The University as a Settlement Principle Territorialising Knowledge in Late 1960s Italy

The 1960s andthe 1970s marked a generational shift in architectural discourse at a time when the revolts inside universities condemned the academic institution as a major force behind the perpetuation of a controlling society. Focusing on the crisis and reform of higher education in Italy,The University as a Settlement Principleinvestigates how university design became a lens for architects to interpret a complex historical moment that was marked by the construction of an unprecedented number of new campuses worldwide. Implicitly drawing parallels with the contemporary condition of the university under a regime of knowledge commodification, it reviews the vision proposed by architects such as Vittorio Gregotti, Giuseppe Samonà, Archizoom, Giancarlo De Carlo, and Guido Canella, among others, to challenge the university as a bureaucratic and self-contained entity, and defend, instead, the role of higher education as an agent for restructuring vast territories. Through their projects, the book discusses a most fertile and heroic moment of Italian architectural discourse and argues for a reconsideration of architecture’s obligation to question the status quo. This work will be of interest to postgraduate researchers and academics in architectural theory and history, campus design, planning theory, and history.

Introduction: University by (urban) design PartI Beyond campus: Chronicle Prologue 1 Another campus 1. The campus phenomenon 2. Imagining an urban Italy 3. Reform or revolution 4. Architecture or system: A parable in four episodes Epilogue 1 End of an illusion PartII Academic territories: Four takes Prologue 2 The principle of concentration 5. Exemplars of order: Vittorio Gregotti, Giuseppe Samonà and academic gigantism 6. Information à la carte: Archizoom and territorial de-institutionalisation 7. Reversing the pyramid: Giancarlo De Carlo and the dilution of the university 8. The Anti-City: Guido Canella and the nomadic university Epilogue 2 Academic instability Conclusion: Towards academic commons

Francesco Zuddas is Senior Lecturer in Architecture at Anglia Ruskin University, UK.