Memory, Beauty and transdisciplinarity

In post-industrial cities, the need to redefine a new balance between land use and psycho-physical wellbeing, to limit the consumption of soil, energy, built and natural heritage drives design research toward the reuse and regeneration of abandoned urban spaces, often characterized by stratified memories. The purpose of this collection is to revive the valuable thought of Roberto Pane, who first focused on the psychological and ecological instance in preservation, reaffirming the fundamental role of memory and beauty as necessary dimensions of individual and collective wellbeing. From his legacy, transdisciplinary confluence of interior architecture, spatial design and behavioural neuroscience constitutes at present a powerful response to the widespread demand for organism-centred design processes and for places consistent with psychological, emotional, and social needs. The first session, Time and Beauty, includes contributions in which history and preservation confront aesthetic aspects, indispensable components of the preservation debate. In the second session, Psyche and Places, reflections on immaterial aspects confront the dimension of physical space. In the third session, Space and Memory, design culture, often synonymous with innovation, is challenged by the theme of memory.

Anna Anzani
Associate Professor in Interior Architecture and Design, School of Design, Politecnico di Milano. Research topics: reuse of existing buildings through an intensified dialogue with a psychological and neuro-scientific approach; relational conditions, liveability of spaces in a sustainable and ecological perspective, integrating knowledge of behavioural aspects to address organism-centred design. Author of 160 scientific contributions including Mind and Places. A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Design of Contemporary City (Anzani A. ed., 2020), Springer Series in Design and Innovation; Reusing Leftovers: corporeity and empathy of places (Anzani A., 2021) in L. Crespi (ed.), Design of the Unfinished. A New Way of Designing Leftovers Regeneration. The Urban Book Series, Springer Nature; Conscious Dwelling. For Transdisciplinary Cityscapes (Anzani A. ed., 2022), Springer Series in Design and Innovation; The city of care. Strategies to design healthier places (A. Anzani, F. Scullica ed., 2023), Springer Series in Design and Innovation.
Eugenio Guglielmi
Graduated in Architecture at Politecnico di Milano under the guidance of Marco Zanuso. Between 1981 and 1993 he carried out teaching and research activities at the same university. Since 2002 he has been a lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture in Florence (Industrial Design and Fashion Design courses) and at the Faculty of Engineering at the State University of Brescia (History of Contemporary Art, Aesthetics and Semiotics). He is the author of numerous essays on historical, artistic and educational topics, collected in as many publications. Among the most recent, a study for re-evaluating the work of sculptor Giannino Castiglioni (father of the homonymous designers), published by Skira. He has lectured at numerous Level I and II university master’s courses on the critical review of 20th-century architecture, with a particular focus on works from the 1930s. He has directed numerous exhibitions and catalogues on architectural production between the two wars. He has founded and edited numerous publishing series and magazines.