Facoltà di Architettura, Università di Palermo, Palermo,
The lesson of history in architectural design lecture in Antonietta Iolanda Lima’s course Storia dell’architettura contemporanea, Facoltà di Architettura, Palermo
On 24 January 2011 the course in the history of contemporary architecture of Antonietta Iolanda Lima hosts, in room 4.8 of the Facoltà di Architettura in Palermo, a lecture by Antonino Cardillo, who had graduated in that same faculty in 2002. The poster, circulated six days earlier, announces its title and its place.
Poster of Antonino Cardillo’s lecture at the Facoltà di Architettura in Palermo
Introduction
Antonietta Iolanda Lima
This is Antonio Cardillo. I have spoken to you about him many times before. I should like Antonio – a very young and very fine professional who was my student from 1993 until today – to tell you, through his own story, from his formation onwards, what the lesson of history in architectural design means. And it seems to me useful, because you are in the first year, and – given the diversity of teaching – how many times will you have asked yourselves: “but the professor tells us this, and this, and this, and then when we come to design?”… you have understood what I mean. Perhaps you do not always perceive it, although I try to make it present, because I am an architect who has always loved designing and who, despite the criticisms of Antonio and, before him, of Zevi, gave up designing in order to teach. Antonio.
I met Iolanda Lima in 1993, in her course in the history of contemporary architecture, and I had the privilege of growing and forming myself through her experience. But not only through historical research: through her abilities as an architect. Working with her, I lived the spaces she had created in the 1970s and the 1980s: her house-studios, one in Mondello and the other in Palermo. And this is not a marginal aspect. Because architecture is discovered when a space is lived in – not as a visit to a monument or a museum – but when one has the privilege of seeing it change through the hours of the day, of seeing how the light reacts, how it transforms, how it changes. This is extraordinary, because it is difficult for it to happen. I was fortunate, because I had that experience.
Note
^ Antonio, as Lima customarily refers to Antonino Cardillo.
