POLITesi - Archivio digitale delle tesi di laurea e di dottorato, 2020
From a historico-philosophical reading of graveyards and their development into the modern cemete... more From a historico-philosophical reading of graveyards and their development into the modern cemetery form, the thesis investigates the political scope of funerary spaces by articulating concepts of territoriality, politics, and monumentality. The role of architecture as the formalising element of death will be illustrated through paradigmatic examples in history, with fictional or unrealised project for cemeteries offering a glimpse into the potential for cemeteries to operate either as enforcers of societal norms or as transgressors to them. The central portion of this work puts forth a succinct architectural theory for the contemporary large-scale cemetery. Arguments are drawn from a range of urban theories, in particular those of Aldo Rossi in L'architettura della città and of O.M. Ungers in Die Stadt in der Stadt. The contradictions that arise from such an operation are not wholly denied nor embellished. Instead, a series of exits towards expanded readings of death in the contemporary city are proposed. These ramifications are characterised by the problematisation of death and its spaces outside of traditional architectural theory and towards issues of identity, nationhood, and signification in the age of global migration flows and the dissolution of unitarian identities. With a critical understanding of death and monumentality established, the thesis shifts its attention to one specific cemetery case, Cimitero Maggiore in Milan, and develops a global analysis of it on both urban architectural levels. Accompanying the text are a series of schemes and illustrations by the author which suggest an alternative mode of thinking of the cemetery's future by proposing analogies to the city and its diverse architectural types. This graphic conclusion posits the possibility of conceiving an architecture for death which fosters open-ended narratives for a society increasingly marked by diversity in faith, norms and identity.
This paper explores the condition of representation methods inside the field of Architectu... more This paper explores the condition of representation methods inside the field of Architecture in regards to their philosophical and historical precondition. Focus is given to the role of technologies and techniques throughout the centuries, from Renaissance, to the inception of mass media in the late nineteenth-century and the contemporary condition of digital technologies.Three main paradigms of representation are outlined: the describing of reality through drawing, the capturing of reality through photography and the simulation of reality through digital tools. To illustrate these concepts, examples are drawn from Art and Architecture such as the artistic explorations of the French Beaux-Arts school, the use of photography by Modernism and the inception of digital visualisation by the end of the twentieth-century.The second portion of the work focuses on the contemporary situation, exploring the limits of current technology in the simulation of virtual spaces, and the implications for a praxis immersed in an economy of images.As a conclusion, the author posits the possibility for a ‘critical image-making’ stance that takes advantage of the technologies and modes of representation available while acknowledging their inherent limitations as fragmentary tools.
POLITesi - Archivio digitale delle tesi di laurea e di dottorato, 2020
From a historico-philosophical reading of graveyards and their development into the modern cemete... more From a historico-philosophical reading of graveyards and their development into the modern cemetery form, the thesis investigates the political scope of funerary spaces by articulating concepts of territoriality, politics, and monumentality. The role of architecture as the formalising element of death will be illustrated through paradigmatic examples in history, with fictional or unrealised project for cemeteries offering a glimpse into the potential for cemeteries to operate either as enforcers of societal norms or as transgressors to them. The central portion of this work puts forth a succinct architectural theory for the contemporary large-scale cemetery. Arguments are drawn from a range of urban theories, in particular those of Aldo Rossi in L'architettura della città and of O.M. Ungers in Die Stadt in der Stadt. The contradictions that arise from such an operation are not wholly denied nor embellished. Instead, a series of exits towards expanded readings of death in the contemporary city are proposed. These ramifications are characterised by the problematisation of death and its spaces outside of traditional architectural theory and towards issues of identity, nationhood, and signification in the age of global migration flows and the dissolution of unitarian identities. With a critical understanding of death and monumentality established, the thesis shifts its attention to one specific cemetery case, Cimitero Maggiore in Milan, and develops a global analysis of it on both urban architectural levels. Accompanying the text are a series of schemes and illustrations by the author which suggest an alternative mode of thinking of the cemetery's future by proposing analogies to the city and its diverse architectural types. This graphic conclusion posits the possibility of conceiving an architecture for death which fosters open-ended narratives for a society increasingly marked by diversity in faith, norms and identity.
This paper explores the condition of representation methods inside the field of Architectu... more This paper explores the condition of representation methods inside the field of Architecture in regards to their philosophical and historical precondition. Focus is given to the role of technologies and techniques throughout the centuries, from Renaissance, to the inception of mass media in the late nineteenth-century and the contemporary condition of digital technologies.Three main paradigms of representation are outlined: the describing of reality through drawing, the capturing of reality through photography and the simulation of reality through digital tools. To illustrate these concepts, examples are drawn from Art and Architecture such as the artistic explorations of the French Beaux-Arts school, the use of photography by Modernism and the inception of digital visualisation by the end of the twentieth-century.The second portion of the work focuses on the contemporary situation, exploring the limits of current technology in the simulation of virtual spaces, and the implications for a praxis immersed in an economy of images.As a conclusion, the author posits the possibility for a ‘critical image-making’ stance that takes advantage of the technologies and modes of representation available while acknowledging their inherent limitations as fragmentary tools.
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Papers by Enzo Nercolini