Defensive Architecture of the Mediterranean. Pisa University Press eBooks, 2023
The study presents the results of an investigation relating to an almost completely disappeared f... more The study presents the results of an investigation relating to an almost completely disappeared fortification, today made up of a few fragments, within the territorial context of Palmi and Seminara (RC), in Calabria. The fortified citadel of Carlopoli, built between 1559 and 1566, was designed according to the canons of trace italienne fortification, in one of its most elementary schemes, with four bastioned corners and a rectangular plan. Today little remains of the mighty walls: a portion of the north-west corner bastion and, presumably, a trace of the curtain walls of the south elevation, surmounted by more recent buildings. A reading of the iconographic sources referable to the fortification itself or to fortified elements related to it is proposed. After the execution of a photogrammetric survey, a planimetric reconstruction highlights the geometric ratio used by the unknown designer. Carlopoli could therefore represent a case of fortification built essentially for dissuasive and representative purposes at the same time, a wall built to discourage the landing of raiders, and to celebrate the prestige of the Spinelli family: a symbol of power to be exhibited to the sailors of the Strait of Messina. From an urbanistic point of view, it can be said that the citadel was configured as an element around which the events of the city developed, an architecture around which the historical and urban developments of the city are based, perhaps ephemeral, but decisive in the historical-morphological definition of a territory in continuous and rapid transformation.
This contribution presents reflections on the concepts of thought and movement within the mental ... more This contribution presents reflections on the concepts of thought and movement within the mental process that determines the projection of thoughts into images, images into geometries, and geometries into the matter. Some examples taken from the world of cinema, theatre, and more generally from the arts are proposed, areas in which design thinking tends to express itself, albeit through different languages, in the same form as architecture. Many answers to project questions come to mind as images change as the reasoning about it evolves, with the development of a plot, weaving data and rational elements closer to an aesthetic production involving the senses. The film Heaven and Earth Magic, evoking mental metaphors, offers a journey through the folds of the human mind. In one of the opening scenes, an emblematic image represents the profile of a head inscribed in a box. Inside the box, sequences follow one another, expressing what happens inside the mind during the flow of thoughts and being related to the impulses of the outside world. Thoughts are imprinted as images in our mind. A passage from movement to image, from image to geometry, is presented with examples such as the studies of Edward Muybridge, made through a series of cameras, and of Étienne Jules Marey. To overcome the limitations of Muybridge’s photographic system, he developed the chronophotographic rifle intending to capture images of moving subjects in the shortest possible time. In particular, a feature of Marey’s work is the production of many geometric representations of the subjects studied. What the eye manages to do instantly is widely captured, but perhaps filtered or increased, enriched, by the graphics, by the thought that becomes an image. In a privileged relationship between movement and image, the objective becomes capturing movement, transforming a series of images, apparently indistinct or particularly complex, into codified geometries. Movement is always present, an impulse that manifests in the project idea, which is nourished by the bounce between the drawing and the idea. It is a process in which images, the projection of design thinking, and the idea in motion are converted into more or less complex geometries. Drawing allows us to imprint on paper and fix moving thoughts. However, this movement is unceasing, as the conceived project is something dynamic that collapses into something static — the designed or built architecture —when it takes on a meaning that must be realised.
Defensive Architecture of the Mediterranean. Pisa University Press eBooks, 2023
The study presents the results of an investigation relating to an almost completely disappeared f... more The study presents the results of an investigation relating to an almost completely disappeared fortification, today made up of a few fragments, within the territorial context of Palmi and Seminara (RC), in Calabria. The fortified citadel of Carlopoli, built between 1559 and 1566, was designed according to the canons of trace italienne fortification, in one of its most elementary schemes, with four bastioned corners and a rectangular plan. Today little remains of the mighty walls: a portion of the north-west corner bastion and, presumably, a trace of the curtain walls of the south elevation, surmounted by more recent buildings. A reading of the iconographic sources referable to the fortification itself or to fortified elements related to it is proposed. After the execution of a photogrammetric survey, a planimetric reconstruction highlights the geometric ratio used by the unknown designer. Carlopoli could therefore represent a case of fortification built essentially for dissuasive and representative purposes at the same time, a wall built to discourage the landing of raiders, and to celebrate the prestige of the Spinelli family: a symbol of power to be exhibited to the sailors of the Strait of Messina. From an urbanistic point of view, it can be said that the citadel was configured as an element around which the events of the city developed, an architecture around which the historical and urban developments of the city are based, perhaps ephemeral, but decisive in the historical-morphological definition of a territory in continuous and rapid transformation.
This contribution presents reflections on the concepts of thought and movement within the mental ... more This contribution presents reflections on the concepts of thought and movement within the mental process that determines the projection of thoughts into images, images into geometries, and geometries into the matter. Some examples taken from the world of cinema, theatre, and more generally from the arts are proposed, areas in which design thinking tends to express itself, albeit through different languages, in the same form as architecture. Many answers to project questions come to mind as images change as the reasoning about it evolves, with the development of a plot, weaving data and rational elements closer to an aesthetic production involving the senses. The film Heaven and Earth Magic, evoking mental metaphors, offers a journey through the folds of the human mind. In one of the opening scenes, an emblematic image represents the profile of a head inscribed in a box. Inside the box, sequences follow one another, expressing what happens inside the mind during the flow of thoughts and being related to the impulses of the outside world. Thoughts are imprinted as images in our mind. A passage from movement to image, from image to geometry, is presented with examples such as the studies of Edward Muybridge, made through a series of cameras, and of Étienne Jules Marey. To overcome the limitations of Muybridge’s photographic system, he developed the chronophotographic rifle intending to capture images of moving subjects in the shortest possible time. In particular, a feature of Marey’s work is the production of many geometric representations of the subjects studied. What the eye manages to do instantly is widely captured, but perhaps filtered or increased, enriched, by the graphics, by the thought that becomes an image. In a privileged relationship between movement and image, the objective becomes capturing movement, transforming a series of images, apparently indistinct or particularly complex, into codified geometries. Movement is always present, an impulse that manifests in the project idea, which is nourished by the bounce between the drawing and the idea. It is a process in which images, the projection of design thinking, and the idea in motion are converted into more or less complex geometries. Drawing allows us to imprint on paper and fix moving thoughts. However, this movement is unceasing, as the conceived project is something dynamic that collapses into something static — the designed or built architecture —when it takes on a meaning that must be realised.
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