What is meant by “architectural thinking”? Answers to this and other urgent questions is provided by an interview with Uwe Schröder that took place on a mild autumn afternoon in the office of Renato Capozzi, located in the fifth story of the building complex known as Spirito Santo, which is also the home of the Department of Architecture of the Università degli Studi Napoli Federico II. The questions addressed to the German architect were oriented by four central terms, all of them essential to his conception of architecture, namely city, space, history, and topos/type. In this discussion, Uwe Schröder provides a lucid explanation of his ideas concerning the city and his reflections on interior and exterior space and the analogy between the city and the house. With reference to exemplary projects for the towns of Parma, Padua, and Monopoli, his work illustrates a variety of possibilities for intervening in the contemporary city, in the process highlighting the intimate connection between theory and praxis. In this context, space is the point of departure for every architectural consideration: “At the beginning, there is the idea of space – architecture begins with the concept of space.” A discussion of the relationship between architecture and history leads Schröder to the “old and as yet unresolved question of contemporary reality and architecture, of an architecture of the present.” In this context, history is regarded as a continuum, for there exists no polarity between history and modernism: “The modern is history.” For Uwe Schröder, topos and type are fundamental elements of every architectural design. While the topos emerges as a “differentiating” moment, one that does justice to the peculiarities of the location through the specific features of the design, the type strives toward the generalization of the individual spatial intention. Finally, the discussion would hardly be complete without mention of the major design-theoretical reflections of the well-known German architect O. M. Ungers, with whom Schröder studied.

Über das architektonische Denken / Capozzi, Renato; Schroeder, Uwe; Sorrentino, Francesco. - 6:(2016), pp. 13-26.

Über das architektonische Denken

CAPOZZI, RENATO;
2016

Abstract

What is meant by “architectural thinking”? Answers to this and other urgent questions is provided by an interview with Uwe Schröder that took place on a mild autumn afternoon in the office of Renato Capozzi, located in the fifth story of the building complex known as Spirito Santo, which is also the home of the Department of Architecture of the Università degli Studi Napoli Federico II. The questions addressed to the German architect were oriented by four central terms, all of them essential to his conception of architecture, namely city, space, history, and topos/type. In this discussion, Uwe Schröder provides a lucid explanation of his ideas concerning the city and his reflections on interior and exterior space and the analogy between the city and the house. With reference to exemplary projects for the towns of Parma, Padua, and Monopoli, his work illustrates a variety of possibilities for intervening in the contemporary city, in the process highlighting the intimate connection between theory and praxis. In this context, space is the point of departure for every architectural consideration: “At the beginning, there is the idea of space – architecture begins with the concept of space.” A discussion of the relationship between architecture and history leads Schröder to the “old and as yet unresolved question of contemporary reality and architecture, of an architecture of the present.” In this context, history is regarded as a continuum, for there exists no polarity between history and modernism: “The modern is history.” For Uwe Schröder, topos and type are fundamental elements of every architectural design. While the topos emerges as a “differentiating” moment, one that does justice to the peculiarities of the location through the specific features of the design, the type strives toward the generalization of the individual spatial intention. Finally, the discussion would hardly be complete without mention of the major design-theoretical reflections of the well-known German architect O. M. Ungers, with whom Schröder studied.
2016
9783803009357
Über das architektonische Denken / Capozzi, Renato; Schroeder, Uwe; Sorrentino, Francesco. - 6:(2016), pp. 13-26.
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11588/635038
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus ND
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact