerful that the visitor can forget the entire world outside the entrance door but at the same time so unobstrusive that Josephsohn sculpures can be experienced as in a blank space.

And give you feelings you didn't know before.

Being on the Edge

Questo articolo è pubblicato su Edge Condition Vol. 2

This article is published on Edge Condition Vol.2

Dear Edge Condition,

when I was asked to write an essay for Edge Condition about my practice and about the theoretical basis that stands at the origin of it I consciously bypassed the theme of a possible relation between what I was going to say and the condition of 'being on the edge'.

In other words in my article I never directly detailed anything related to 'the vocation and activity of those positioned on the fringe of the formal architecture sector ', as Twitter bio of Edge Condition says, or, to say it better, at least in my opinion, I draw a picture of a theory and a practice of a designer that tries to be exactly in the middle of 'the formal architecture sector'.

Consciously.

But as Thomas Hardy well knew, any written piece says many things more than what the conscious will of the writer thinks.

This thought has inhabited my mind in all these weeks after the issue of the magazine, till the moment when I realized that all the architecture sector is permanently and definitely 'on the edge', as an inner and even constituent 'condition' of the discipline.

I say this because more and more architecture is a multi-related discipline, due to technology, engineering, sustainability and more, but also because architecture, since the beginning of time, has always been related to psychology, memory, behaviour, rite, even more than knowledge of materials or geometry.

We are all in an edge condition because it is towards all the edges of the discipline that we have to look to find a more poignant reason for architecture itself, to find a true basis for our buildings and societies, and to put together in a dignified way all this 'mess' that is always related to architecture and that is just faintly defined by a great series of related, parallel and bordering disciplines.

I think the idea that is at the basis of the magazine is thus fundamental for the future of architecture as it explicitly (and consciously) highlights that we have, as designers, to care for all the edges of our main field to reach an authentic result in what we design and do.

Maybe architecture is not only interrelated to a myriad of other disciplines but more and more less definite as a field of knowledge. Maybe architects today can be web designers, virtual designers, movie makers and more.

But even in the middle of 'the formal architecture sector' it's paying attention to all these edges that makes our discipline true and authentic, human-related and truly life-enhancing.

Being on an edge condition is a good starting point for the architect of the 21^st century

Bruno Tonelli

Studioartec

Questo articolo è pubblicato su Edge Condition Vol. 1

This article is published on Edge Condition Vol. 1

Studioartec was born in 2005, when four designers with different skills met to accomplish the entire process of building design, regarding both architecture and engineering. The author of the present article is head of architectural design in the studio. Artec means architecture and technique, a name that highlights design as a series of processes that require different skills and knowledge. We aim at a high design quality with great care for sustainability and for a balance with the landscape and preexistences.

We'd like to design authentic architectures for the 21^st century, architectures that go beyond both modernism and post-modernism, defining a new approach to design that tries to transcend and include all the lessons of the past, while remaining absolutely contemporary.

The main theoretical basis of this approach are Peter Zumthor's buildings and thoughts, the concept of critical regionalism as defined by Kenneth Frampton, the contemporary research on sustainability, the work of Juhani Pallasmaa on architecture and perception and of Peter Buchanan on the need to redefine the discipline as a whole.

I like to say that "Architecture is the name we give to all the physical and mental feelings we have for being in a man-made place". This is a phenomenological approach which highlights that it is not form for form's sake that engage us more, but the ability of architecture to create a place with a strong identity, to house our lives in beauty, in the most proper and most apt atmosphere for our gestures. This is the aim of architecture and in this way architecture is the art of life. A complete art (not just visual) that expresses itself through light, forms and materials reinforcing our deepest feelings and gestures and giving them a home. An art which enhances our awareness of the present moment and of our actions.

A good way to find a new way to define architecture is to start from scratch for every idea or task, to ask ourselves why we build and how we associate functions (physical and psychological) with forms. I'd like to think each new building as an archetype that hosts human activities and define functions.

Archetype also as a way to interrogate ourselves on the deepest meanings of architecture.

