From Open City to Postmodern City

The seminar examines the complex relationship between architecture and urbanism in Italy in the second half of the twentieth century. From the neorealist city in post-WWII Rome to the presentation of a postmodern city in the 1980 Venice Biennale, the seminar explores the ways that Italian architects and theorists proposed architectural practices and urban studies as a single or interdependent conceptual process. Weaving theoretical arguments with design strategies, the seminar—structured as a series of chronological case studies—traces how Italian architects and theorists articulated architecture and urban form in their attempt to address the themes of reconstruction, context, tradition, territory, disciplinary autonomy, consumerism, ideology, and history that made the Italian discourse one of the protagonists in the architectural debates of the second half of the twentieth century. Focusing on primary sources, students have the opportunity to study magazines, seminal theoretical works, and the catalogues of exhibitions that constituted the main vehicles of the Italian architectural discourse in this period. Limited enrollment.