University of Trieste, University of Udine

Laboratory of Architecture and Construction Integrated Design – RRR Lab

Joint PhD Programme in Civil and Environmental Engineering and Architecture

Thomas Bisiani, Luigi Di Dato, Giovanni Fraziano, Claudio Meninno, Adriano Venudo

On Monday 19 February 2024, from 2.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m., the event " Project as a theory, theory as a project", a seminar on Costantino Dardi and the Architecture Group, curated by Thomas Bisiani and Adriano Venudo, will take place in Room 401 of the Gorizia Campus, Via Alviano 18, Gorizia.

The seminar will discuss a critical study of the archives on Costantino Dardi published by EUT – Trieste University Press in a volume entitled "Costantino Dardi. La tassellatura terrestre", curated by Adriano Venudo.

Abstract: D’où venons nous? Qui sommes-nous? Où allons nous?

‘Our world’ is full of places without any idea of a city, of projects born without any research, and of research rendered useless for lack of a project to verify it.

It is worth talking about it here, not only as a reflection on the results of this piece of research, but also in order to delineate the responsibilities that come with research. We will then inevitably - but consciously – “trespass” into other fields. First of all into ideology (the aftermath and legacy of the modern) and secondly, therefore, into today’s politics.

This first reflection thus leads us directly to ask ourselves today, again, that old question borrowed from Gauguin, and which often, in the "world of architecture", almost therapeutically, returns: ‘D'où venons nous? Qui sommes-nous? Où allons nous?’

And so, let us recall one of the architect-teachers (or better perhaps a teacher-architect), Francesco Tentori, who would often ask this question. He would ask his students and often use it as a theme for his architectural writings. Let us recall his words here:

[...] I certainly do not think I have Balzac's narrative qualities, but the subject I am about to address would require them, because it is the last romantic story - or at least suffused with a certain romanticism - of the Italian domaine bâti. A story - mind you - of conjecture rather than established truths, but one which - in my opinion - concerns one of the two singularly magical moments of Italian architecture throughout the 20th century [...]. One of the protagonists of this second "magic moment", Costantino (Nino) Dardi, beginning the exposition of his book Semplice, lineare, complesso (Simple, Linear, Complex), writes: "At the end of the backwards journey through the fifteen years of my work as an architect, I realise that the relationship between theoretical elaboration and design research can be, in my case, paradoxically reversed" [...].

We can agree with Tentori, and also with Dardi, but the (necessary) reasoning on the sense, coherence and logic of the discourse, which then leads us to the reversal that Dardi speaks of, induces possible ambiguities. And this is precisely for the reasons Tentori reminds us:

[...] the writings of architects - as long as they feel themselves to be such, as long as they do not chase after the myth of the truthful document, the source, or historical truth - are always dialectical, imbued with that faith that is the substance of things hoped for, ultimately fleeting, fickle, dialectical [...]

Free attendance within the limits of the lecture hall’s capacity. 

For more information, please write to: avenudo@units.it, tbisiani@uniti.it