History of building construction

The Course aims to consider the history of conceptions and solutions of what is a distinctive topic in architecture, i.e. the relation between space, frame and covering. Every practical and ideal motive of a building can be retraced to this field, so that its technical-structural aspects gain importance due to the “meaning” of a building.
From a methodological point of view, emphasis will be given to the study of both iconographic and documentary sources, due to the fact that accurate investigations upon the architectural work are essential in order to obtain elements useful to knowledge and evaluation. To recover the roots of architecture and therefore the very moment of building according to a historical picture helps the improvement the training of future engineers, who will acquire greater and better skills related to the theoretical and building issues permeating planning and realization stages.

Structure
The course is divided into two stages: The first one follows a historical path starting from ancient architecture (Greek and Roman) to the 20th century, thus following the “red thread” that marks the evolution of reinforced concrete. The second stage focuses on the debate on the innovation of building techniques within the Modern Movement related to the European context of “pioneers” such as Le Corbusier, Mies Van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright. In the second part of the course we focus upon to the debate on the transformation of the language of architecture due to structural and technical innovations.