FORMAMENTIS. For a didactic of architecture

Are there codified formulas to define an architectural teaching capable of responding to the demands of a renewed approach to knowledge and the now increasingly evident and necessary contamination of knowledge?

We live in a historical era in which teaching and learning are subject to constant revisions and refinements aimed at interpreting the needs of the present and future times. The stakes are high: it is a question of restoring centrality to the role of the teacher as a reference figure for the different educational and training paths, within scenarios aimed at rethinking trades and professions. The reflection on the universal criteria of education constitutes, here, the launch of a debate aimed at exploring the high specificity of the teaching of the disciplines of architecture, based on a balanced alchemy that condenses (or merges) scientific knowledge, humanities and technical knowledge, as well as being characterized by an essential experiential-experimental approach. A maieutic educational technique that interprets the ideational, planning and constructive dimensions as substantial and integrated elements of making architecture. The methods and tools are the means and not the ends of an open teaching that increasingly responds to the needs of individuals.

The direct comparison between some prestigious exponents of the main European Architecture Schools intends to provide a further contribution to the debate, useful for tracing the picture of the most significant existing experiences in the field of architectural education and their main variations. In fact, the architect understood as being an intellectual requires both holistic and scientific training, capable of merging the importance of transversal research that trains an architect who is at the same time endowed with knowledge of the art of constructing buildings and places (or environments) of real life, as well as sensitivity for size, space, harmony; an architect capable of combining technique and poetics in the project.

Scientific responsibility and organization
Emilio Faroldi
Maria Pilar Vettori

Scientific committee
Francesca Belloni
Marco Biraghi
Filippo Bricolo
Paolo Galuzzi
Marco Imperadori