Università Roma Tre

The starting hypothesis imagines that the territory is like a sort of huge truthful not falsifiable palimpsest, on which the different cultures are destined to write their own chapter of the humanity historical narration, usually reusing, in whole or in part, the structural traces of previous generations. Settlements, fabrics, paths and boundaries constitute the implied categories of primary elements to be considered in reading. That aims approximately to reconstruct backwards scenarios, based on the same logic of projects that contributed in the various periods to build what can be precisely defined 'permanent substratum structures'.
The course aims at giving, through lessons, lectures and site visits, an overview of the way of reading the territory at the different scales: of the landscape, of the urban settlement, of the living practices and of the community expressions.
Based on specific case-studies, the course will deal with the topics concerning the man-made activities aimed at modifying a geographical context for satisfying the human necessities: to travel, to build settlements, to inhabit, to exploit it for the subsistence, to have exchanges and relationships, to represent a community.
Through the presentation of the case-studies the cultural tools and the operational methodologies will be exemplified for the definition, also on digital base, of 'organized forms of knowledge' useful for the documentation, for the characterization for planning purposes, for the communication of peculiar cognitive data related to the environment and settlements man-made transformation processes and for the vernacular language of the material culture of which building typologies and their components are the expression.

references and bibliography are given during the course

Eyes that look beyond
... The construction of thought and especially of creative activities, depends on our ability to ask questions, to interact with what constitutes our vital context, that is, our past. In this sense the territory (the landscape and its archaeology), in the absence of the man who interrogates him is always indeterminate, unconscious, neither beautiful nor ugly, without borders, without center. Place of the disorientation of the mind. It's up only to us his completion in shapeEducation to understand the things that surround us (so the critical ability to interrogate reality ) listening to the echo of the past that innervates and permeates the sensitive (that descending motion towards the first language ) "... marks the way to access the root from which the expressive reasons of things depart: to go down to the root means to reach the foundation, to the silence from which no word has separated."

T. W Potter, Storia del paesaggio dell'Etruria meridionale. La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1985
R.Assunto, Il paesaggio e l’estetica, Novecento 2006
S. Schama, Paesaggio e Memoria, Mondadori,

F. F.Armesto, La nascita delle civiltà, Mondadori, 2010

The optional course “Art and Sciences of the Territory” is part of the training activities in the degree course in Architecture.

The third module of this course is aimed at providing critical knowledge on the main themes and problems concerning the recurrent modes of historical construction of the living environment. Habits of both living and building are presented in relation to the theoretical and applicative dimension by exposing specially selected study cases. The examples are considered in the frame of their historical development and are connected to other disciplines and research fields (art, history, documentation and representation, anthropology and geography).

As part of this process, the course is aimed at achieving the following learning outcomes:

1) The understanding of the educational and transformative processes of Heritage and Landscape.
2) The ability to trace, contextualize, analyse and critically interpret historiographical sources both direct (critical and targeted surveys) and indirect (bibliographic, iconographic, cartographic, archival documentaries)
3) The propensity to practice creating information management systems in digital form and on a geographic basis.

The course takes place during the first semester of the third year of the Degree in Architecture.
The third module of the course consists in lessons related to three thematic groups: introductory lessons illustrate the theoretical and methodological themes concerning general concepts of the Landscape and Heritage and the normative repertory that regulates them; the work after consists in lectures and in in-depth seminars concerning general themes held through presentation of models of analytical behaviour, demonstrated by discussing real examples at the scales of the territory, of the settlement, of the architecture and of its components. The lessons of the third thematic nucleus present a propositional synthesis; they consist in the exposition of organizational models useful to digital management of historical and geographical informations.

Pugliano A. The Recognition, the Documentation, the Catalog of Architectural Heritage. Elements of a constituting Thesaurus useful for Knowledge, Protection, Conservation of Architecture, 2 vols. Rome: Prospective editions; 2009.

In this course students gain familiarity with techniques and methods for understanding and documenting the historic-formative character of historic centres, including the various phases that have formed and transformed the urban fabric; construction types; their mutation over time; identification of “coherent” modification and distinction from incoherent or damaging changes that should be removed. Particular attention is devoted to recognising and understanding pre-modern construction techniques, architectural elements and finishes, with the intention of reusing these in contemporary architectural and urban restoration.

G. Caniggia, G.L. Maffei, Composizione architettonica e tipologia edilizia. 1. Lettura dell’edilizia di base, Marsilio editore, Venezia 1979