Architecture as initiatory knowledge.

Architecture as language of peace

DONATELLA MAZZOLENI
Architect
Professore Ordinario di Progettazione Architettonica
Department of Progettazione Urbana – Faculty of Architecture
University of Napoli Federico II (Italy)

In:
“Design Studio Pedagogy: Horizons for the Future”
ASHRAF SALAMA, NICHOLAS WILKINSON ED.
“Theoretical Perspectives and Positions”
The Urban International Press, Gateshead, United Kingdom. 2007) ISBN 18728110904

ABSTRACT
This paper has been written viewing the horizon of architecture from a European/Mediterranean
perspective.
It argues that any renewal of the way in which architecture is taught must take into account the
global environmental hazard. The culture of sustainable development, concern for the cultural identities
and respect for differences says that architecture can be elaborated and taught as a highly powerful
language of peace.
The Italian school of architecture can contribute to reinstating the proper complexity of the
debate. It comes from a great historical and philosophical tradition, which combines the ancient legacy
of the Academies with the modern one of the Polytechnics. In the 1960s, in the general “revolutionary”
turmoil which affected the West, politics and philosophy made a great impact on colleges of
architecture. International debate saw the proposal of many alternative teaching models. The extreme
theoretical and methodological plurality which characterises the teaching of architectonic design in
Italy today derives from this rich and complex history. Thus we offer a consideration involving several
different points of view on current trends.
In the conclusions, we return to the international scene and refer to the International Conference
on Humane Habitat (ICHH) 2005 held in Mumbai, India. On that occasion a “Manifesto” was produced
by professors of architecture from Asia, Africa and Europe, and read out as a sort of “oath” which
could unite the teachers of architectonic design all over the world and be a first written pact in the
direction of developing the teaching of architecture as a language of peace.

A KEY in 5 WORDS
AN ITALIAN/INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON TEACHING ARCHITECTURE

SUMMARY
HORIZONS: WHICH VANTAGE POINT? - CURRENT INTERNATIONAL THINKING
ON TEACHING ARCHITECTURE (Architecture in the world today - The teaching of
architecture in the world today) - AN ITALIAN PERSPECTIVE ON TEACHING
ARCHITECTURE (The rich background to teaching architecture in Italy (1900-1960) - How the
teaching of architecture in Italy has evolved in three generations of teachers (1960-2000) - A mini
survey of the teaching of architecture in Italy today (2005) – A choral definition) -
CONCLUSIONS: A PROPOSAL

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 HORIZONS: WHICH VANTAGE POINT?

This paper has been written viewing the horizon of Design Studio Pedagogy from a
European/Mediterranean perspective, and specifically from the Università Federico II di Napoli. The
ancient city and port of Napoli, in Southern Italy, was founded 2700 years ago by Greek voyagers, and
has drawn peoples of Italic, Greek, Roman, Swabian, Norman, Angevin, Aragonese, Spanish, French
and Italian origins, a true “crossroads” between North and South, East and West. The university’s
foundation dates back to the Generalis Lictera issued on 5 June 1224 by Friederich II Hohenstaufen,
King of Sicily and Holy Roman Emperor, making it one of the oldest universities in Europe and the
second largest in Italy.
In this venerable institution, founded for the study of the liberal arts and law and expanding over
the centuries to include other disciplines, the Faculty of Architecture was set up in 1936. On account of
its geographical position and history, the Faculty of Architecture in Napoli constitutes a privileged
observatory in the intercultural reflection currently on the agenda.

