Use of Parametric Tools in the 3D Reconstruction of the Cloister of the Church of San Filippo Neri in Turin

In 1714, Filippo Juvarra outlined a series of design proposals for the Congregation of the Order of San Filippo Neri, whose church, built at the turn of the century, had recently collapsed. This first series culminated in 1717, with a design that historians would come to refer to as “Fondazione Nuova”. In all iterations of the Church of San Filippo Neri, the disposition of the complex, and thus the relative position and overall dimensions of the cloister, remained unaltered, even though its formal characteristics underwent drastic changes. By combining the observable characteristics of the cloister today and the scant information that can be obtained from the Fondazione Nuova drawing series, it is possible to hypothesize the configuration of the cloister at the time of the project. This paper describes the process of reconstruction of the cloister through the use of parametric tools, by focusing on the “variations on a theme” nature of its design and the relations between variables and fixed constraints.