Archetype as a way to build a new architecture without mimicking the past (ancient or recent) but transcending and including it.

The relationship between architecture and place is not just about perception and social

interactions but also cultural. A good building must be able to measure with local culture. A correct

approach to the use of materials, the critical re-invention of typologies, development and

enhancement of ancient building tecniques in a contemporary way are elements which add

deepness to a new building and that radicate it more in the cultural fabric where it is located.

Architecture is always related to a specific site, it is born in a place and is in relationship with an

environment, with other buildings, with the landscape. A good and simple rule is to enhance the

quality of a place with the new building. Like all simple rules it's difficult to put in practice. Being

able to put himself in discussion, being patient and perseverant are essential qualities for the architect.

Both the words city and civilization originate from the latin word civitas. Is it really possible to

separate the civic values of a community from the urban quality of the cities where it lives? Or the

two things are inextricably bound and inter-dependant? One of the roles of architecture is to build

and reinvigorate the civic values of human life through a strong influence on the quality of the

spaces where human actions take place. Good architecture has to try to integrate with the

exixting city, to build it, to connect and phisically interrelate with it.

It's been too a long time that urbanism has actually forgotten the art of designing places, as it's too a long time that we limit ourselves to planning different areas in our cities instead of designing in detail our urban realms, thus we have lost the ability to create pleasurable public spaces comparable with the urban quality of historic cores of our towns and cities.

A new approach is needed for architecture and for governance systems that regulate architecture. Without mimicking the past we should try to learn from the great lessons of urbanism the past teaches us.

To transmit a culture to the next generations essentially means to transmit them all we know about

what it means to be human. It is therefore not possible to think to give them a know-how and a

culture unless this is sustainable, for present and future times.

The years we are living in and the next ones will be crucial for a radical re-thinking of an approach

to architectural design which has to be sustainable, and not just in terms of energy efficiency.

To fall in love with the place we live in is a necessary condition to desire that this place endures in

the future.

The role of architecture can be a role of resistance. Good architecture has still the possibility to tell the importance of mantaining a value. Good medieval buildings, or of the reinassance, of the XIX century, post-bellic or contemporary will remain such forever.

Dodici pensieri sull’architettura: approccio ad una teoria per il XXI secolo.

In questo scritto sono condensati in dodici brevi punti il ‘nocciolo duro’ di ciò che penso dell’architettura e la ricerca di una sintesi attorno ai valori di questa disciplina e alla sua essenza: il nocciolo di ciò che a me interessa e colpisce dell’architettura, con l'obiettivo di definire una base teorica per la costruzione di un modo di fare architettura che possa essere consono al secolo che stiamo vivendo. Questa (pur brevissima) 'teoria dell'architettura' è elaborata soprattutto a partire dal pensiero di Peter Zumthor, dal concetto di ‘Regionalismo Critico’ così come sviluppato da Kenneth Frampton a partire dagli anni 70, dalle tematiche della sostenibilità ambientale, dalla necessità di un ripensamento dell'architettura così come espressa da Peter Buchanan dal 2012 sulle pagine dell'Architectural Review con il saggio 'The big Rethink' (il grande ripensamento) e dagli scritti teorici di Juhani Pallasmaa su architettura e percezione.

Bastano poco più di dodici minuti per leggerli: un minuto ciascuno.

Molto di più per interiorizzarli. Un'intera vita può non bastare per applicarli.

1- Lo scopo dell’architettura

'Architettura' è il nome che diamo all'insieme delle sensazioni fisiche e psichiche che proviamo per il fatto di essere in un luogo costruito dall'uomo.

