Forms of Housing

Housing is a historical condition: it therefore changes with society and the individuals who are a part of it. The course discusses some fundamental transformations of housing and the reasons for them. For instance: how and where did the bourgeois home originate, and how has it changed over time? The same question will be applied to other types of architecture: prison, hospital, collective housing and factory space. To understand the genesis and the changes in all these spaces, it will be necessary to investigate the scientific and moral paradigms of a given period, the political and anthropological changes and technological innovations. At the end of the course some questions will be raised about the profound transformation affecting contemporary space, its places and the idea of “housing” itself.

The course offers the opportunity to explore architectural theory from a perspective normally neglected by architectural history. In fact, it is about thinking about architectural forms in relation to the complex interplay of different intertwined social variables: politics, epistemology, dominant ethical, medical and anthropological paradigms, technological developments. The aim of the course is to develop a critical awareness of the historical condition of living.

In presence

80% Lectures
20% Seminars

Oral during the exam session

Paper