CURRENT INTERNATIONAL THINKING ON TEACHING ARCHITECTURE

Architecture in the world today
The most serious issue facing architecture today is surely the environmental crisis that is
affecting planet Earth (CHAUHAN A. 2005, ELEISHE 2005, MAZZOLENI 2005, RAMANI
GROVER 2005). It is vital to renew the way in which architecture is taught, taking into account the
global environmental hazard and the current state of the forces at work.
In today’s world two major systems are working against each other. On one hand there is the
imperialism of the governments representing the affluent, industrially advanced nations which export
technologies and aim to gain dominion over the whole planet through market globalization. On the
other, the resistance of the opposition movements, present both in the industrially advanced nations and
in the countries which import technologies, striving for a new environmental, cultural and economic
equilibrium and defence of identities (whether of continents, ethnic and multiethnic societies and
minorities, or landscapes, cities and places).
How is the discipline of “architecture” facing up to this situation?
The Western world propounds a global “star system” (FRAMPTON 1993) featuring an exclusive
élite, artificially constituted by the powers that be in the major multinationals. In league with
architectural opinion makers and historians, these figures are imposed as the world’s “great architects”.
The aim is to monopolise the realisation of large-scale projects the world over, and the result is to turn
architecture into an arrogant, bombastic language of war. The system of “archi-stars” (LO RICCO,
MICHELI 2003) (in reality mere icons) also operates in schools of architecture, producing negative
effects on future generations of practitioners, who are conditioned by passive imitation, narcissism and
competitiveness.
However, both in the West and elsewhere, the multiethnic cross-fertilisation resulting from the
dramatic impact of the two major phenomena of our times – migratory movements and
telecommunications – is producing a huge “melting pot”, both material and cultural. An enormous
quantity of cultural elements are decomposing and fermenting, fostered by such potent primary
passions as the elementary requisites for life and the instinct for survival. Out of this emerges a heady
atmosphere in which a totally new awareness, with its own theories and methodologies, is enabling a
more free-ranging and informed approach to architecture. This is where the roots of the culture of
sustainable development, concern for the identity of places, respect for differences, the cultivation of
immaterial values and the “significance” of habitation can strike deep. In schools of architecture we
find an emerging emphasis on the transmission of “values”, a critical appraisal of models and a
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Socratic fostering of latent potential. In this way architecture can be elaborated and taught not only as a
discipline which responds to true primary human requisites: a highly powerful language of peace.

The teaching of architecture in the world today

Over the last century in the Western world the teaching of architecture has become increasingly
technical, turning its back on its historical traditions and responding ever more to the instances of the
capitalist economy and intense industrial development.
In developing countries, which are currently experiencing a major demographic and economic
boom, we see a frenzied attempt to imitate this aberrant Western model. Architecture is being taught in
a fundamentally a-critical fashion, with a strong predilection for high tech solutions and virtual
languages. This creates a tremendous conflict between the improvised “disciplines” imported from the
West and the invaluable autochthonous building traditions, based on substantial cultures and age-old
practices (ELEISHE 2005).
Paradoxically, now that the “Western” world has reached a post-industrial phase, there is a self-
indulgent return to a neo-academic stance, an “artistic” approach to teaching architecture, in which
collective knowledge is less important than individual skills (SALAMA 2005), resurrecting the myth of
the individual “genius” and the personality cult.
In this trend, the technical-scientific and artistic aspects of architecture have been detached from
one another and undergone an abnormal development. We are losing our historical memory of the
processes of conception and construction: every salient feature of architecture is mortified in a praxis
which at best is coarse and at worst crass and pompous.
In this reality, the Italian tradition of design pedagogy has a very important contribution to make
in reinstating the complexity of the debate on architecture and its teaching.

AN ITALIAN PERSPECTIVE ON TEACHING ARCHITECTURE

The rich background to teaching architecture in Italy (1900-1960)

It is impossible to grasp the specific nature of the Italian schools of architecture without being
aware of the historical and philosophical tradition, both ancient and modern, which underlies them
(MAZZOLENI 1974,1993,1998). We have to go back a hundred years in order to get a real sense of
their substance.
At the beginning of the 20th century Italy and Europe were characterised by a tradition stretching
back over five centuries of the Academies. Starting from the Italian model of the Accademia di San
Luca (late 16th century), the Écoles des Beaux Arts developed during the 17th century in France. They
were suppressed as organisms of the ancien régime during the French Revolution but promptly
reinstated by Napoleon. During the 19th century throughout Europe the Academies institutionalised the
Franco-Italian system in which the teaching of “architettura elementare e d'ornato” (based on drawing
and the “theory of shadows”) led on to the study of “architettura teorica” or “di composizione” (the
study of the “orders” and distribution and construction typologies) and “architettura pratica” or “di
costruzione” (the study of materials, statics, hydraulic techniques and jurisprudence). Pedagogy was
based on theory, practice and study trips and characterised by a “backward-looking” conception of
history, recognising the authority of the past.
In addition to this centennial tradition of the Academies, there was a parallel tradition, labelled
“modern” although in fact already over a hundred years old, of the Polytechnic Schools (which came to