L’architettura è quindi un'arte, che pur si esprime con la pratica dell'edilizia. Parliamo di architettura quando un edificio muove le nostre emozioni: ci commuove e ci colpisce. Per questo motivo non sono le forme o l’arditezza dell'opera che ci coinvolgono maggiormente, ma la capacità dell’architettura di creare un luogo dalla forte identità, dall’atmosfera che ci cattura e che ci regala un istante di intensità, nel quale siamo un tutt’uno con con noi stessi e con ciò che stiamo facendo. Scopo dell’architettura è accogliere le nostre vite nella bellezza, nell’atmosfera più propria e più adatta ai nostri gesti. In questo senso l’architettura è l’arte del vivere. Non è un’arte visiva che si esprime attraverso le forme o i materiali, ma un’arte completa (non solo visiva), che ha come scopo il rafforzamento delle nostre più profonde sensazioni, e il dar loro una ‘casa’ dove crescere.

2- Il rapporto con la storia

La magnificenza e la grazia degli edifici del passato non finiscono mai di stupirci. La patina che il tempo e l’uso donano loro sono una ricchezza inestimabile. Non è pensabile riprodurre le forme e le proporzioni del passato per cercarne le sensazioni. La buona architettura contemporanea esprime se stessa e i valori e i bisogni dell’uomo di oggi: senza rinunciare ad un ‘dialogo’ con l’architettura antica da questa si distacca facendosi autonoma e per questo autentica. Una architettura della contemporaneità deve riuscire ad includere i temi architettonici della storia e a ricomprenderne i valori fondanti ma a trascenderli linguisticamente allo stesso tempo. Un buon approccio è quello di ripartire dagli archetipi del costruire interrogandosi sul loro significato primario, traendo forza espressiva proprio da esso.

3- Il senso della costruzione

Una delle cose che ci fa innamorare di un luogo è il senso di ‘ben fatto’, una sensazione tutta particolare che ci comunica compiutezza, ordine, senso delle cose. Come quando guardiamo un piccolo oggetto ben costruito, che ha dentro di sé sia la comprensione della natura dei materiali sia la capacità costruttiva dell’uomo. Pensate a una macchina fotografica, a una giacca di pelle, a un mobile di legno ben lavorato, a una scarpa elegante. La buona architettura ben costruita ci dà la stessa sensazione: le cose sono dove pensiamo che siano, gli spazi e la luce sono giusti, i materiali ci accompagnano con i loro profumi e la loro tattilità.

4- Hapticity – la multisensorialità.

La buona architettura si rivolge contemporaneamente a tutti i sensi e 'parla' alla percezione umana nella sua complessità. Recenti studi di neurobiologia hanno evidenziato che i sensi umani sono molteplici e vengono elaborati dal cervello contemporaneamente, in un modo non davvero separabile. Il valore di uno spazio dipende anche dalle sue qualità tattili, dal calore, da come riverberano il suono e le parole, da come camminando lo sentiamo con i nostri piedi, da come ci 'stringe la mano' quando lo tocchiamo. Da come si relaziona con la nostra corporeità e la nostra sensibilità di esseri umani complessi.

5- Il dettaglio

E’ la cura del dettaglio a determinare la qualità finale di un edificio. Anche il miglior progetto, quello che nasce da un’idea vincente, senza cura del dettaglio perde la sua forza e la sua stessa sostanza. Come diceva Le Corbusier è dal dettaglio che si discerne tra i buoni e i cattivi architetti. Una differenza di cinque centimetri nello spessore di un cornicione può determinarne la grazia o la pesantezza, a seconda.

Penso sempre al parallelo con il gioco. Quello che distingue un gioco da un altro sono le regole: un passaggio in avanti è permesso nel Football ma non nel Rugby. Nel calcio cinque centimetri possono fare la differenza tra un fuorigioco ed un’azione regolare, tra un goal e un salvataggio in extremis.

La regola dell’architettura è il dettaglio perché è attraverso di esso che si esprime e si mostra nelle parti che la compongono: perché il dettaglio funzioni bene occorre prima comprenderne la funzione rispetto a ciò che l'edificio vuole esprimere, poi curarlo e rispettarlo in ogni scelta.

6- Il rapporto con il paesaggio

L’architettura nasce in un luogo, si relaziona con un ambiente, con altri edifici, con il paesaggio. Una buona e semplice regola vorrebbe che ogni nuovo intervento migliori la qualità del luogo ove sorge. Come tutte le regole semplici è di difficile applicazione. Sapersi mettere in discussione, avere costanza e pazienza nella ricerca sono qualità essenziali per il buon architetto.

