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  L'ADC Monograph Series#2 (eng): Five Easy Pieces dedicated to Ludovico Quaroni

  2014

  Five easy pieces dedicated to Ludovico QuaroniMonograph by Lucio Valerio Barbera In every style: "... At that time we were young and possessed of fixed ideas, and for us the name Quaroni was associated with three things that were far removed from the idea of modernity, an idea we reckoned was worth fighting and scheming for. First there was the village of "La Martella", with its cultivated, pedantic pattern of little peasant farmers [...] Then there was the Olivetti-inspired movement "Comunità", to which we knew Quaroni had to some extent subscribed to [...] Thirdly, there was the “Tiburtino†residential district; when I visited it, I got the impression that it was an obvious showcase for provincial affectation; anything but part of a modern city. Charisma: Quaroni was sitting next to De Carlo, and had raised his upper body, leaning over the table as if it was some massive slab of rock; he had listened to De Carlo's address humbly and attentively, following every word. Now his face took on a different expression; he frowned, his brows knitted, his chin tucked in. Slowly, he uttered a single sentence: "Asserting my prerogative as Chairman of this Seminar, I reserve the right not to speak." Not to speak. A murmur greeted his statement. Schubert was stupid: A few weeks later I went to visit Ludovico in his studio where he was finding room for a large stack of records; he had piled them up on a chair next to his record-player, and the stack was wobbling dangerously. I don't remember exactly why I had gone to see him, but even at the time I soon forgot the reason; I hurried to help him with this enormous pile of music, and my curiosity was aroused “I had myself only a meager stock of records and a great desire to hear more. Elective misunderstandings: Quaroni had had a flash of fondness when I had told him about my coming journey to Milan and my visit to the BBPR studio. "Give Lodovico my best wishes (Lodovico with an "o" not with a "u" like me). I haven't seen him since he was teaching in Venice. I'd really like to get in touch with him again. Just think... I met him in 1938 in EUR. Or was it 1939? ... Letzte Lieder: All the Lieder composers, then, have objectively speaking written their last songs, their Letzte Lieder. But for most music lovers "last song" means above all the Vier Letzte Lieder, the "˜Four Last Songs", for soprano and orchestra, by Richard Strauss, written in 1947 when the composer was eighty-three years old. Music critics are agreed that Strauss, in his old age, had regained his full creative powers; the music shrouds the words in a vibrant atmosphere of melancholy, and the last song of all is pointedly entitled Im Abendrot: "In the Twilight". We would all like to see our own Master do likewise. E-book and paper copy
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  L'ADC Monograph Series#1 (ita): Architettura Integrata

