Firmitas, utilitas, venustas: for the rebirth of a humane architecture

Frascati and Monte Porzio Catone, April 26-28 2024

"Firmitas, utilitas, venustas: for the rebirth of human architecture" is the title of the international conference to be held from next Friday, 26 April, to Sunday 28, in Frascati, in the splendid venues of Villa Falconieri and Villa Mondragone.

Organised by the Academy Vivarium Novum, the meeting aims to identify architectural and town-planning criteria that respond to the material and spiritual needs of human beings, who on the one hand aspire to proportion, balance, venustas (beauty) and firmitas (solidity), and on the other require lively social interactions, within shared spaces marked by utilitas (usefulness) and the harmonious coexistence with others.

The speakers, including founders and winners of the prestigious Driehaus Prize, professionals and professors of the practice, as well as urbanists and sociologists, will come from different parts of the world to present their work and proposals that, although characterised by methodologies and techniques specific to their countries of origin, pursue the common objective of an architecture that responds to the needs of human living, and not vice versa.

Modernism, which in the last century expressed the demands of technological progress, introducing new aesthetic and cultural modes, has also created uninhabitable spaces, in contrast with the surrounding environment, with historical pre-existences, with local traditions, and above all with the needs and innate sociality of human beings.

In this sense, the aim of the conference and its organisers is to invoke a renewal of cultural, artistic and architectural practices, in order to place the natural human disposition towards harmony, beauty and peace at the centre of their work, while also pursuing an idea of continuity, rather than rupture, with the natural and cultural landscapes formed over the centuries.

The conference has the moral patronage of the School of Architecture of the University of Notre Dame, the international movement New Traditional Architecture, the University of Rome 'Tor Vergata', the FAI Fondo per l'Ambiente Italiano - Rome Delegation, the Order of Architects of Rome, the Order of Engineers of Rome, Pulchria, Studio ACAM, and the Festival of Innovation of Frascati.

Information about the program and participation modalities are published on the website of the Academy Vivarium novum: https://vivariumnovum.net/en/events/congresses/24-04-firmitas-utilitas-venustas

Speakers include (in alphabetical order):

• Maher Abu-Samra (MAS Design Studio, Jordan)
• Thomas Albrecht (Hilmer, Satter, Albrecht Architects, Germany)
• Evan Amato (Rewire the West, Italy)
• Maxim Atayants (Maxim Atayants Workshop, Russia)
• Ulrich Becker (Adam ve Rehov, Israel)
• José Cornélio da Silva (Portugal)
• Michael Diamant (New Traditional Architecture, Sweden)
• Nils Freckeus (Nils Freckeus Architects, Sweden)
• Alejandro García Hermida (School of architecture of the Universidad politécnica de Madrid, Spain)
• Tomasz Geras (Architektura Klasyczna, Poland)
• Ana-Maria Goilav (Bunesti School, Romania)
• Craig Hamilton (Craig Hamilton Architects, UK)
• Michael Lykoudis (University of Notre Dame, USA)
• Ettore Maria Mazzola (University of Notre Dame, Italy)
• Eric Norin (Tradition Arkitekter, Sweden)
• Oleh Stepunin (Studio Praktik, Ukraine)
• Duncan Stroik (University of Notre Dame, USA)
• Jonathan Weatherill (University of Notre Dame, Italy)
• Mark Wilson Jones (Apollodorus Architecture, UK)
• Samir Younés (University of Notre Dame, USA and Lebanon)

Conferenza stampa tenuta presso la Camera dei Deputati

https://webtv.camera.it/evento/25228

Video di presentazione