7- Il valore urbano e civico

Le parole città e civiltà nascono entrambe dalla parola latina civitas. E' davvero possibile scindere il valore civile di un popolo dalla qualità urbana delle città dove vive? O le due cose sono inscindibilmente legate e interdipendenti? Uno dei ruoli dell'architettura è quello della costruzione e del rafforzamento del valore civile del vivere umano attraverso l'incidere sulla qualità degli spazi ove le azioni umane hanno luogo. La buona architettura deve cercare di costruire ed integrarsi con la città, di connettersi e di intersecarsi fisicamente con essa. L'epoca degli edifici urbani iconici/spettacolari/isolati deve essere lasciata alle spalle.

8- Il regionalismo critico

Il rapporto con il luogo non è solo percettivo o sociale ma anche culturale. Un buon edificio deve sapersi misurare anche con la cultura locale. L’uso dei materiali, la reinvenzione critica delle tipologie, l’evoluzione di tecniche antiche in chiave contemporanea sono elementi che danno profondità ad una nuova architettura e che la radicano maggiormente nel tessuto culturale ove si inserisce. L’approccio critico garantisce di evitare la copia o la mimica dell’esistente.

9- La sostenibilità

Gli storici stanno cominciando a definire l’epoca che ci stiamo lasciando alle spalle come ‘la parentesi del petrolio’. L’architettura moderna è stata possibile grazie alla grande abbondanza di combustibili fossili e dei loro derivati enormemente di più che non dall’invenzione dell’acciaio e del cemento armato.

Trasmettere la cultura alle prossime generazioni significa essenzialmente trasmettere loro tutto ciò che sappiamo su cosa voglia dire essere umani. Non è quindi pensabile poter trasmettere loro una cultura senza che questa sia sostenibile, per il presente e per il futuro.

Gli anni che stiamo vivendo e quelli che verranno sono cruciali rispetto ad un radicale ripensamento in chiave di sostenibilità della creazione dell’architettura. Non solo in termini di efficienza energetica, ma di riciclabilità, rinnovabilità dei materiali, basso impatto di produzione, durata e ciclo di vita. Un approccio critico e regionale a questi temi consente grandi potenzialità rispetto alla creazione di una architettura che sia vera base culturale condivisa sulla quale si sviluppa la vita umana, intesa come insieme di relazioni con la natura e la comunità. Innamorarsi del luogo dove viviamo è condizione necessaria per desiderare che questo luogo si conservi nel futuro.

10- La percezione nel tempo

Un buon edificio cresce con le persone che lo abitano, si arricchisce dei loro contributi, dei loro oggetti e delle loro abitudini. Un buon edificio accoglie la vita di chi lo abita e non detta regole inopportune. Si arricchisce anche dei piccoli graffi, dell’usura delle maniglie e dei corrimano. Silenziosamente sa raccontare la storia delle persone che lo abitano e lo vivono e da questa trae ricchezza.

11- L’importanza della rivelazione

L’architettura autentica ci regala sempre un’emozione nuova, inaspettata: ci rivela uno stato d’animo, una possibilità che era già in noi ma che non conoscevamo o non sapevamo di avere. Quando l’architettura funziona bene fa proprio questo, influenza positivamente la nostra vita donandoci delle libertà e degli aspetti di noi stessi che non conoscevamo ancora: il regalo della bellezza inaspettata è un dono di libertà, che una volta scoperto può rimanere con noi, accompagnandoci.

12- Il ruolo culturale dell’architettura

Nella nostra epoca dell’effimero il ruolo dell’architettura è un ruolo di resistenza. La buona architettura ha ancora la capacità di trasmettere l’importanza della durevolezza e del mantenere un valore. Un buon edificio medioevale, rinascimentale, ottocentesco, postbellico o contemporaneo rimarrà tale per sempre: l’architettura vera non passa mai di moda e non si cura delle mode.