Operating at the intersection of architecture, history, mythology, and preservation, Unit XX seeks to examine the complex and contingent relationship between memory and artifacts within the historical context of the city.
Challenging and questioning conventional notions of monumentality, we are interested in the idea of the instability of meaning and memory within monuments. Can artifacts or buildings serve as analogues of human memory?
This year, we focused our projects topographically and thematically within the modernist landscape of Milan. Our ambition was to position our inquiries within the recent past, fostering creative dialogues with 20th-century heritage and living histories. This approach leads to discussions about the philosophical and theoretical dimensions of architectural conservation.
Following an intensive program of critical research, which included film-making and physical model-making workshops to introduce the unit’s methodologies, students were assigned a series of short design activities. They produced conceptual and propositional drawings, collages, and physical models, as well as fictional and factual writings. These exercises aim to develop critical rigor, unlock serendipitous design attitudes, and foster intuitive modes of expression.
In addition to theoretical texts, students drew extensively from literary, cultural, and artistic sources to expand their individual lines of inquiry and develop the mythological and mythopoetic aspects of their work. Tracing Milan’s architectural genealogy, students engaged in exchanging ideas and stories with both past and present architects. While we are not historicists, we are interested in generating new meanings atop old ones—thinking historically in the present. Where does memory end, and when does invention begin?