The School of Applied Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano was set up in 1865 by Camillo Boito who also inspired the socalled Italian approach to restoration. And in the Milan School the Restoration of architecture has been taught since its foundation; later on, the “patrimony” to be protected has been envisaged, in the widest sense, as a cultural resource. That long tradition has a complex history which has involved the School in relations with the public bodies and institutions responsible for such protection. However, it has also generated fertile collaboration with other areas of scientific enquiry and numerous centres of applied research. The significance of such teaching must be reassessed in the light of circumstances which are profoundly different to those of a few decades ago, and which continue to change rapidly. Bearing in mind that Italy has a long tradition of seeing architects rather than civil engineers as the key figures in such restoration, of central importance here is the issue of the role of the architecture in contemporary society, and of the discipline of restoration within the School itself. The inevitable crises and difficulties in teaching models, past and present, must then be examined. One must, once again, looks at the scale and definition of “patrimony” in the various regions of Europe, reviewing the strategies to be adopted in order to maintain that cultural wealth and hand on to future, and examine how one is to approach the process of planning which – given its object is the built environment – has to draw upon a wide range of disciplines. The huge variety in the cultural background, skills and expectations of the students now training as architects also poses a new challenge. One way to meet this challenge might be to strengthen and extend the networks linking places of education and research, both within Europe and beyond – networks which themselves include the huge patrimony of public sites and buildings that offer an extraordinary mass of material for study, examination and experimentation.

The Teaching of Restoration at the Architecture School of the Politecnico di Milano. Traditions and Perspectives

C. Di Biase;F. Albani
2019-01-01

Abstract

The School of Applied Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano was set up in 1865 by Camillo Boito who also inspired the socalled Italian approach to restoration. And in the Milan School the Restoration of architecture has been taught since its foundation; later on, the “patrimony” to be protected has been envisaged, in the widest sense, as a cultural resource. That long tradition has a complex history which has involved the School in relations with the public bodies and institutions responsible for such protection. However, it has also generated fertile collaboration with other areas of scientific enquiry and numerous centres of applied research. The significance of such teaching must be reassessed in the light of circumstances which are profoundly different to those of a few decades ago, and which continue to change rapidly. Bearing in mind that Italy has a long tradition of seeing architects rather than civil engineers as the key figures in such restoration, of central importance here is the issue of the role of the architecture in contemporary society, and of the discipline of restoration within the School itself. The inevitable crises and difficulties in teaching models, past and present, must then be examined. One must, once again, looks at the scale and definition of “patrimony” in the various regions of Europe, reviewing the strategies to be adopted in order to maintain that cultural wealth and hand on to future, and examine how one is to approach the process of planning which – given its object is the built environment – has to draw upon a wide range of disciplines. The huge variety in the cultural background, skills and expectations of the students now training as architects also poses a new challenge. One way to meet this challenge might be to strengthen and extend the networks linking places of education and research, both within Europe and beyond – networks which themselves include the huge patrimony of public sites and buildings that offer an extraordinary mass of material for study, examination and experimentation.
2019
The Teaching of Architectural Conservation in Europe
978-88-916-1837-5
Architectural Conservation, Teaching, Europe, Restoration, Politecnico di Milano
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11311/1127286
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