By the end of the course, students will: • Be familiar with various texts from contemporary philosophers and architectural theorists shaping current architectural debates. • Gain insight into different historical methodologies and their relevance to the present. • Develop the ability to critically read complex theoretical texts and discuss their main points, limitations, and relevance. • Situate contemporary architectural examples and practices within the history and set of ideas that created their conditions of possibility. • Learn to articulate and defend positions through both written and spoken forms. • Cultivate teamwork skills to produce collective outcomes. • Learn to summarize and present complex arguments in diagrammatic forms.

The seminar does not require any specific prerequisites - apart from those required for admission to a master’s degree – and an excellent English competence, other than a keen curiosity about architecture and the city, combined with a willingness to engage in critical reflection, matured through deep reading sources and books.

The discourse on sustainability, today in the spotlight of architectural theory and practice, is grounded on the promise of a sustainable and harmonic relationship between humans and non-humans made available by architecture. In this sense, sustainability is the latest expression of architecture’s attempt to harmonically articulate the human/nature divide through a techne—a technical knowledge—charged with the task of shaping the environment. This project of constituting an harmonic relation has a long history necessary caught within mechanisms of exclusion with their negative effects and unwanted externalities. In this regard, it is possible to understand the history and the theory architecture as attempts to constitute this harmonic relation as the building of refuges—spaces within which a certain harmony can be constituted, often at the price of the exclusion of an outside or an “other”. The point here is not to argue against the human necessity to build refuges (Consigliere 2014) and grasp for this harmony. The introductory seminar is therefore titled “Ungrounding Refuge: soils, extensions and relations in architectural histories and theories” and wishes to problematize and investigate architecture as a form and thought on refuge and to bring to the fore the field of tensions that traverses them across different soils (terrains, conditions, natures), relations (with bodies, cultures, ontologies) and extensions (across temporalities, practices, geographies). This will be done by focusing on the inherent ambiguity of the spaces of refuge; they are what protect us from danger but also what can constitute danger. In other words, as Italian Philosopher Paolo Virno (2022) has noted, shelters and refuges produce both a sense of ease and the uncanny, a tension that this course wishes to investigate through the spatial articulation of the refuges listed above with a specific focus on the human/non-human articulation. The architectural theory part will focus on forms and figures of refuge that problematize architectural thinking, practice and experiences. The investigation will be conducted through a methodology that shifts the attention from architecture to architechture. The word archè, which architecture shares with archeology, is often translated to English as first principle: an origin that cannot be located in an historical time but rather is eternally happening, eternally at work. Archeological research therefore looks for what Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has named “moments of arising” (2009: 110), which constitutes operative forces that are not localizable in a specific historical time, but rather are eternally happening and therefore still at work in our present. Following this methodology, the present course proposes to study the combination of thought and practices that in different historical times have constituted spaces of refuge from the traces these attempts left in our contemporary cities. This methodology allows us to see how the previous attempts to harmonically articulate the human/nature divide are still operative in our contemporary cities and their uncanny dimension. Indeed, as Freud (2010) already pointed out, in our cities, like in our psyche, “nothing that has once taken shape can be lost [and] everything is somehow preserved and can be retrieved under the right circumstances”. The circumstances that can be regrouped under the title of Anthropocene not only allow us, but also compel us, to retrieve these traces, to grasp these operative forces still working in our present in order to bring to the fore the ease they bring but also the uncanny they bear. The architectural and territorial environmental history part will focus on questions —developed an analyzed on the long period of history— dealing with both the consciousness of the complexity of cities and human settlements, and the organization of lands and soils. A specific analysis will be taken on relatively to cartography, considered as the emblem of the idea of control (who represents a territory has the authority to decide representation). The cartographic representations figure again the complexity of land management, the differences in cultivations, woods organizations, but also the rivers, creeks and artificial canals use to improve productiveness of soils and grounds. On the other hand, the cartography also shows fortified walls, fences, fortifications, castles, all emblems of refuges, places in which both the sovereign (landlord, king, authority or king it doesn’t matter) and the population can find a safe-area and protect themselves against perceived threats such as enemies, climate, or incursions. At the same time, the representation of other precincts, the gardens and privy parks are refuges of calm and artificial nature in contrast with the wilderness of outside and will be considered for their role in defining the landscape. Refuge thus has various context-related meanings, which will be examined as relationships as defined by Marilyn Strathern, embodiment as discussed by Malfouris and making as defined by Tim Ingold.

