協働の産物としてのアルド・ロッシ『都市の建築』

L'architettura della città, published by Aldo Rossi (1931-1997) in 1966, received a worldwide audience in the age of postmodernism. However, in this acceptance, less attention has been paid to the original context in which the book was written. In this respect, it is useful to refer to three published documents of the course entitled “Caratteri distributivi degli edifici” held by professor Carlo Aymonino and other assistants, including Rossi, at Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia between 1963 and 1966, because in the same period as this course, Rossi was writing his book. This article aims to investigate closely these materials, and clarify what Rossi's book owes to the collaboration in the course.<br> In 1960's, when the course was held, Italian cities faced several problems, including large number of urban migrants in search for work, the decay of functionality of the historic center and the phenomenon of urban sprawl. The overview of the course documents makes clear that the instructors of the course were interested in the specific issues for architecture such as the failure of the national housing supply program (INA-Casa), the exploration of new concept of facilities in relation to the city, and the necessity to establish a new discipline for urban study from view point of architecture. Rossi's book also shares these interests, while not clearly referring to them.<br> It was Carlo Aymonino who offered the general framework for research and discussion in the course. In the lectures, he set the main theme for the course as study of the cities from the point-view of “urban morphology and building typology.” In his lectures, Aymonino developed the arguments about this framework. At first, he pursued the history of the formation of the modern concept of building typology from Enlightenment culture to the modern movement. In parallel, he investigated the evolution of proposals of urban forms during that period. Although in his book Rossi assumes the viewpoint of the urban form as main approach to the city and the concept of building typology as analytical tool, he only refers to the course materials of Aymonino, and did not precisely explain these two ideas. This shows that Rossi's book is based on Aymonino's general framework for urban study.<br> In contrast to Aymonino's arguments, in the course Rossi's lecture played the role of establishing a methodology for urban study. His lectures had mainly three directions of methodological discourses: clarification of the architectural particular approach to the city in comparison with other disciplines (economy, politics and sociology), identification of the city as research object, and description of the city including criticism of functionalism. The same discussions about the methodology for urban study can be found in introduction and first chapter of Rossi's book.<br> In conclusion, the relation between the course at Venice and Rossi's book, L'architettura della città can be summarized in three following points. Firstly, the course and Rossi's book share the same interests for the urban issues at that time, which the former shows clearly while the latter does not refer to directly. Secondly, Rossi's book borrows its general framework of discussions about the city from the lectures of Aymonino and numerous references from the ones of other assistants. Therefore, it can be said that Rossi's book is a fruit of the collaboration in the course at Venice. Finally, the distinctiveness of Rossi's book can be identified with his contribution to the course at Venice, in other words, establishment of the methodology for urban study.