The Architectural Project and the Building Construction as Fundaments of Architectural Didactics

Abstract

The transition from an architectural project into its effective realization (i.e. the verification within a real construction of the feasibility of decisions made in the phase of planning ) is essential for the growth of those who have the task of teaching architecture and for helping them to attain the necessary levels of maturity. If this kind of experience is missing, the inevitable result is a useless education and a misleading form of training. The analysis of the scenario in China and Switzerland, where some of the most interesting contemporary designers in the sector of architecture have been trained in recent years, clearly shows how important it is to entrust architectural design and planning to teachers who have not only a good level of theoretical knowledge but, above all, a concrete experience in building and construction.

In Italy during the first two decades of this new century education in the field of design has increasingly been entrusted to teachers with a theoretical and historical-critical culture and poor practical experience, and this has led to a situation of serious crisis, which partially explains the growing numbers of young architects who are leaving the country and the decrease of students in the architectural schools, a trend that it will be difficult to reverse in the short term.