At school as in the city: spaces of imagination

This paper argues that schools may play a crucial part in multi-ethnic and multi-cultural urban societies; accordingly, as both buildings and institutions, schools should be given careful consideration. As a matter of fact, schools may be conceived as an integral part of the urban and social fabric, the place where education engages with specific neighbourhoods. Besides, in providing a common learning place, schools may favour integration between immigrants and the local population. The mutual relationship between the user and “architectural form” somehow recreates the relationship between the individual and his/her own community. Through its forms, the architecture of a school can also interpret the educational needs of an individual, by alternating spaces exclusively dedicated to the acquisition of notions to “vestibules” fostering the infinite possible situations of collective interaction. Framing moments of ordinary life, a school, anticipates what students will face in the world outside. The space of a school building can be conceived as a series of places, where individual personalities can be recognised as an active part of a community: changing place, anticipating the urban complexity, may favour spontaneous social gatherings. "Experiencing school spaces and places” may well become a metaphor for "being in the world", learning to get on with other people, respect rules, look after and participate in the space that surrounds us. Along this line of thoughts, this paper shall investigate a series of school buildings, in European and non-European countries, focusing on typological and figurative research aimed at “shaping places” where cultural identity can be expressed, promoted and preserved. The selection of case studies will also take into account the relationship between architecture and new technologies.