ARC 342R / ARC 388R Seminar
Mon 6:00 – 9:00pm, SUT 2.110
Open to all ARC and ARI students
Smilja Milovanovic-Bertram: smilja@utexas.edu
This course explores the historical evolution and development of Italian architecture and its enduring global influence by framing the subject through the metaphor of Janus—the Roman god of beginnings, transitions, and passages. By examining key moments in Italy's architectural past, students will gain insights into how these historical developments inform and shape contemporary design.
Subjects range from Etruscan architecture, ancient Rome’s construction innovations of arches, vaults, domes and city planning to the rebirth of classical orders during the Renaissance to contemporary Italian movements of Futurism and Rationalism. Topics will explore writings from Vitruvius, Alberti and Palladio to the contemporary manifestos of Antonio Sant’Elia, Giuseppe Terragni, Gruppo 7 and Aldo Rossi.
The course will include the critical role of Andrea Palladio, through the legacy of Vitruvius, in disseminating his ideas globally. Lecture subjects will also address the influence of travel in transmitting Italy’s influence through the Grand Tour (17c. to 18c.) as well as travel by contemporary architects (including Louis Kahn and his discovery of Roman ruins, Robert Venturi and his longstanding relationship with Rome and Le Corbusier's travels to the east).
The course will also investigate Italian Rationalist architecture and its intersection with Italian cinema, specifically Neorealism, in the spatial production of lived experiences. Both architecture and cinema articulate space through time, movement, and emotional resonance.
The course will conclude with an in-depth study of Lina Bo Bardi, Italian born Brazilian architect (1914-1992). We will investigate the phenomena of cultural displacement and dissemination in Bo Bardi’s design thinking. Bo Bardi was educated in Rome, trained in Milan and immigrated to Brazil after World War II. In Brazil she evolved from her Modernist training to a uniquely humanist architect influenced both by the culture of her native Italy and the indigenous culture of Bahia in her adopted Brazil.