3
be known as Schools of Engineering). These harked back to the 17th century French model of the
École des Ponts et Chaussées, which during the Revolution became the Écoles Centrales des Travaux
Publics. The highly rational and technical nature of the teaching was based on an evolutionary,
“forward-looking” conception of history as progress.
The Regie Scuole Superiori di Architettura were instituted in Italy in the 1920s, grafting it onto
the corpus of original artistic tradition of the Academies, technical and scientific subjects modelled on
the “modern” tradition of the Polytechnics. Yet at the same time there was no move to close down the
course of studies in construction design in the Schools of Engineering, the direct descendants of the
Polytechnic Schools. This contradictory duality of studies of “architecture” and “civil engineering” has
never been resolved, and paradoxically in Italy two different degree courses have continued to produce
practitioners in the same profession. Within the degree course in architecture two distinct components
(artistic and technical) came to coexist, each with its own important but cumbersome cultural heritage.
To complete the panorama at the turn of the 20th century in Italy and Europe, there was a third
tradition of instruction, more ancient than the two we have mentioned so far (going back the best part
of a thousand years, to medieval practices then elaborated in the Renaissance): that of the bottega or
atélier. This ancient tradition was revived in Germany during the 1920s in Gropius’s Bauhaus and
elsewhere. It inspired the mythical ateliers of the Masters of the Modern Movement (Le Corbusier in
rue de Sèvres, Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin). It was also implicitly relaunched in Italy in the
significant break of such “modern” architects as Pagano and Terragni with the academic tradition. In
this pedagogical approach, conducted not in the universities but in the studios of professional
practitioners, the transmission of knowledge was effected through imitation of the master craftsman.

How the teaching of architecture in Italy has evolved in three generations of teachers (1960-
2000)
At the end of the 1960s (the decade in which those now in authority in Italian universities
received their education) there was a clear sensation that the legacy of the Academies had lost its
raison d’être, while that of the Polytechnics had been reduced to mere professional instruction. These
were the years in which the West experienced its last true crisis of conscience. In the general
“revolutionary” turmoil and cultural ferment which affected anything and everything, politics had a
very powerful impact on the Schools of Architecture, which were seen as bastions of privilege to be
taken by storm. In an impassioned international debate, many alternative models were put forward for a
new teaching approach to architectonic design.
The “historical left” elaborated two models which appeared at the time very “revolutionary” (but
which were to produce precisely the opposite effects to what had been intended!): a “structuralistic”
approach based on Gestalttheorie (viz the North American school; K.Lynch and G.Kepes; the
Hochschule für Gestaltung, Ulm; T.Maldonado), and a “scientific” approach (known as “design
methods”) which during the seventies was rapidly subsumed in the general boom of computerised
design languages.
“Reformist” and “moderate” models were advocated by North European schools (British and
Swedish, characterised by a well-established empirical tradition), with the architect’s formation being
influenced above all by technology, anthropometry and environmental ecology.
In the extra-parliamentary area on the political far left (the so-called “Movimento”, a galaxy of
anarchic groups which refused to subscribe to any party or institution), more drastic projects were
elaborated. A “scientific”, Marxist current pushed architecture towards sociology (France saw Henri
Lefebvre’s “anthropologie de l’espace”). An anarchic, “utopian” current extolled a “communard”
pedagogic model (deriving from the Commune des Arts founded by David at the end of the 18th

4
century, which in its meteoric life both preached and practised an absolutely anti-prescriptive vision of
instruction in the arts). This model referred to the extreme utopia of the “Learning Society”, an ideal
society in which there would no longer be any need for teachers and schools because it was able to
nurture the cultural awareness of its members quite “naturally”.
In Italy at this time students were excessively influenced by the ruthless analyses propounded by
a guru of architecture, Manfredo Tafuri, whose cultural terrorism undoubtedly left its mark on a
generation and an epoch. Adopting the characteristically ideological and rather abstruse language of
the times, many teachers of architecture had recourse to such sentiments as “architecture pretends to
contain its own laws but in reality it is ‘hetero-directed’ by social and political causes”; “architectural
projects are ‘masks’ of a ‘false bourgeois conscience’ or ‘dreams’ to be ‘flaunted with nostalgia’”; “we
must move on from a ‘negative culture’ to the ‘negation of culture’”… (TAFURI M. 1969, 1969, 1973,
1980; ROSSI LORIS A., MAZZOLENI D.1970, 1970).
What I personally remember of those years is the “spirit of revolution” represented by an ill-
assorted collage of images featuring the Beatles and Che Guevara, miniskirts and demonstrations...:
that climate or at least amalgam of “politicised aesthetics” and “aesthetic politics” which has been
accurately described by André Rézler in L'esthétique anarchiste (RÉZLER 1973). Some of those
influenced by such lectures in architectonic design gave up architecture altogether for the tragic option
of revolutionary terrorism. Others opted for such “alternative” occupations as founding a therapeutic
community, doing theatre, organic farming... The present figures in authority in the architecture
faculties represent the people who sought to make sense of the unease within the much execrated
academic “system” and continued to work in it, trusting to the potential for self-criticism which
characterises Western culture.
One of the consequences of the political pressure from the universities was a reform, introduced
by the Italian government at the end of the 1960s, giving free access to university studies for young
people from all social classes. At a stroke Italian universities, from being élite institutions reserved in
effect for children of the upper and middle classes, became institutions for mass education. In a very
few years the number of students increased tenfold (for the Faculty of Architecture in Napoli,
enrolments went up from about 120 to over 1,000 first year students). In the 1970s and 80s the courses
in architectonic design had a yearly average of 2/300 enrolments, peaking at 800 (!!!) students in one
year. This came about without any increase in facilities or human resources (whether teaching or
administrative staff). The whole “democratic” project proved to be a boomerang, and it was the
students who had been the protagonists in 1968 who found themselves, as the new batch of university
teachers, faced with a situation that was practically unmanageable. At least, however, they possessed
the right mixture of enthusiasm and recklessness to make a go of it.
This meant that, during the seventies, teaching in the Italian architecture faculties featured a dual
strand of radical experimentalism. On one hand, the playful, anarchic manipulation of languages
produced a heady (but ephemeral) season of “non directive” teaching, based on self-governing work
groups comprising hundreds of people using methods of mass participation which included
dramatisation, happenings and experiences of psychodrama. On the other hand, in reaction to this there
was a new impulse for a strongly disciplined instruction which was purely verbal and theoretical,
consisting in the transmission of rules formulated by the new “master craftsmen” (of whom the best
known internationally was Aldo Rossi).
Many of the first strand of experiments quickly succumbed to being mere para-sociological
experiences, beyond the confines of the university. Nonetheless the progressive refinement of this
tendency gave rise in time to an approach to architecture which was sensitive to input from a range of
disciplines, leading to a greater sense of responsibility vis à vis the habitat, the notion of “Genius Loci”
and most recently the aspiration to “bio-eco-compatible” architecture.

5
 With respect to the second line of experimentation, which revived the academic model in a new
guise, the rigorous system of “rules” became deformed, as a result of mass dissemination, and ended up
as a schematic set of constrictive norms. This led to the facile and a-critical conventionalism in design
which was the scourge of schools throughout Italy during the 1970s and 80s. It must, however, be said
that this tendency was the custodian of a discipline of architecture which would otherwise have been
lost.
It was not until the early nineties that a new governmental reform set out to modify the
structuring of the architecture faculties, dividing up the single degree course, which has become far too
unwieldy, into a number of “orientations”, each with its own identity (Design, Urban studies, History
and restoration, Technology). At the same time, the European model of teaching in workshops was
introduced, involving not more than 50 students; as a consequence, the number of students admitted to
architecture faculties was limited.
It was then possible for the teaching of design to begin to reacquire a clear disciplinary identity,
although after twenty years of deregulation it naturally included a great variety of facets, leading
outwards in many different directions. Following the disappearance of any legacy from the Academy or
Polytechnic, we have gone back to the model of the “bottega”, involving an apprenticeship in which
the rules are laid down ad hoc by a master craftsman. People born in the 1950s, who came of age in the
“post-revolution” years, have entered the rank and file of the teaching staff.
“Up until the 1960s very few taught a few: teaching was thoroughly absorbed in practice … From
the 60s to the 90s few had to teach very many: the teaching was entirely oral and theoretical… Since
the 90s, many teach many: some 450 teachers of design teach in 24 architecture faculties in 20
universities… They do so, with very few exceptions, knowing nothing about what the others are doing”
(AMIRANTE, CARRERI 2004)

A mini survey of the teaching of architecture in Italy today

The extreme diversity of theory and methodology which characterises the teaching of
architectural design in Italy is a consequence of this rich, complex history, in which architecture has
broadened its horizons to cover areas of political, social and philosophical enquiry, or alternatively has
turned in on itself. For the moment there is no hope of regaining any form of unity in scientific and
teaching approaches. “A good way of improving the instruction … would be to transform the clubs of
solipsistic architects responsible for teaching, and the wayward, disoriented adolescents in their care,
into a proper learning community … But how is one supposed to transform a few hundred tribes who
seem bent on ignoring each other into a community?” (AMIRANTE, CARRERI 2004).
Against the background of this history, who in all honesty could feel entitled to give a summary
of the tendencies in the teaching of architectural design in Italy today?
In an attempt to meet the brief of this volume’s curators, I thought of updating our knowledge of
the situation by means of a statistical survey based on an ad hoc questionnaire. Being well aware of the
widespread individualism and competitivity, particularly in the sector of Design, I could imagine that
the reaction to the questionnaire would be to criticise its approach rather than to set about answering it.
I thus made it clear in an accompanying letter that the questions had been formulated to obtain “data for
use in a comparative international context, bearing in mind the great diversity of the volume’s likely
readership”. The questionnaire was sent out in April 2005 using the official mailing lists of Italian
universities.
From a statistical point of view this attempt at a survey can be said to have failed. Most of the
colleagues contacted failed to acknowledge reception of the message. It is not easy to understand why:
perhaps the official mailing lists merely create an illusion of rapid, intense communications among
colleagues. The fact is that, at least in the Italian schools of architecture, this virtual forum simply does

6
not work, either for technical problems, or because people suffer from an overdose of messages, or
perhaps for ingrained cultural preferences. To judge from other indicators, it would seem that an Italian
professor of architectonic design is all for international dialogue when this can bring individual
personalities into the limelight, but becomes indifferent or indeed hostile to it when it comes in an
impersonal or institutional form. The fact is that even among those colleagues whom I contacted
directly, and who are undoubtedly open to international exchange, most did not even find the time
(minimal) to reply. Some apologised, making courteous criticisms of the binary categories used in
compiling the questionnaire or dismissing some of the questions as “incomprehensible”. This all goes
to reconfirm the extreme individualism of the “Italian professor of architectonic design”, as well as a
certain cultural intransigence.
The group of 12 professors (out of a possible 450) who replied to the survey nonetheless
constitutes an interesting collective sample of individuals open to intercultural exchange, representing a
variety of viewpoints on the state of the teaching of architectonic design in Italy today. They teach at
four different universities (Napoli “Federico II”, Genova, Venezia, Roma “La Sapienza”); seven belong
to the generation born in the 1940s who received their education in the sixties, and five to the next
generation, born in the second half of the 1950s and educated in the seventies, in some cases with
teachers belonging to the previous generation. All are now active in teaching design, eleven dealing
with architectonic and urban design and one with internal décor.
What follows summarises the various viewpoints expressed.

A choral definition
Among the general reference models specified, half of the respondents, from both generations,
recognised a debt, at least in part, to the “Revolutionary” or “Experimental” model (with the inclusion
of contributions from the human sciences and pedagogical theory); in two cases this was combined
with the “Traditional” model (Beaux Arts – Bauhaus) or “Virtual” model (CAD and simulations).. The
other half stated that they could not identify with any of the three proposed categories, and gave a
different formulation of their own position.
The descriptions provided of the methodologies adopted were of great interest, for the
differentiation not only in the contents but also in the styles used to describe it:
“We enjoy teaching architecture/We study how it should be taught/To teach architecture we have
to know how others teach it/To teach how to design you don’t have to be a great architect/We can and
must teach rules: lots of them, as many as possible/We should venerate the masters and their works;
only thereafter can we blaspheme” (AMIRANTE, CARRERI 2004).
“A pedagogic renewal must adopt the perspective of the playschool, for studying is very like
playing. Mastering a subject, such as designing a house on the basis of precise elements and rules, sees
teachers and students “take the field” together: “educating” is the difficult – or virtually impossible –
art of learning how to learn “ (BAIONE 2005)
“The project is an intellectual action situated between traditional models and new complexities.
Traditions. Identities. Rules. Meanings. Patient study of interior volume. Doubts and certainties in
conception. The difficulty and fascination of the discipline. An idea can be put into practice”(BRUNO
2005)
“The mother tongue of architecture is construction (A.Perret). I would define myself as a student
of grammar. I teach how to seek the reasons for form in Utilitas and Firmitas; I consider any outcome
that can be appreciated for Venustas (on the part of my students) as a happy accident! I give guidelines
in the history (and criticism) of contemporary architecture. I insist on construction and have recourse to
aphorisms like: “Construction is a violent matter: an ingenious perpetration of cruelty on the building
materials”. Or again, I preach stubborn patience as the chief gift of any designer. The lack of any lofty

7
aspirations (or affinities with the Material Tradition) is taken to denote a crude shortcut.”
(CARNEVALE 2005)
“We work in close contact with a real-life situation, on the basis of a sort of “call for tenders” in
which there are no typological or linguistic stipulations, with the support of a critical presentation of
‘exemplary’ architectonic case studies, with no a priori definitions” (CAJATI 1986, 2005)
“Groups of two or three students, given guidance in familiarising with the problems on site and
the conditions of the context and made aware of the international debate, define the aims to be pursued
by means of the project. They become more expert by tackling analogous situations” (DE FEO 2005)
“Intra-disciplinary, ex-catedra lessons from the teaching staff. Intra- and extra-disciplinary, ex-
cathedra lessons from visiting experts. Individual and group exercises culminating in collective @ 29/6/05 16.43
assessment seminars.” (GALLI 2005) Eliminato: h

“Analysis of significant projects drawing on comprehension of method and contents. Theoretical

investigation of aspects relating to habitat, sense of comfort and the expression of significant places in
the built-up environment. Models and computer-generated 3D images are fundamental tools.”
(GIARDIELLO 2005)
“Bring the principles of composition into line with the structural, technical and functional
requisites and reinforce one’s resources for dominating volume. In theoretical lessons, clarify the
relations between functional, structural, linguistic, plant engineering and regulatory requisites,
integration with the environment and affinities with international debate. Virtual resources must not
suffocate mental and manual skills. Using a computer is fine, but freehand sketching and the ability to
visualise a volume are not to be overlooked.” (LENCI 2005)
“Without knowledge you cannot invent. A project represents an original, individual experiment
in developing a series of data and techniques specific to the discipline of architecture, acquired early on
in workshops and seen as “points of reference”, to be transformed in the context of a specific project.”
(LUCCI 1991, 2005)
“Understanding, interpreting and using mechanisms for the conception of architectonic space, in
practice learning to think in terms of spaces. Getting students to compose spatial organisms using each
of the basic mental operations in turn.” (MARONE 2004, 2005)
“I think of the transmission of architecture as initiatory knowledge; it is not merely an aesthetic
operation but must be cognitive (in a holistic sense) with respect to the environment. There are two
parallel approaches: one using Logic, illuminated by Reason and History, involving the exercise of
Tectura; and one which is ana-logical, in contact with the ineffable sense of things and the “spirit of
habitation”, involving the experience of Arché.” (MAZZOLENI 1993,1998, 2005; MAZZOLENI,
SIMEONE 2002)
With regard to future developments in teaching, the following attitudes prevailed in the forum:
architecture is seen as a social service rather than an act of individual creativity; students are left free to
choose their linguistic idioms rather than adhere to one particular school of thought; (particularly
among the older generation of teachers) projects are to be carefully formulated, rather than offering
rapid solutions; (again particularly among the older generation of teachers) more importance is given to
the ability to investigate project contents than to their graphic expression (which, generally more
appreciated by the younger teachers, is in any case seen as a manual skill); all are agreed in valuing a
collaborative attitude on the part of the student rather than a competitive one, and the ability to accept
criticism rather than the compulsion to shine.
And with regard to the general criteria of final evaluations, the forum tended to give slightly more
weight to the cultural knowledge of a student rather than personal ability; there was substantial
unanimity as to the place of issues currently under international debate (slightly favoured by the
younger teachers) and the environmental identity of the project site (slightly favoured by the older

