A. Camiz, Between typology and morphology. On the use of models in architectural composition, in O. Carpenzano, A. Capanna, A. I. Del Monaco, F. Menegatti, T. Monestiroli, D. Nencini eds., Creativity and reality. The art of building future cities, Edizioni Nuova Cultura, Rome 2020, pp. 46-53 (original) (raw)

2020, O. Carpenzano, A. Capanna, A. I. Del Monaco, F. Menegatti, T. Monestiroli, D. Nencini eds., Creativity and reality. The art of building future cities

“Ars simia natura”, a concept that cuts in two the history of the arts hence the modern figurative revolution has depleted architecture to a mere branch of the visual arts: architecture instead possesses its own compositive techniques. This paper considers the dialectics between type and model in architectural composition as a metaphor outlining the elements of a design theory focused on meaning. The proposed theory founds itself on the transposition of Raffaele Panella’s teachings to the domain of Urban Morphology and adapting them for the purpose to achieve meaning in architecture. The contemporary project should accept any restraint imposed by the context, and fit within the processual evolution of the surrounding urban tissue, but by considering the collective memory it should also use recognisable elements to communicate, the design models (Carpenzano 1993). Every designer uses a model in his design activity, but not all are aware control of this creative process. The use of models in composition, not to be confused with the copy, belongs to an ancient school of thought, dating back to Aristotle, and feeding the history of architecture, all the way to the best tradition of modern architecture. We can find reference to the use of models in architectural composition in the design activity of “Gruppo Architettura” in the ‘60 in Italy and in the project for East Rome, designed by Raffale Panella, Costantino Dardi and Carlo Aymonino for the XV Milan Triennale in 1973 (Aymonino, Panella, Dardi, 1973). The other part of the dyad is the architectural type, or to better say the processual development of urban tissues, according to the Italian school of Urban Morphology (Maretto, 2013). This theoretical approach to architectural design enhances the strong continuity between the typological evolution of the built organism and the building to be designed (Strappa, Carlotti and Camiz, 2016). We can therefore infer from the context the deformations to apply on the selected models (Panella, 2008), so to include in the project not only the context and the models, but also their meaning.