  2013

  Architettura IntegrataMonografia di Wu LiangyongIntroduzione di Lucio Valerio BarberaTraduzione di Anna Irene Del Monaco, Liu Jian, Ying Jin, George Michael Riddel, Roberta TontiniPostfazione di Anna Irene Del Monaco Il libro che presentiamo, Architettura Integrata è un testo storico e attuale. Fu pubblicato nel 1989 da Wu Liangyong, uno dei più influenti architetti e maestri di pensiero della Cina contemporanea col titolo A General Theory of Architecture. Egli è figura eminente della comunità internazionale degli architetti e, soprattutto, di quel gruppo di teorici dell’architettura e della città che si battono per una decisiva riforma delle concezioni, delle metodologie e delle prassi che presiedono alla costruzione e alla riqualificazione della metropoli contemporanea. Conobbi il professor Wu Liangyong nel 2004 nella Facoltà di Architettura della università Tsinghua di Beijing; la sua Facoltà. Egli nel 1946 – aveva 24 anni – ne fu il fondatore assieme a Liang Sicheng, il padre dei moderni studi sull’architettura cinese. Da allora – sono passati sessantasette anni – il professor Wu Liangyong mantiene il suo ruolo di figura centrale della comunità accademica di Beijing, ed è costante stimolo, non solo a livello nazionale, per il rinnovamento degli studi, e, soprattutto, della ricerca teorica, metodologica e operativa sull’architettura, la città, il territorio. È, dunque, una figura rara, che ha attraversato per intero un periodo storico che in ogni luogo del mondo è stato tumultuoso per la società e la città, ma che in Cina ha forse avuto le sue manifestazioni più drammatiche ed esaltanti; un periodo fatto di guerra, di speranze, di rivoluzioni, di slanci, di presunzioni, d’orrori, d’errori, di nuovi slanci e d’incomprimibile crescita economica; d’irreversibili metamorfosi sociali e culturali e – ciò che qui, per noi, conta di più – di travolgenti crescite urbane e trasformazioni territoriali. Nella sua figura minuta e gentile il suo intelletto ha resistito saldissimo alle tempeste della storia traendo dall’osservazione degli eventi e dai principi umanistici e scientifici della propria cultura, il continuo alimento per una riflessione sempre più efficace sul significato dell’architettura nel mondo attuale, sul suo intreccio inestricabile con la sostanza della città; e sull’insostituibile ruolo dell’architetto – scienziato, umanista ed artista. Pochi anni dopo aver averlo conosciuto e aver iniziato ad apprendere direttamente la sua opera d’architetto e di teorico, gli proposi di tradurre in italiano un’antologia di suoi scritti, tratti dai tanti libri e saggi sull’architettura e la città pubblicati con continuità durante tutta la sua impareggiabile carriera. Egli mi rispose rilanciando: al posto dell’antologia di scritti propose di tradurre per intero, in italiano e in inglese, un libro di venti anni prima, appunto A General Theory of Architecture del 1989. Data la velocità attuale del dibattito culturale si sarebbe detto si trattasse di un libro ormai sedimentato nella storia. Compresi, invece, che si trattava di una pietra miliare per l’espressione del suo pensiero; un caposaldo da cui, probabilmente, erano scaturite le sue elaborazioni teoriche posteriori, anche quelle più recenti, pubblicate in altri fondamentali saggi, che spaziano nel vasto campo degli insediamenti umani toccando tutte le componenti dell’ambiente antropizzato (Lucio Valerio Barbera).   As Architect, urban planner and teacher, Wu Liangyong has played a very significant role in China over the last several decades and has been a source of considerable influence and inspiration to generations of Chinese architects, making them aware not only of the new architectural spirit that was taking root elsewhere in the world, but also of the sublime beauty (and ingenious invention) so manifest in China’s own traditional architecture – and how the life-long endeavour, reinforce by the oeuvre of work he has created in his own professional practice – including housing projects right in the heart of Beijing that are wonderful re-inventions of the low-rise high density courtyard typologies found in traditional Chinese habitat. Besides all this, Professor Wu is a wonderfully gifted artist. In fact, when I first met him he had a sketchbook and was happily recording mountains, buildings and people – all in a few masterful strokes. Today with the range and depth of his invaluable contributions, Wu Liangyong