Geometry and Graphics in Spatial Invention: among Mind, Hand, and Digital Means

ABSTRACT_Aiming to discuss about the ‘spatial invention’ in Architecture, Environment, and Design, we have to consider, at least, the related domains of Art, Science, Technique, and then, we have to accept the risk of slipping in a way apparently not strictly connected with Mathematics. As an architect, in fact, I am firmly persuaded of the old concept regarding the ‘complexity’ of the life space. Which is not, as Christian Norberg-Schulz said, a simply abstract space, but an “existential” space for the human beings, in other terms, a physical space enriched with material and spiritual traces and works of the human presence. Maybe, an ‘old fashion’ question but, with the university educators, it is deeply felt the difficulties of the students in front of a white paper, or of a black screen, at the beginning of a new project, and most of all, a sort of cultural fracture between tradition and the innovative approaches to the knowledges in the field of visual representation. At last, I think, two good reasons, both from a disciplinary and from a didactical point of view, to insist on these topics.