8
teachers). Finally, all agreed that the project’s global significant quality represents half the overall
value of the project, with the other half being shared equally among the three components of the
“Vitruvian triad”: function, form and technique.

CONCLUSIONS: A PROPOSAL
We started out by placing architecture and its teaching in the context of the major issues of the
global environmental crisis affecting planet Earth. We then tried to illustrate the specific characteristics
of the Italian culture of teaching architecture, tracing its complex historical roots in order to give an
idea of its substance. Now let us return to the international sphere to answer the original question:
which methods and tools are available for solving the issues facing the world today through the
teaching of architecture? This is bound to involve not only technical competence but also a culture of
tolerance and peace.
An attempted answer was formulated in January 2005 during the Seventh International
Conference on Humane Habitat ( ICHH ) 2005 “Enlightening Learning Environments - Education,
Research and Practice for Evolving Sustainable Humane Habitats”, organized by Akhtar Chauan and
held at the Rizvi College of Architecture, Mumbai, India, involving professors of architecture from
Asia, Africa and Europe. On that occasion an Italian contribution to the formulation of incentives for
developing the teaching of architecture was summarised in the following points:
• Giving value to the significance of architecture
• Giving value to the concept of landscape
• Giving value to the concept of environmental identity
• Giving new impetus to the cosmological value of architecture
• Promoting intercultural exchange in architectonic and environmental design
• Incorporating the contribution of women in architectonic and environmental design
(MAZZOLENI 2005).
At the end of the conference this Italian contribution went, together with others (CHAUAN A.
2005, CHAUAN P. 2005, HADIJANNI 2005, ELEISHE 2005, NAGASHIMA 2005, RAMANI
GROVER 2005, SALAMA 2005, SCHREIMEYER 2005), into the drawing up of a “Manifesto” which
constituted the Conference’s valedictory declaration, and was read out in the languages of all the
participants (English, Arabic, Persian, Japanese, Italian, Greek, German, Hindi):
“We commit to educate the young mind with humility, in pluralistic and more inclusive ways by
developing in her/him life-long learning skills so that she/he is enabled:
• To support with respect and awareness any users groups (gender, race, community,
challenge)
• To design and build with love and according to the moral code in many different kinds
of places (urban/rural, hill/desert, coast/interior, etc)
• To work with correctness and dignity in many different ways (barefoot/designer,
catalyst/builder)
so that her/his lifetime work is one more step towards building a more humane habitat where all
mankind finds its right place on MOTHER EARTH”.

9
 This “Manifesto” formulates, in extremely generic terms appropriate to such a multicultural
context, a fundamental moral commitment which should not be allowed to remain an abstraction. It
could feed back into all the schools of architecture which took part in drawing it up, and be appraised
as a possible formula for a “declaration of intent” uniting the teachers of architectonic design all over
the world. It could be a first written pact in the direction of developing the teaching of architecture as a
language of peace.

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