Introduction
Copilot
Architect, historian, critic and activist, Antonietta Iolanda Lima (Palermo, 1941) has spanned more than half a century of Italian architectural culture with a holistic and deeply humanistic approach. Since the 1960s, her research has interwoven design, teaching and civic engagement, placing the human being and the landscape at the centre as inseparable entities. As Professor of History of Architecture and History of Landscape at the University of Palermo, she promotes an idea of the discipline that is free, democratic and creative, capable of transcending boundaries and engaging with history to identify enduring processes and values.
Between 1993 and 1998, for Antonino Cardillo she is not merely a lecturer, but the figure who introduces him to architecture as a total experience: From the critical reading of sources to graphic representation, from photographic composition to editorial layout. During those years, Cardillo lives within the spaces designed by Lima—true cultural texts through which he breathes the spirit of the 1960s and 1970s and gains direct experience of space and light. He often photographs these environments at sunset, when light transforms the architecture and reveals new nuances—a practice that becomes an integral part of his formation. Through his participation in the master’s projects and research, he experiments with a method in which drawing, word and image converge in a single creative act.
Lima imparts to her pupil a vision in which building also means understanding and transforming culture. Her intellectual integrity—nourished by constant attention to history, the nature of materials, light and the ethical dimension of design—helps shape in Cardillo a sensibility capable of combining rigour and imagination.
In her relationship with Cardillo, Lima embodies the role of mentor in the fullest sense: Not only transmitting knowledge, but fostering a critical and creative attitude that finds expression in shared scientific contributions, in experiences of graphic and photographic representation, and in a conception of architecture as a universal language—capable of speaking to humanity and transforming the way we inhabit the world.
Copilot, antoninocardillo.com, 13 Sept. 2025.
