Necessary genealogies

Bernard de Chartres, a 12th century French philosopher, said “we are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants”, so that we can see many things even far beyond them, not because of the sharpness of our eyesight or because we are taller, but because we are lifted up and elevated by their gigantic size. What does this mean? That everything has already been said in the principles and that everything is to be rewritten in the forms; the idea, in other words, of the prodigy of the universe as a continuous transformation, and of architecture as a collective creation, as something that began before us and will presumably continue after us. By transferring this concept to the world of architecture, it derives the absolute importance of studying the works that preceded us, from the most distant eras to Modern and Contemporary times; and you will realize that nothing is invented but everything is reinterpreted and modified, naturally according to the techniques of the time in which one lives and works. Just to quote a paradigmatic example of this reflection, Rem Koolhaas claims to have started with Le Corbusier; the two transversal bodies of Villa Dall’Ava recall the architecture of Villa Savoye: they are tripartite spatial organisms – pilotis, inhabited floor, roof garden – and have other obvious similarities such as the ramp and the ribbon window. Thanks to this ‘giant’ on whose shoulders he has leaned, Koolhaas makes us understand that his interpretation of the original architecture can and must produce a new synthesis, different and in line with the spirit of the times. This Koolhaas / Le Corbusier combination can be found in many other architectural events and in different eras, and will be the subject of this reflectio