8/12/2019 Giancarlodecarlo Manifesto Hadley Final

1/3

Daniel Hadley channeling

Giancarlo De Carlo

4205M1: Buildings, Texts, ContextsFall 2009

Fallon Samuels, TF

Manifesto di Urbino

Property is Theft Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Humans have been evolving for millions of years, from prey, to predator into the social animals

we are today. We no longer need to squabble over limited resources, as our primate ancestors

once did. Modern man has a convenience that was unheard of in the preceding eras: we can nowwork, live and play together, as entities in a web of cooperation. As Proudhon argued in his

foundational treatise on anarchism, What is property, social equality is an achievable vision.

We can volunteer to share our resources, creating conglomerations that are much stronger and

more efficient than the sum of their parts. Modern urbanism must reflect this reality for it tobe successful. Despite that Proudhon wrote in the nineteenth century, his theories still resonate

today. As an anarchist and an urbanist, I believe that design must foster equality and create socialnetworks.

Until relatively recently, architectural modernity has limited itself to creating

forms for an ideal man. Entire systems have been devised to measure our plan and sectionaldrawings against this single paradigm. The conceit of this system, of course, is that seemingly

incommensurable objects can be compared that each element within a building or city can be

systematized using Modular Man. But Le Corbusiers taxonomy, which is evident in everything

from the Golden Ratio to CIAMs Grille du Urbanisme Moderne and even the Frankfurterkitchen, is crucially incomplete. In reality, there is no single Modular Man, only modular men,

women and children. Moreover, these categories are irreducible. There is no module, in other

words, there are only webs, systems, SOCITIES. It is my belief that modernism is reemerging, and that it is now better equipped to foster

social life within spatial reality. The early masters, including Le Corbusier, Johnson, Sullivan,

Aalto and many others, imparted more to us than one would think possible. I often defer to theirwisdom. But a new generation has taken shape, whose ideas and theories unseat the previous

generation. I find that I much more readily agree with these Young Turks of architecture, the

Smithsons, Van Eyck, Erskine, Bakema and Candilis, to name a few: It is useless to considerthe house except as a part of a community owing to the inter-action of these on each other. I

have attempted to codify this belief in my design for the Free University of Urbino.

The theater is common to all; nevertheless, the place that each one occupies is called his

own; that is, it is a place possessed, not a place appropriated. This comparison annihilates

property; moreover, it implies equality. Proudhon

In designing the student dormitories and indeed the entire campus at Urbino - I thought

often about the symbiotic nature of circles, about how their formation constitutes a chain of

interdependence. The old clich circle the wagons became stuck in my head at some point.In a circular gathering, each element relies on the others to close all of the gaps. At the time,

8/12/2019 Giancarlodecarlo Manifesto Hadley Final

2/3

8/12/2019 Giancarlodecarlo Manifesto Hadley Final

3/3

Brunetti, F. and F. Gesi (1981) Giancarlo De Carlo. Florence, Alinea.

De Carlo, G. (1980) An Architecture of Participation,Perspecta, 17, pp. 74-79.

Proudhon, P.-J. (1876) What is Property? [online] Google Books. Available

from: http://books.google.com/books?id=K_8wAAAAMAAJ&dq=what%20is%20property&pg=PP11#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Romano, A. (2001) Giancarlo De Carlo : Lo Spazio, Realta del Vivere Insieme. Turin, Testo &

Immagine.

Samassa, F. (2004) Giancarlo De Carlo Percorsi. Padova, Il Poligrafo.

Samassa, F. (2004, 2) Giancarlo De Carlo: Archivio Progetti. Padova, Il Poligrafo.

Zucchi, B. (1992) The Architecture of Giancarlo De Carlo. Oxford, Reed International Books.

http://books.google.com/books?id=K_8wAAAAMAAJ&dq=what+is+property&pg=PP11#v=onepage&q=&f=falsehttp://books.google.com/books?id=K_8wAAAAMAAJ&dq=what+is+property&pg=PP11#v=onepage&q=&f=falsehttp://books.google.com/books?id=K_8wAAAAMAAJ&dq=what+is+property&pg=PP11#v=onepage&q=&f=falsehttp://books.google.com/books?id=K_8wAAAAMAAJ&dq=what+is+property&pg=PP11#v=onepage&q=&f=false