City of Signs. Graphics and Urban Space

After defining archigraphics as an “architecture of words,” we will analyse historical and contemporary case studies to reveal how three different orders (public-service information, advertising and graffiti) coexist and often clash within the urban landscape. 

The course aims to: 

• dismantle a purely functionalist view of architecture by demonstrating that inscriptions and logos are structural components of urban design;
• provide philosophical, semiotic, sociological and design tools for critically reading the signs that populate public space and for creating new ones with social responsibility and sustainability in mind.

Students will be invited to view the city as a palimpsest of textual layers, map its power dynamics and theorise design responses.

The course develops a critical inquiry into the social role of lettering, logos and, more broadly, graphic systems in the urban theatre. Moving beyond the traditional split between material infrastructure and communication, the city is treated as a landscape in which words and images fuse with architecture, actively forging collective identities, shaping perceptual pathways and guiding social behaviour.

In presence

On-site lectures are interwoven with discussion and Q&A sessions that form an essential component of the learning experience. After each class, highly detailed English slide decks are uploaded and serve as the course’s official reader.

The exam will consist of a written paper (minimum 3000 words, maximum 7000 words) and an oral interview. The written paper will be an aesthetic-social analysis of a case-study or a theoretical theme. The topic must be agreed upon in advance with the teacher and the assistant (mandatory). The paper can be written in a language of choice among Italian, English, French, and German.