INCIPIT. Aproximaciones y transgresiones hacia un léxico compositivo

Knowledge of compositional theories is not an absolute guarantee of success in architectural design when applied mechanically. At the same time, it is our task to ensure that the pragmatic impulse prevalent in our contemporary times is counterbalanced, as always happened in previous eras, by a laborious dialogue with a system of values and rules that is anything but fixed or immutable, yet useful in shaping the places and spaces we inhabit. All this appears even more necessary if we consider the teaching of composition. As teachers, we remain interested in the mechanisms that produce knowledge in those territories where architecture is generated such as the first-year of architectural education, or, the founding moment of disciplinary knowledge. This short text and the related images draw on the program of the theoretical course Elements of Architectural Composition, recently reintroduced at the School of Architecture of Cagliari (Italy), which presents a didactic experimentation structured around canonical projects treated as empirical episodes, rules treated as clues, architectures treated as artifacts.