Inventing and Building the Alps (MSTAA)

The course analyses the evolution of the alpine territory through a twofold perspective. Taking account of some cultural and intellectual approaches that developed in Europe between the second half of the 18th century and the 20th, the first perspective analyses the construction of the image of the Alps in its different dimensions, in particular the aesthetic-landscape image, the anthropological and, finally, the political and social. The second perspective examines the processes of anthropisation of the alpine territory over the last two centuries. On the basis of the dynamics of settlement and some themes of urban and alpine architectural expression, the course brings out the complex relationships that the alpine territory, with its economic and social components, has formed with the extra-alpine urban world.