Abstract:

Starting from the ancient debate whether architecture is or is not part of the good-arts system because of its contamination to a specific utility and a proper function, we should underline once more the essentiality of “dwelling” to its definition and “to Dwell” like the most inner and intrinsic character of Architecture. In this way [cf. S. Bettini] we can understand architecture as the "form of being", or "form of living" [cf. M. Heidegger] whose matter is, as sculpture, painting and, especially, music, the human being himself. We can elide in this way the gap between the ancient architect and the modern building engineer. The one as the other stay at the origin of the compositional architectural process, determining its reasons (arché - tek-ton), mixing two worlds: the one of "ideas" or their intimate representations (A), and the one of matter, techniques and technologies through which the author can materialize its final product (B). It is therefore in the relationship between World 1 and World 3 [cf. K. Popper] that intervenes the typical dynamics of the process of architectural composition. If one thinks that the aesthetic judgments intervenes only on the final product of this project, quite apart from the compositional process that intervened in shaping the object, it is inevitable to fall in a substantially romantic conception [cfr.KANT, Critique of Judgement], and educating for an authentic freedom in the act of architectural composition is impossible. If “the forms of beauty” can be many, what through which these forms are determinated by, reveals to be a process characterized by recurrent features, that is a consistent circularity between the term (A) to the term (B), between World 1 and World 3. This kind of circularity, between World 1 and World 3, need a specific communication “medium”, a sort of “medium matter”, which appears to be fundamental when an artist cannot act directly on his final object (as it is in case of architecture). In these cases he need to use a “medium matter” through which he can progressively conceive, simulate and verify his program, ideas and final results. My purpose is now to investigate specifically this medium matter in order to develop some considerations on its proper nature and required “ductility”. This medium matter is in fact the principal means through which the artist can manage the process of architectural composition. It is the fundamental “sanctuary” in which the original inner inspiration finds a first comparison with measures and matter, that is the space where to begin dynamics of action-reaction and problem-solving (cf. K. Popper). Focusing on this particular aspect, I will take into account the great changing intervened in the range of the last few years, from paper&pencil to Information Technologies and digital data elaboration as typical instrument to evolve the architectural compositional process. From a medium matter which was able to represent the final object by means of well-tried design techniques, we passed to new software which can control the process of architectural growing, once elaborated only in the artist mind. Which kind of control do these new instruments allow to the final work? My paper will finally try to investigate the main consequences of these changes (A) on the processes of education in architectural composition, and (B) on its final results: can these new instruments change the aesthetics of architecture and transform our general sense of beauty?

Keywords:

Architecture, architectural composition, Information technologies, education in art composition.