CAPItalia 2005 was a collaborative field study linking students from Ball State's College of Architecture and Planning with Students from the Politenico di Milano's Department of Building Environsmental Sciences and Technology. The objective of this program was to engage a multi-disciplinary group of students from both universities in seminary discussion groups in Milan and field activities in the Comune di Cernobbio on Lake Como in northern Italy. The work focused on planned preservation, cultural heritage, and the legal framework of integrated cultural systems. Intensive site analyses of the city's built environment, and condition assessments of three specific buildings, resulted in several reuse options for the street of Via Regina, the grounds surrounding Villa Bernasconi and possible functions for the buildings evaluated.
The goal of this project was to continue a collaboration of several years between Jonathan Spodek (Ball State University) and Elisabetta Rosina and Stefano Della Torre (Politecnico di Milano). The students from Ball State University and Politecnico di Milano engaged in a dialogue that compared each nation's approach to historic preservation and conservation, and explore the similarities and differences between them. The Comune di Cernobbio fit into the purposes of this effort, as a case study for exploring preservation approaches, integration and application. Topics such as theory of preservation, planning approaches for preservation master planning, teaching methods and criteria for preservation interventions were incorporated within the scope of the project. Cernobbio afforded a unique opportunity to explore the social-cultural environment and the heritage conservation of a community that offers many options for planning the sustainable development of the area that surrounds the former Bernasconi Silk Company sites.
Some of the global aims of this collaboration were to:
- Extend cooperation in teaching and learning for the students;
- Exchange methods of creating a critical evaluative basis for both quantitative and qualitative criteria in community planning and reuse of historic sites;
- Establish and formulate design decisions through a critical process;
- Establish definitions of cultural heritage and values as a basis for contemporary development;
- Exchange and compare American and Italian methods of analysis;
Compare American and Italian criteria for the preservation project as a whole.
For More Information
Jonathan Spodek
Department of Architecture
(765) 285-1919
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