Architecture

Architecture, Transdisciplinary

On Place and Site

This article is about a distinction we often tend to overlook: the difference between ‘place’ and ‘site’. Even if the two terms are both used to denote a territory or a piece of land, I hold – as others have done before me –[1] there is a reduction of meaning in the passage from ‘place’ to ‘site’: a reduction which…

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Architecture

The Alexander-Eisenman Debate on the Background of Different Spatial Theories

In 1982 renowned architects and theorists Christopher Alexander and Peter Eisenman met at Harvard University — Graduate School of Design — to debate on the concept of harmony in architecture: ‘Contrasting Concepts of Harmony in Architecture’ was the argument of that witty, biting, and ironic debate, which was originally published in the magazine Lotus International n° 40 (1983), and later…

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Architecture

Archi-textures

… it is helpful to think of architectures as ‘archi-textures’, to treat each monument or building, viewed in its surroundings and context, in the populated area and associated networks in which it is set down, as part of a particular production of space. HENRY LEFEBVRE, The Production of Space In this article, I will show how the concepts of space…

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Architecture, Phenomenology

On Architecture

From the very first time I passed under the red-black capital ‘A’ placed on the main façade just above the entrance of the School of Architecture, at the Politecnico di Milano, I seriously tried to answer ‘The Question’ every architect or student of architecture wants to figure out: ‘What is Architecture?’ Before getting enrolled at the Politecnico, when I was…

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