Eleventh International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

The link between dance and architecture is of course, a metaphor. Space has been considered an integral and, occasionally, an almost palpable element of architecture since the Borromini in the 1600s. More recently, following a trajectory set by Team X, Giancarlo De Carlo noted that “Architecture is––and can’t be anything but––the organization and form of physical space.” For De Carlo, space was inextricable from the concrete elements that define its boundaries and shape our occupation, gesture, and movement. The space of a building and organization, for De Carlo, was modeled after the city. Notably, his work for the University of Urbino became both a mirror and an extension of the urban fabric. Our experience of his spatial choreography, in a way similar to a Cubist painting or a film, is a montage, garnered from moments remembered along the route or percorso. Architectural elements, never singular, seem to exist in spatial constellations. Understood as a whole, the percorso follows a distinct narrative structure and plays the decisive role in the choreography. For De Carlo, the larger narrative or discourse is integral to social space and a necessary extension of the city. This paper traces the development of the percorso as an geometric organizing structure in De Carlo’s buildings at the residential campus of the University Urbino, specifically addressing the Collegio dell’Aquilone. The greater purpose is to present a case for understanding choreography as a critical tool in De Carlo’s design process of reading the territory.