- Delft, Netherlands
Martina Cerra
Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture,, Graduate Student
- I am an architect.edit
Argumentation of choice of the studio Explore Lab is a studio made by the students for the studio where everyone can follow their personal fascination. This is the main reason why I chose it, in order to investigate my personal concerns... more
Argumentation of choice of the studio Explore Lab is a studio made by the students for the studio where everyone can follow their personal fascination. This is the main reason why I chose it, in order to investigate my personal concerns about a city which is going through a really particular moment as Kathmandu is. Moreover, I chose ExploreLab because of the freedom this studio is giving to its students, giving us the chance to organize everything, form the choice of the teachers to the organization of the field trip and of a workshop with a specific thematic group.
Research Interests: Architecture, Architectural History, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris (Le Corbusier), Narrative Methods, Architectural Theory, and 13 moreNarrative Analysis, History of architecture, Exodus, Salvador Dali, Le Corbusier, Koolhaas, Architectural Studies, Rem Koolhaas, Superstudio, Shape Grammer in Architecture and Tools, Archizoom, Traditional Materials, Methods, Ways of Making (Architecture and Urbanism), and Delirious New York
As Certeau stated, in the cities there are two different layers, a superficial layer and an opaque one, they cannot work on their own, they have to work together as one, in order to come up with a heterogeneous collage. The city is a mix... more
As Certeau stated, in the cities there are two different layers, a superficial layer and an opaque
one, they cannot work on their own, they have to work together as one, in order to come up with a
heterogeneous collage.
The city is a mix of different typologies of buildings, a mix of different styles, even if architects take
care of the context while designing a new building that will be insert in the urban fabric, this will be
quite different from the ones nearby, even tho the same materials have been used, or it has the
same scale of the neighborhood, or the same architectural style. Just walking through the city is
possible to see these different layers, and it is easy -overall in european cities- to recognize
different historic time buildings and see how the city developed for instance from neoclassical
buildings to 600 m glass skyscrapers. All these buildings make the different layers of the city, which
develop step by step through the decades, piecemeal, in order to let the inhabitants get used and
set to the new pieces of the city. We can say that the city can be found in its history because
seeing all the different kind of styles we can catch all the different shades the city had been
through the years; Aldo Rossi, in “L’architettura della città” stated that the urban facts are complex,
and they should have some kind of urban complexity.
It happened, in some cases that an architect was asked to design entire quarters, entire new parts
of the city, or even entire cities. Doing so, the quarters, the new part of the city, and the city, where
all placed on the same layers, everything was designed all in once, as we can see for example in
Milan, with the Bicocca quarter by Vittorio Gregotti or the Santa Giulia quarter by Norman Forster,
these are just two of the many example of design of a whole big site. Most of them , as these two,
once built, resulted as a failure; the reasons of this failure could be found in many hypothesis, but
these all have the same root, the homogeneity.
one, they cannot work on their own, they have to work together as one, in order to come up with a
heterogeneous collage.
The city is a mix of different typologies of buildings, a mix of different styles, even if architects take
care of the context while designing a new building that will be insert in the urban fabric, this will be
quite different from the ones nearby, even tho the same materials have been used, or it has the
same scale of the neighborhood, or the same architectural style. Just walking through the city is
possible to see these different layers, and it is easy -overall in european cities- to recognize
different historic time buildings and see how the city developed for instance from neoclassical
buildings to 600 m glass skyscrapers. All these buildings make the different layers of the city, which
develop step by step through the decades, piecemeal, in order to let the inhabitants get used and
set to the new pieces of the city. We can say that the city can be found in its history because
seeing all the different kind of styles we can catch all the different shades the city had been
through the years; Aldo Rossi, in “L’architettura della città” stated that the urban facts are complex,
and they should have some kind of urban complexity.
It happened, in some cases that an architect was asked to design entire quarters, entire new parts
of the city, or even entire cities. Doing so, the quarters, the new part of the city, and the city, where
all placed on the same layers, everything was designed all in once, as we can see for example in
Milan, with the Bicocca quarter by Vittorio Gregotti or the Santa Giulia quarter by Norman Forster,
these are just two of the many example of design of a whole big site. Most of them , as these two,
once built, resulted as a failure; the reasons of this failure could be found in many hypothesis, but
these all have the same root, the homogeneity.