SOME POINTS ABOUT THE TEACHING OF CONSTUCTION AND THE “CHARMING POWER” OF CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE

This contribution tries to follow exactly what was suggested by the organising conference and gives an answer to the two questions at the basis of discussion: 1. What competence and skills graduates are supposed to have in the knowledge of technology for architecture 2. What educational methods and strategies are to be adopted The reasons are basically five and are mainly related to the general cultural context in which students find themselves; they are only partially concerned with architecture and the building science. 1. The images of contemporary architecture. Students are continually bombarded and overwhelmed by a huge quantity of architectural images, available in books and magazines, whose only concern is regarding architecture as an IMAGE. 2. The infinite number of materials and techniques from different sources and ages that are used without distinction. In architecture we use either the same materials which were used 2000 years ago or the new materials which come from other production sectors. Traditional materials too are constantly rediscovered and reinterpreted to the highest degree. So how can we give young architects the basic information on how to operate, if technology is out of control? 3. The skilful ability to overlap and reinterpret architectural languages has been gradually decreasing and the charm of contemporary images might reduce the architect’s caution needed when their design is realised in a city. Finally transparency is often confused with lightness, and sought as much obsessively even at latitudes where it must be controlled, regulated, reduced by serigraphs, curtains, bulges, gratings and so on. The smart “packaging” is increasingly subtle and fragile. 4. Computers grant an extraordinary freedom to conceive any form without restraints, by virtually manipulating it so realistically as to deceive the careless eye. The skin is like a veil pulled tight on a mysterious and obscure structure, which is scarcely understandable and even less feasible, so that specialised engineers must perform acrobats. 5. Finally fashion in architecture plays a leading role: the search for an environmentally friendly approach (a pretext sometimes used to justify eccentric choices in technology and form), and the search for building solutions which can limit the energy consumption by using all the resources offered by nature, are often inevitably a matter of fashion where the protagonist is a well-explained difficult mechanism with red and blue arrows and yellow sunrays. The most important requisite graduates must show is AWARENESS. They must be taught somehow to be responsible of the building choices they will make once they are architects. Being aware is also realizing that the design process is an activity oriented to problem-solving and not a simple and uncontrolled game of imagination. Creativity in architecture is like in all human activities; the architect’s imagination can’t help coming to terms with the concrete feasibility of the project. Being aware is also a balance between what science and technique can give an architect so that he can master all the information he’s got and the risk of being overwhelmed by it.