Composizioni per Akragas. Gambetto. Tre mosse per una strategia compositiva

The chapter illustrates ‘three moves’ implemented by the students of the Renato Capozzi and Federica Visconti’s Studios in order to take part in the ‘architectural game’. The ‘first move’ is characterised by a ‘sacrifice’: the students must deprive themselves of the total, and dangerous, freedom towards the theme of the year and constantly refer to an exemplary architecture, binding their compositional exercise in a close confrontation with their reference. The ‘second move’ is variation: by assembling the things they know, through a new rhythm, a different principle of proportioning, the students arrive at the production of a new architecture, which, while varying its elements, must still be able to make the reference intelligible. The ‘third move’ concerns the representation. Through drawings and certain graphic devices, students are encouraged to refine their abstraction skills and to clearly convey the more general sense of things. At the end of the course, it’s customary to carry out the examination in a collegial manner, inviting external scholars to assess the students’ work through a collective presentation of their work.