occupies a truly unique place in the architectural scene of China. Charles Correa, Architect, Royal Gold Medal RIBA (1984) Professor Wu Liangyong, a pioneering philosophical architect, who in his century has the qualities Confucius must have been thinking of in 500 B.C., when he said “humility is the solid foundation of all virtuesâ€. Rod Hackney, Past President of the Royal Institute of British Architects and International Union of Architects È altamente significativa la consonanza fra gli intenti del libro “Architettura Integrata†di Wu Liangyong, architetto, e il pensiero del fondatore della Facoltà di Architettura di Roma, Gustavo Giovannoni, ingegnere, che fin dal 1916, nel saggio “Gli Architetti e gli studi di architettura in Italiaâ€, si espresse a favore di una figura di â€architetto integraleâ€, tecnico, artista, conoscitore della storia dell’architettura. È poi quasi sorprendente come il programma e i contenuti del libro Architettura Integrata nei fatti concordi con il programma e i contenuti della formazione dell’architetto che lo stesso Gustavo Giovannoni espresse, nel 1920, nella prolusione del primo Anno Accademico della nuova Scuola Superiore d’Architettura in Roma: una formazione basata sulla costante sperimentazione dell’integrazione operativa e intellettuale tra la coscienza artistica, la coscienza storica e la coscienza strutturale del costruire; ciò in cui crediamo e che ci caratterizza ancora oggi. Renato Masiani, Preside della Facoltà di Architettura, Sapienza Università di Roma Conobbi il professor Wu Liangyong presso la Facoltà di Architettura della Sapienza in occasione del Convegno di Studio “Housing and Cities†nel 2006. Fui ammirato del fatto che il professor Lucio Barbera fosse stato in grado di portare alla Sapienza l’allievo e il continuatore del grande Liang Sicheng, il professor Wu Liangyong, che per tutti noi, non solo architetti, è un eminente rappresentate della cultura moderna cinese. Il libro Architettura Integrata, pubblicato per la prima volta in Cina nel 1989, fu redatto in anni cruciali in cui fui diretto testimone del clima culturale, esaltante e complesso, dell’intera Cina e di Beijing in particolare. Lo slancio culturale di quegli anni, le speranze, l’intuizione del ruolo che le città avrebbero avuto nell’evoluzione della società cinese, ma anche la visione delle grandi innovazioni culturali e di metodo necessarie per affrontare il futuro, tutto ciò vive appassionatamente nelle pagine di questo libro. Sono lieto, pertanto, che la nostra ex Facoltà di Studi Orientali, attraverso l’opera di traduzione della dottoressa Roberta Tontini, abbia contribuito alla traduzione in italiano di questa straordinaria opera del professor Wu. Federico Masini, Professore di lingua e letteratura cinese, Sapienza Università di Roma Le pagine del libro “A General Theory of Architecture†(Integrated Architecture) del professor Wu Liangyong ci insegnano molte cose: ad avere fiducia in una formazione aperta, curiosa e duttile, ad indagare i territori di frontiera tra le diverse discipline e a confidare nella loro fecondità nel campo della ricerca. Ne ho molto apprezzato l’approccio trans-disciplinare che ci spinge ad assumere all’interno del progetto urbano anche i punti di vista specifici di altre discipline poiché sono convinto che solo questo metodo possa produrre soluzioni convincenti e durature nel tempo. Piero Ostilio Rossi, Direttore del Dipartimento di Architettura e Progetto, Sapienza Università di Roma It is hard to think of anyone in whose works grandeur of vision and pathos are so profoundly intermingled as those of Professor Wu Liangyong. For almost seventy years Professor. A quarter century after its first publication, viewed across China’s endless urban sprawl and environmental degradation, Integrated Architecture seems both wise and naive. Like the writings of Constantinos Doxiadis, Christopher Alexander, and Andres Duany, it strives to place the architect at the center of a vast synthesis of human knowledge, grants him the possibility of understanding the relationship of virtually everything to virtually everything else, then makes him the actor who will bring the wisdom of this synthesis to the making of the world. How doomed. How noble. Daniel Solomon, Professor Emeritus of Architecture and Urban Design UC Berkeley 
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  L'ADC Monograph Series#1 (eng): Integrated Architecture

