Friday, November 12, 2010 hours 11:00
Historical materials in the training of architects

Associazione Palazzo Spinelli
Friday November 12- from 11:00 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.

The history of the monumental architecture, in general, of the building industry is based on a series of theoretical, technical drawings and construction rules. In particular a large part of the materials we received from the past is about building material and its use. Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72) in his work De re aedificatoria adopt two ways to define materials classification: construction materials and ornamental materials.
Francesco Di Giorgio Martini (Siena 1439-1502), architect of Federigo da Montefeltro, in his treatises of ‘Architettura e Arte Militare’ describes different materials coming from the past traditions and suggests how to find them in the territory surrounding Siena. In the 16th century Andrea Palladio (1508-80) treated the theme of materials connected with the problems arising out from the mural techniques works.
Vincenzo Scamozzi (1552-1616), of the school of Serlio and Palladio focused his studies on the application of stone materials. In his publication Idea dell’architettura universale, published in Venice in 1615, he opened his studies to many international comparisons.Durante the 16th century, as testified by Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) in the ‘Introduzione alle tre arti del disegno’, there were a lot of other contributions on this matter.
After the 16th and 17th centuries the knowledge of materials were integrated with their internal structure composition and resistance. Between Italian writers of this age we can remember Girolamo Fonda, author of Elementi di architettura civile, e militare (Rome 1764), Girolamo Masi, who published in 1788, Teoria e pratica di architettura civile and the practical traditional architecture of Giuseppe Valadier (1802).
After two centuries many materials used in the historical building are currently used in contemporary building industry together with the scientific knowledge, based on the new techniques of diagnostic analyses which allow us to work on different state of deterioration and on different types of building materials as stone, woods and plasters.

Speaker: Alessandro Gambuti

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