Armillary Lectures: Alessandro Benetti

The French and Italian critical discourses on the transformations of the coasts, 1950s-1980s.
Media, actors, representations

The French and Italian coasts underwent major upheavals between the 1950s and the mid-1980s, driven in particular by the rise of mass tourism. An unprecedented wave of new, often innovative and experimental architectures, seaside towns and infrastructures were built over the course of these three decades. As a result, these areas became the focus of lively critical discourses, involving a multiplicity of actors, media and audiences. Our study is built at the intersection of these two levels: the analysis of coastal transformations feeds into the study of the criticisms, commentaries and controversies they have provoked, deepened through a series of their representations. In particular, we focus on critical discourses that have spread beyond expert circles, addressed to a non-specialized audience. To this end, we draw on a wide range of sources, some of which are new to the history of criticism: architecture and urban planning magazines, cultural weeklies and daily newspapers, television broadcasts and association newsletters. Through the prism of a specific period and territory, as well as through the use of an original selection of sources, this thesis aims to suggest a possible broadening of the research field of the history of criticism.

Alessandro Benetti (1987) is a licensed architect and holds a double PhD in History of Modern and Contemporary Architecture. He is research fellow at the DAD – Dipartimento di Architettura e Design of the Politecnico di Torino, teaching assistant at Politecnico di Milano and guest lecturer at Université Rennes 2. His research interests focus on the history of Italian and French architecture in the second half of the 20th century, as well as on the history of architectural criticism, its actors, media and audiences, over the same period. He is a regular contributor to the architectural magazine Domus, editor-in-chief of the house organ Urbano and a member of the editorial board of the scientific journal JADH – Journal of Architectural History and Design. His articles have been published on the architectural press in Italy, France and Germany, on Abitare, Arch+, Area, D’Architectures, Interni, Platform Architecture & Design. He is member of the Board of Directors of ANCSA, the Italian National Association for Historic Artistic Centers.
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On the lecture series:

Armillary spheres are “models of the celestial globe constructed from rings and hoops representing the equator, the tropics, and other celestial circles, and able to revolve on its axis.” This lecture series wants to be a window onto the sphere of academic research, gazing at the different constellations drawn by doctoral dissertations within the horizon of architecture. The course aims to invite researchers who have already obtained a Ph.D. to present their dissertations to an audience of Ph.D. candidates, providing a diverse array of examples and case studies on approaching dissertation work within the field of architecture.