  2013

  Integrated ArchitectureMonograph by Wu Liangyong Foreword by Lucio Valerio BarberaTranslation by Anna Irene Del Monaco, Liu Jian, Ying Jin, George Michael Riddel, Roberta TontiniAfterword by Anna Irene Del Monaco   Integrated Architecture is both a historical and contemporary work. The book was first published in 1989 by Wu Liangyong, one of contemporary China's most influential architects and theoreticians with the title A General Theory on Architecture. His eminence is also recognised by the international architectural community, above all, the group of architectural and urban planning theoreticians battling for a more decisive reform to the concepts, methodologies and practices presiding over the construction and requalification of the contemporary metropolis. I first met professor Wu Liangyong in 2005 at the Faculty of Architecture at the Tsinghua University of Beijing; his Faculty. Wu Liangyong founded the school in 1949  "at the age of 24“ together with Liang Sicheng, the father of modern Chinese architectural studies. From this moment “ more than sixty-seven years ago “professor Wu Liangyong has remained a central figure in Beijing's academic community. He remains a constant source of inspiration, not only national, to education reforms and, above all, theoretical, methodological and operative research into architecture, the city and the territory. He is a rare figure, present throughout a lengthy historical period witness the world over to tumultuous upheavals in society and its cities. A period whose most dramatic and exalting manifestations were perhaps to be found in China; a period of war, of hope, of revolutions, of great leaps forward, of presumptions, horrors, errors, new leaps forward and incomprehensible economic growth; of irreversible social and cultural metamorphoses and “what interests us most as architects“ of staggering urban growth and territorial transformations. The intellect of this minute and genteel figure held fast against the storms of history. The observation of events and the humanist and scientific principles of his personal culture continuously nourished an increasingly more effective reflection on the meaning of architecture in today's world. He also clearly saw its inextricable ties to the substance of the city and the impossibility to substitute the figure of the architect “ scientist, humanist and artist. A few years after our meeting, having absorbed direct lessons from Wu's work as an architect and theoretician, I proposed an Italian translation of an anthology of his writings. The material was to be drawn from his many books and essays on architecture and the city published continuously over the course of his incomparable career. Professor Wu Liangyong responded with a challenge: in lieu of this anthology of texts he proposed a full translation, in Italian and English, of a book published twenty years ago: 1989's A General Theory on Architecture. Given the pace of cultural debate it would not have been out of place to imagine a book firmly sedimented in history. I understood, instead, that it was a milestone in the expression of Wu Liangyong's ideas; a benchmark that, in all likelihood, served as the starting point for his later theories, even the most recent. Published in other fundamental essays, they range across the vast field of human settlements, touching on all components of the man-made environment (Lucio Valerio Barbera).   As Architect, urban planner and teacher, Wu Liangyong has played a very significant role in China over the last several decades and has been a source of considerable influence and inspiration to generations of Chinese architects, making them aware not only of the new architectural spirit that was taking root elsewhere in the world, but also of the sublime beauty (and ingenious invention) so manifest in China's own traditional architecture “and how the life-long endeavour, reinforce by the oeuvre of work he has created in his own professional practice“ including housing projects right in the heart of Beijing that are wonderful re-inventions of the low-rise high density courtyard typologies found in traditional Chinese habitat. Besides all this, Professor Wu is a wonderfully gifted artist. In fact, when I first met him he had a sketchbook and was happily recording mountains, buildings and people “ all in a few masterful strokes. Today with the range and depth of his invaluable contributions, Wu Liangyong occupies a truly unique place in the architectural scene of China. Charles Correa, Architect, Royal Gold Medal RIBA (1984) Professor Wu Liangyong, a pioneering philosophical architect, who in his century has the qualities Confucius must have been thinking of in 500 B.C., when he said "humility is the solid foundation of all virtues". Rod Hackney, Past President of the Royal Institute of British Architects and International Union of Architects There is a highly indicative correspondence between the aims expressed in Integrated Architecture by Wu Liangyong, who is an architect, and the way of thinking of Gustavo Giovannoni, who was an engineer and the founder of the Faculty of Architecture in Rome, and who, as far back as 1916, in his paper Gli Architetti e gli studi di architettura in Italia, gave his support to the idea of a "complete architect", who would be a technician, an artist, and have a full knowledge of the history of architecture. And then it is quite extraordinary how the plan of action and the contents of Integrated Architecture correspond in actuality to the programme and contents involved in the training of an architect which Giovannoni set out in 1920 in his inauguration of the first academic year of the new School of Architecture in Rome. An architect's education was to be based on a regular analysis of the functional and intellectual interaction between artistic and historical awareness and the structural knowledge of how to build; something we believe in and that defines us even today. Renato Masiani, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Sapienza Università  di Roma I met Wu Liangyong in the Faculty of Architecture of Rome Sapienza University during the Study Conference "Housing and Cities" in 2006. I was impressed by the fact that Professor Lucio Barbera had managed to bring to Sapienza university the pupil and heir of the great Liang Sicheng, professor Wu Liangyong, who for all of us, and not only for architects, was a distinguished exemplar of modern Chinese culture. His book, Integrated Architecture, first published in China in 1989, was written during the pivotal years in which I directly experienced the complex, exciting, cultural climate prevailing throughout China, and in Beijing in particular. The enthusiasms and hopes expressed in those years, the realisation of the role that the cities had played in the evolution of Chinese society, but also the understanding of the great cultural innovations taking place and the approaches that were needed to face the future, all these were passionately alive within the pages of the book. I am also grateful that our ex-Faculty of Oriental Studies, with the translation work of Roberta Tontini, has had a part in the translation into Italian of Professor Wu's remarkable book. Federico Masini, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, Sapienza Università di Roma The book A General Theory of Architecture (Integrated Architecture) by Wu Liangyong teaches us many things: to have faith in an open-minded, curiosity-founded, flexible form of education, to explore the borderlands between different disciplines and to trust that such territories will prove fertile ground for research. I value highly the book's cross-disciplinary approach which, within the context of urban design, prompts us to accept specific viewpoints from other fields of study, since I am convinced that this is the only approach that can allow us to reach solutions that are reliable and long-lasting. Piero Ostilio Rossi, Director of the Department of Architecture and Design, Sapienza Università di Roma It is hard to think of anyone in whose works grandeur of vision and pathos are so profoundly intermingled as those of Professor Wu Liangyong. For almost seventy years Professor Wu has been the voice and the conscience of the Chinese City. A quarter century after its first publication, viewed across China's endless urban sprawl and environmental degradation, Integrated Architecture seems both wise and naive. Like the writings of Constantinos Doxiadis, Christopher Alexander, and Andres Duany, it strives to place the architect at the center of a vast synthesis of human knowledge, grants him the possibility of understanding the relationship of virtually everything to virtually everything else, then makes him the actor who will bring the wisdom of this synthesis to the making of the world. How doomed. How noble. Daniel Solomon, Professor Emeritus of Architecture and Urban Design, UC Berkeley  
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  Ludovico Quaroni the Architect (eng)