The architectural theory part will unfold as below Week 1: Introducing architectural theory After presenting the class, its structure, aims and methods of evaluation, this first class will give a brief introduction of the way in which the notion of architectural theory is understood and sketch a brief genealogy of the notion of architectural theory as series of tensions across: Simplicity-complexity; material-immaterial; body-city; language-form; institution-destitution; nature-culture) Week 2: on Archeology and traces This second week will introduce the students to the archeological perspective of the class, by showing how different operative forces that have their point of emerge in different historical periods are still operative and shaping present cities. Week 3: Introducing the Refuge The third class will introduce the notion of refuge and the way in which it offers a particular perspective to investigate architectural theory and history, framing the investigation as theory of refuge. The following weeks from week 4 to week 13 will be organized around a figure of refuge (eg: The bunker, the camp, the museum, the garden, the arcades, etc) within our contemporary city and archeologically trace its point of emergence to a specific operative forceenvironment and the class will be accompanied by readings aimed at fostering the discussion among students. The architectural history part structure will unfold as below: Week 1: Introducing archeology and history of architecture and lands The first lessons will introduce to archeology and history of architecture and lands as instruments to interpret the complexity of human settlements. Week 2: On traces: the archeologist and historian perspectives How different approaches can combine in defining the history of settlements and territories? The lessons will investigate the complexity of interaction between complementary disciplines as archeology and history of architecture (in compresence). Each human activity also leaves traces on lands and soils, these traces form the historical structure of territories. Weeks 3-13: Declinations and concordances The following weeks will be spent around specific cases and situations, exploring declinations and concordances in archeological and historical “refuges” chosen as examples, models (good or bad depending on situations and periods), conducing the students, set in groups, to choose their case-study to be analyzed.

The teaching methods are mainly organized in lectures and seminars, and in group works.

Summaries of lectures, copies of the slides used during the lectures, online lecture recordings, and other documents useful for organizing group activities will be available on the Teaching Portal. Readings will be provided on a weekly bases. Some general references are: Agamben, Giorgio. The Signature of All Things: On Method. New York : Cambridge, Mass: Zone Books ; Distributed by the MIT Press, 2009. Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge: And the Discourse on Language. New York: Vintage, 1982. Geiger, Annette. “What Is a Critical Object? Design as «desubjugation» (after Foucault).” In Critical by Design?, 32–49. transcript Verlag, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839461044-002. Sgarbi, Claudio. “Building without End: The Travails of Archè and Téchne.” In The Contested Territory of Architectural Theory. Routledge, 2022. Benjamin, Walter, “On the Concept of History”. In Selected Writings, Volume 4, 1938-1940. Edited by Michael W. Jennings, Harvard: Harvard Unversity Press, 2006. pp. 389-400. Gilloch, Graeme. Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the City. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997. Neyrat, Frédéric. “The Black Angel of History.” Angelaki 25, no. 4 (2020): 120–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725x.2020.1790841. Yusoff, Kathryn. A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. Forerunners: Ideas First from the University of Minnesota Press 53. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018. Haddad, E. 2023, The contested territory of Architectural theory. London Routledge. Chirikure, S. 2021. Great Zimbabwe. Reclaiming a confiscated past. London: Routledge. Alejandreo Zaera-Polo, 2020, Well into the 21st Century. The Architecture of post Capitalist. El Croquis. Prakash, V., Casciato, A., Coslett, D.E, 2022, Rethinking Global Modernisms. Architectural Historiography and the post-colonial. London Routledge. Kruft, Hanno-Walter 1994. A History of Architectural Theory: From Vitruvius to the Present. London: Swemmer. Bagrow, Leo 1964. History of Cartography: London, Times & Hudson. Symcox, Geoffrey. 1983. Victor Amedeus II: Absolutism in the Savoyard State 1675-1730: London Strathern, Marilyn. 2020, Relations, an anthropological account. Durham, London, Duke University Press. Descola, Philippe, 2013. Beyond Nature and Culture. University of Chicago Press. Sahlins, Marshall, 2014. “On the Ontological Scheme of Beyond Nature and Culture.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 4, no. 1: 281–90. https://doi.org/10.14318/hau4.1.013. Ingold, Tim, 2000 Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge. Mileto, Camilla, Fernando Vegas López-Manzanares, Lidia García-Soriano, and Valentina Cristini, eds. Vernacular and Earthen Architecture: Conservation and Sustainability: Proceedings of SosTierra 2017. 1st edition. CRC Press, 2017. Malafouris, Lambros, 2016. “On Human Becoming and Incompleteness: A Material Engagement Approach to the Study of Embodiment in Evolution and Culture.” In Embodiment in Evolution and Culture, edited by Gregor Etzelmüller and Christian Tewes, 289–306. Mohr Siebeck GmbH and Co. KG. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2250vc6.21.

Multimedia materials;

Exam: Compulsory oral exam; Individual graphic design project; Group graphic design project; Individual essay;

Students will be evaluated on the bases of a collective work combining graphic and written elements to be submitted at the end of the seminar. More precisely, students will be asked to investigate and present through diagrams, drawings, graphic materials and a text a figure of architecture and space, defined through the theoretical notion of refuge. The exercise aims to delineate in a way the field of tensions that traverses the adopted figure of refuge across different soils (terrains, conditions, natures), relations (with bodies, cultures, ontologies) and extensions (across temporalities, practices, geographies). The goal of the final work is to problematize a specific figure of architecture and reframe it adopting a definition (the refuge) provided by an architectural theory. Evaluation will take into consideration the active participation to debates and lectures proposed in the class and will be based on the following aspects: capacity to understand and summarize complex theoretical and historical insights; capacity to draw links between architectural theory, history and practice; capacity to interpret visually and spatially theoretical and historical notions.

In addition to the message sent by the online system, students with disabilities or Specific Learning Disorders (SLD) are invited to directly inform the professor in charge of the course about the special arrangements for the exam that have been agreed with the Special Needs Unit. The professor has to be informed at least one week before the beginning of the examination session in order to provide students with the most suitable arrangements for each specific type of exam.