Elogio della Teoria - In Praise of Theory

The disciplines of the field of Representation have a great quality which becomes a fault, and namely: they are shared. The teacher in architectural design draws and represents, where by the first term I refer to the invention drawing and by the second to the coded geometric model. So does the teacher in architectural survey, indeed, he does not only create projects, he also surveys. And so on, I could mention almost all the disciplines that form an architect, except for, maybe, the mathematics. This characteristic of our science could lead to a great advantage: the possibility to easily interact with any other field of study of engineering and of architecture, in order to develop interdisciplinary research. But this opportunity is not well utilised, because of a fault, which is what could be called 'the other side of the coin'. This fault consists in a widespread prejudice which says that the disciplines of the field of representation, exactly because they are shared, are also within reach of those who practise the disciplines without better studying them, relying only on the knowledge gained during the formative studies. If to this prejudice we add the bad habit of not collecting information on the results obtained during the researches carried out by other research units, maybe in the room next to ours, then we have completed the picture of a hidden underestimation of our scientific and didactic contribution within the field of the respective schools. There is only one, among the disciplines of drawing, which easily avoid the malevolent prejudice that I mentioned above, and this is descriptive geometry. I believe that the reason for this depends on the still vivid memory that the colleagues have of how abstract and 'difficult' this science is. In other words, they look back on and respect the dignity of the discipline which is made of its History and of its Theories. These are the elements that makes it become a 'science' in all respects, even more than the specific contents, which time certainly has erased from the memory of those who do not cultivate it anymore, and of who have maybe even not being practising it for many years. The History and the Theory identifies, therefore, a discipline and give it the right to exist in the academic world. This reflection made me consider, more in general, the condition of the disciplines of representation, therefore also, and first of all, of geometry, but then also of drawing and architectural survey. Because my first feeling is that the related theories, which should give scientific ground, dignity and identity to our disciplines, are somehow or other suffering. All, in fact, have suffered from the assault of time, which has created profound changes in the composition of university curricula and epochal transformations in the technologies in use. Of course I here refer to the computer revolution.