  Vol. 1 No. 1-2 (2013)

  Ludovico Quaroni, a native Roman, was a master of Italian architecture during the second half of the twentieth century; his talent contributed to the education – in addition to the majority of the younger generations of architects in Italy – of Carlo Aymonino, Manfredo Tafuri and Antonino Terranova. He also constituted one of the fundamental references to the elaboration of Aldo Rossi’s theories on the city. An architect and urban planner, professor and author, Quaroni represents the most open and inclusive methodological and linguistic experimentalism and the most progressive identity of modern Italian architecture, founded on the close relationship between historic culture, social and contextual awareness, a scientific understanding of design and a passionate investigation of the future; courageous and unbridled. In adopting his name for the review presented today, the Scientific Society intends to return to the discussion of the Architecture of Cities at a time when methodologies, technologies, relationships between the scales of design, the formal and symbolic meanings and languages of the city, everything about which modern Western urban culture appeared certain, now appear overrun by the vertiginous nature of the most rapid and imposing urban expansion in human history, sweeping across both ancient and new continents.L'ADC n.1-2/2013 eng: edited by Anna Irene Del Monaco, Antonio Riondino, Rossella Rossi, Ettore Vadini.http://www.nuovacultura.it/prodotto.php?ipd=1870
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  Ludovico Quaroni l'Architetto (ita)

  Vol. 1 No. 1-2 (2013)

  Ludovico Quaroni, romano, è stato un maestro dell'architettura italiana nella seconda parte del secolo scorso; il suo magistero ha contribuito a formare – oltre a tanta parte delle più giovani generazioni di architetti del nostro paese – Carlo Aymonino, Manfredo Tafuri, Antonino Terranova ed ha costituito uno dei fondamentali riferimenti dell’elaborazione teorica di Aldo Rossi sulla città. Architetto e urbanista, docente e scrittore, Quaroni rappresenta lo sperimentalismo metodologico e linguistico più aperto e inclusivo, la parte più progressiva dell’identità dell’architettura italiana moderna, fondata su uno stretto rapporto tra cultura storica, sensibilità sociale e contestuale, perizia scientifica del progetto e appassionata ispezione del futuro; coraggiosa, senza freni. Adottando il suo nome, dunque, la Società Scientifica, con la rivista che qui presentiamo, intende riprendere la discussione sull’Architettura delle Città in un momento nel quale metodologie, tecnologie, rapporti tra le scale di progettazione, significati e linguaggi formali e simbolici delle città, tutto ciò di cui la moderna cultura urbana occidentale sembrò, per un attimo, certa, sembra ormai travolto dalla vertigine della espansione urbana più veloce e imponente dell’intera storia dell’umanità, nei continenti più antichi e nei più nuovi. Ebook and paper copy