After successful completion of the course, students are able to...
After successful completion of the course, students should have gained a good understanding of the cultural and architectural essence of the city. The research material collected during the trip (drawings, photographic documentation, data, interviews, personal reflections, and so on..) will become the foundation for the further development of the projects. The excursion is considered as a reflexive, research-based moment of the semester, in which knowledge is not passively consumed, but actively produced.
INTRODUCTION
The excursion will be in Palermo, from Sunday the 29th of October to Thursday the 2nd of November.
During this time students will be exposed to the peculiar urban and ‘lifestyle’ of the city that for centuries has been a model of a mixed and open society. Indeed, Palermo is a planetary city, the capital of a transnational world in which ‘we are all migrants, natives of the universe’. Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Spaniards, Savoys, Austrians, Bourbons, Italians, Americans and countless others. Palermo has been home to many over the last three thousand years. Its strategic position at the heart of the Mediterranean, between Europe and Africa, between the Pillars of Hercules and Jerusalem, has led to constant migrations, transformations and overlapping lifestyles. The cultures of Palermo's past underpin contemporary life in every corner. From Hippodamian town planning to botanical gardens and modernist social housing, from the bustling port to Baroque villas, from Monte Pellegrino to the Tyrrhenian Sea. From Archimedes to Giovanni Falcone, from Friedrich Barbarossa to Paolo Borsellino.
Over the centuries, the island's strategic position in the Mediterranean has made it an ideal crossroads for commercial and cultural exchanges. The deep cultural stratification and the massive waves of migration to the island have transformed Sicily into a unique colourful mosaic of architectural fragments and identities. Beginning with the Greeks, then to the Normans and continuing through later periods until the XVIII century, the noble villas and palaces of Palermo have become typical architectural models for the urban and suburban development of the city: living mirrors of the Norman Palace, an oasis of cultural interference and scientific cross fertilisation. These noble residences have evolved, incorporating different architectural spatialities and variegated lifestyles, resulting in a varied and fascinating portrayal of Sicily's history. An island that wanted to be the image of the world.
Today, the phenomenon of the unfinished and abandoned is a distinctive feature of Palermo's architectural landscape, particularly evident in the city centre. In 2018, as part of the curatorial analysis commissioned by Manifesta12 to the architectural firm OMA, a large number of abandoned buildings (181) in the city centre were mapped, ranging from beautiful palazzos to industrial structures.
Palermo's baroque palaces and villas will be our figures of thought, in which we will analyse abstract types and concrete lifestyles from which we can learn; the 181 unfinished and abandoned sites will be our field of action, in which we will translate forms of living appropriate to today.
HARD FACTS
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
The total number of students is 35
The excursion is prepared by a series of meetings and preparatory work done both by teachers and students
The excursion is a standalone as, despite being theoretically related to the research in design courses, it is formally independent
The total amount of curricular hours spent by both teachers and students is roughy 50
The excursion starts with two preparatory meetings of both 4 hours each. In such meetings teachers illustrates the ‘in situ’ research and the preliminary exercises to accomplish to participate in the excursion. Students will work in couples and each couple will study a specific building (either villas or palaces) that the group will visit during the excursion.
During the third meeting each couple will present their research through drawings and extended booklets and together with the teachers, they will highlight precise types structuring and qualifying a compendium for the excursion.
The excursion will last for five days and during this time the group will meet local experts that will guide us through the the main lines of inquiry: structure of the city, villas and palaces analysed by the students during the first two meetings, sites of expectational relevance for the overall research of ‘anamnesis’. Each day the inputs students will receive will last for 5 hours, while the rest of the day will be dedicated to city scape trips.
During the excursion students will participate in ‘hands on’ workshops with committees and local experts in order to fully grasp the character and the soul of the city. In such workshops, students will produce analysis in the form of drawings, models, visualisations and comparative understanding of the buildings they previously studied. Each workshop will be of about 4 hours each.
After the excursion there will be two meetings of both 5 hours each in which students will present a ‘memoir’ of the excursion and they will refine the compendium previously installed in order to sharpen it according to the experience had in the excursion.
A final meeting in the form of a small exhibition will show the work.
The examination is done through the participation and engagement to the excursion.
The Excursion is related to the design studios:
