Paralisia cerebral: efeitos da escrita sobre a escrita

The aim of this research was to apprehend the effects of text reading in S.'s writing productions, a child in literacy process. S. is a child who can't speak or write by her own due to a dystonic quadriplegic CP. S. communicates with Blissymbols which were introduced in a school-clinic in São Paulo city when she was six years old. At the same time the literacy process took place and she indicated symbols, letters and numbers in a board by scanning. The teacher related S.'s difficulties concerning reading activities, so a weekly activity was proposed by the speech therapist in the classroom. The teacher and her assistant participated in the activity. A cutout of the activity involving a book reading when S. was between eight years and seven months old and nine years and one month old was analysed. The research was based in Borges (2006) grounded in The Brazilian Interactionism according to De Lemos (1992; 1995 and others) and proposes a literacy process among students from the first series in a regular school by the reading of different texts. The activity guided by the speech therapist took place side by side with the literacy program guided by the teacher and resulted in various S's text productions. The data was collected through film transcriptions from the activities in the classroom and from materials produced by S. through the reading of the chosen book. These data integrates NALíngua-CNPq databases coordinated by Dr. Alessandra Del Ré whose aim is to investigate the language acquisition process. S.'s reading and writing acquisition occurred in a singular way, affected by the using of Blissymbols that became S.'s speech modality: a written-speech with symbols and alphabetic writing

A genealogia em Foucault: uma trajetória

Este artigo tem o objetivo de realizar uma trajetória da genealogia enquanto modo de escrever a história como pergunta/problema, de acordo com Michel Foucault, rompendo com uma história contínua, linear, teleológica, que buscava origens e semelhanças entre os objetos e as tentativas de estabelecer relações causais entre os acontecimentos. Uma história das práticas discursivas, de poder e subjetivação era a empreitada proposta por Foucault. A análise da proveniência e da emergência rompia com toda uma tradição historiográfica que fazia dos eventos memória e monumentos construídos e interpretados por categorias de semelhança. Foucault questiona este modelo de fazer história, trabalhando com novos temas e problemas e operando com a multiplicidade de acontecimentos dispersos, raros, heterogêneos, em recortes de séries de enunciados em arquivos, sem busca de origens primeiras e sem fins utilitaristas a alcançar.

Is Everyone Rated Equal? An Examination of Factors Related to Sexual Risk in Ethnically Diverse Male Adolescents Who Have Sexually Offended

As the juvenile justice system has evolved, there has been a need for clinicians to make judgments about risk posed by adolescents who have committed sexual offenses. There are inherent difficulties in attempting to assess risk for violence among adolescents due to the developmental changes taking place and the absence of well-validated instruments to guide risk prediction judgments. With minority groups increasing in numbers in the U.S., it is likely that professionals will encounter minority individuals when conducting risk assessments. Overall questions regarding race/ethnicity have been neglected and there are few if any published research that explores risk factors with minority juvenile sex offenders. The present study examined whether differences exist between Caucasian and racial/ethnic minority adolescent sexual offenders on four risk assessment measures (J-SORRAT-II, J-SOAP-II, SAVRY, and ERASOR). The sample of 207 male adolescent sexual offenders was drawn from treatment facilities in a Midwestern state. Overall results indicated that minority adolescent sex offenders had fewer risk factors endorsed than Caucasian youth across all risk assessment tools. Exploration of interactions between race and factors such as: family status, exposure to family violence, and family history of criminality upon the assessment tools risk ratings yielded non-significant findings. Limitations, suggestions for future directions, and clinical implications are discussed.

An Affordable, Pratical Eco-House

An eco-house or zero-energy house is not a new concept- houses with extremely low impact on their surroundings and good use of local resources have been around for centuries. This particular eco-house is designed to offer full modern services and comforts while consuming very low energy and few expensive building materials. Ideally, someone would be able to use this thesis as a blueprint for actual construction.

Multifuncionalidade da paisagem em assentamentos rurais nos entornos de usina canavieira e do Parque Estadual Morro do Diabo (SP)

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Paralisia cerebral: efeitos da escrita sobre a escrita

The aim of this research was to apprehend the effects of text reading in S.'s writing productions, a child in literacy process. S. is a child who can't speak or write by her own due to a dystonic quadriplegic CP. S. communicates with Blissymbols which were introduced in a school-clinic in São Paulo city when she was six years old. At the same time the literacy process took place and she indicated symbols, letters and numbers in a board by scanning. The teacher related S.'s difficulties concerning reading activities, so a weekly activity was proposed by the speech therapist in the classroom. The teacher and her assistant participated in the activity. A cutout of the activity involving a book reading when S. was between eight years and seven months old and nine years and one month old was analysed. The research was based in Borges (2006) grounded in The Brazilian Interactionism according to De Lemos (1992; 1995 and others) and proposes a literacy process among students from the first series in a regular school by the reading of different texts. The activity guided by the speech therapist took place side by side with the literacy program guided by the teacher and resulted in various S's text productions. The data was collected through film transcriptions from the activities in the classroom and from materials produced by S. through the reading of the chosen book. These data integrates NALíngua-CNPq databases coordinated by Dr. Alessandra Del Ré whose aim is to investigate the language acquisition process. S.'s reading and writing acquisition occurred in a singular way, affected by the using of Blissymbols that became S.'s speech modality: a written-speech with symbols and alphabetic writing

Do ciberespaço à iconomia: projeções metapóricas

Na sociedade contemporânea o ser humano se vê inserido – ou invadido – em ambientes cada vez mais configurados por complexos recursos tecnológicos. É o ciberespaço, onde as imagens inundam o cotidiano e se traduzem em valor, o corpo adquire novo status imaterial e as noções de lugar e tempo se transformam e quase se anulam. O cinema pensa e produz também uma desterritorialização da imagem em movimento desde os seus primeiros tempos de imagem-máquina. Este trabalho reflete sobre as transformações da ordem social que implicam a emergência de uma “iconomia” a partir dos espaços simbólicos, tomando três momentos críticos na história do cinema como índices de uma convergência entre material e imaterial que se consolida a partir da emergência do ciberespaço. O quase-método metapórico é mobilizado como ferramenta de reconstrução metodológica desses ícones da história do cinema relacionados à desconstrução do Homo faber. O “outro lado” do ciberespaço, abrindo continuamente novos espaços-tempos de criação de valor, identifica-se a uma iconomia em que as projeções narrativas tornam-se fontes paradigmáticas de valor e de “mais gozar”.

Coupling collective modes in a trapped superfluid

We consider a superfluid cloud composed of a Bose-Einstein condensate oscillating within a magnetic trap (dipole mode) where, due to the existence of a Feshbach resonance, an effective periodic time-dependent modulation in the scattering length is introduced. Under this condition, collective excitations such as the quadrupole mode can take place. We approach this problem by employing both the Gaussian and the Thomas-Fermi variational Ansatze. The resulting dynamic equations are analyzed by considering both linear approximations and numerical solutions, where we observe coupling between dipole and quadrupole modes. Aspects of this coupling related to the variation of the dipole oscillation amplitude are analyzed. This may be a relevant effect in situations where oscillation in a magnetic field in the presence of a bias field B takes place, and should be considered in the interpretation of experimental results.

A educação na mudança social: lugar central, lugar secundário e lugar nenhum

Este artigo traz exemplos que sustentam a hipótese de que há uma discrepância entre o sentido geral atribuído à educação pelos enfoques sociológicos e aquele que é conferido por autoridades públicas e profissionais de organizações escolares. O sentido que tais autoridades e profissionais atribuem à educação coincide consideravelmente com as noções mais recorrentes na opinião pública, que frequentemente localiza a educação em posição central como fator de mudança social. O argumento foi elaborado para situar uma pesquisa sobre mudança educacional no Brasil, apoiada pela Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) em 2004-2005. A pesquisa dedicou-se a reportar as características das ações de reforma educacional nos anos 1990, confrontando-as com iniciativas circunscritas, abarcadas pela denominação de inovação educacional.

Família interdita: transgeracionalidade e subjetivação em três obras ficcionais

O objetivo deste estudo foi discutir a transmissão psíquica geracional em duas obras do escritor Mia Couto: Antes de nascer o mundo (2009) e Um rio chamado tempo, uma casa chamada terra (2003), e no conto A terceira margem do rio, de Guimarães Rosa (1962). As três obras são narradas pelos filhos e destacam a família como epicentro de uma trama de segredos, interditos e culpabilizações transmitidos de uma geração a outra, possibilitando a compreensão de que o seio familiar permite não apenas a organização das experiências emocionais, mas a também a transmissão de aspectos intersubjetivos aos quais nem sempre as personagens têm acesso. Os segredos ou a não revelação das verdadeiras histórias dos personagens são apenas uma das formas de transmissão, pois, mesmo ocultando o interditado, transfere-se algo, de modo que o não revelar também é uma maneira de destacar o interdito, aquilo que ainda não foi elaborado e que, por conseguinte, não recebeu inscrição psíquica.

Bioética e saúde coletiva: convergências epistemológicas

Trata-se de uma discussão teórica sobre o estatuto da bioética a partir de suas convergências epistemológicas com a saúde coletiva, campos científicos inter-relacionados, surgidos no contexto da segunda ruptura epistemológica, questionadora da crítica ao senso comum própria da ciência moderna. A reaproximação com o senso comum na segunda ruptura significa considerar na metodologia os determinantes do ambiente e da subjetividade. Assim, em meio a esta segunda ruptura, a saúde coletiva e a bioética incluem os determinantes sociais e subjetivos em suas análises. Caracterizam-se por uma visão ampliada e complexa da saúde e das ações humanas envolvendo o ambiente, a vida e a saúde, com enfoque transdisciplinar em suas abordagens. Qual o significado dessas premissas para o estatuto epistemológico da bioética em sua convergência com a saúde coletiva? Enquanto ética, a bioética precisa ser crítica, mas não como na primeira ruptura da filosofia moral. Necessita ser crítica a partir da facticidade dos determinantes sociais que se manifestam nas iniquidades em saúde. Para integrar crítica e facticidade, o caminho é a hermenêutica que interpreta os significados construídos no real e a partir deles torna-se crítica. Esse seria o estatuto epistemológico apropriado para a bioética na interface com a saúde coletiva.

Quando se inicia o processo de alfabetização?

Embora a aprendizagem informal da língua escrita na fase pré-escolarjá fosse observada desde o século XIX, muitos anos se passaram até que fosse reconhecida. Com as pesquisas lideradas por Vygotsky, Luria, Ferreiro e os estudos sobre letramento, foi possível recuperar a gênese da alfabetização e considerar suas implicações para o ensino. Assim, importa perguntar: Como compreender as primeiras escritas? Como o reconhecimento delas pode afetar as concepções sobre a língua escrita? Que condições favorecem a construção da escrita? Que implicações as aprendizagens pré-escolares trazem para as práticas pedagógicas e para as políticas de alfabetização? Com o objetivo de aprofundar o entendimento destas questões, o artigo vale - se de um estudo de caso sobre a produção textual de um menino de quatro anos, configurando-se como mais um a iniciativa para subsidiar os debates sobre a articulação entre ensino e aprendizagem.

La costruzione razionale della casa. Scritti e progetti di Giuseppe Pagano

The rational construction of the house. The writings and projects of Giuseppe Pagano Description, themes and research objectives The research aims at analysing the architecture of Giuseppe Pagano, which focuses on the theme of dwelling, through the reading of 3 of his house projects. On the one hand, these projects represent “minor” works not thoroughly known by Pagano’s contemporary critics; on the other they emphasise a particular methodological approach, which serves the author to explore a theme closely linked to his theoretical thought. The house project is a key to Pagano’s research, given its ties to the socio-cultural and political conditions in which the architect was working, so that it becomes a mirror of one of his specific and theoretical path, always in a state of becoming. Pagano understands architecture as a “servant of the human being”, subject to a “utilitarian slavery” since it is a clear, essential and “modest” answer to specific human needs, free from aprioristic aesthetic and formal choices. It is a rational architecture in sensu stricto; it constitutes a perfect synthesis between cause and effect and between function and form. The house needs to accommodate these principles because it is closely intertwined with human needs and intimately linked to a specific place, climatic conditions and technical and economical possibilities. Besides, differently from his public and common masterpieces such as the Palazzo Gualino, the Istituto di Fisica and the Università Commerciale Bocconi, the house projects are representative of a precise project will, which is expressed in a more authentic way, partially freed from political influences and dogmatic preoccupations and, therefore, far from the attempt to research a specific expressive language. I believe that the house project better represents that “ingenuity”, freshness and “sincerity” that Pagano identifies with the minor architecture, thereby revealing a more authentic expression of his understanding of a project. Therefore, the thesis, by tracing the theoretical research of Pagano through the analysis of some of his designed and built works, attempts to identify a specific methodological approach to Pagano’s project, which, developed through time, achieves a certain clarity in the 1930s. In fact, this methodological approach becomes more evident in his last projects, mainly regarding the house and the urban space. These reflect the attempt to respond to the new social needs and, at the same time, they also are an expression of a freer idea of built architecture, closely linked with the place and with the human being who dwells it. The three chosen projects (Villa Colli, La Casa a struttura d’acciaio and Villa Caraccio) make Pagano facing different places, different customers and different economic and technical conditions, which, given the author’s biography, correspond to important historical and political conditions. This is the reason why the projects become apparently distant works, both linguistically and conceptually, to the point that one can define them as ”eclectic”. However, I argue that this eclecticism is actually an added value to the architectural work of Pagano, steaming from the use of a method which, having as a basis the postulate of a rational architecture as essence and logic of building, finds specific variations depending on the multiple variables to be addressed by the project. This is the methodological heritage that Pagano learns from the tradition, especially that of the rural residential architecture, defined by Pagano as a “dictionary of the building logic of man”, as an “a-stylistic background”. For Pagano this traditional architecture is a clear expression of the relationships between a theme and its development, an architectural “fact” that is resolved with purely technical and utilitarian aims and with a spontaneous development far from any aprioristic theoretical principle. Architecture, therefore, cannot be an invention for Pagano and the personal contribution of each architect has to consider his/her close relationship with the specific historical context, place and new building methods. These are basic principles in the methodological approach that drives a great deal of his research and that also permits his thought to be modern. I argue that both ongoing and new collaborations with younger protagonists of the culture and architecture of the period are significant for the development of his methodology. These encounters represent the will to spread his own understanding of the “new architecture” as well as a way of self-renewal by confronting the self with new themes and realities and by learning from his collaborators. Thesis’ outline The thesis is divided in two principal parts, each articulated in four chapters attempting to offer a new reading of the theory and work of Pagano by emphasising the central themes of the research. The first chapter is an introduction to the thesis and to the theme of the rational house, as understood and developed in its typological and technical aspects by Pagano and by other protagonists of the Italian rationalism of the 1930s. Here the attention is on two different aspects defining, according to Pagano, the house project: on the one hand, the typological renewal, aimed at defining a “standard form” as a clear and essential answer to certain needs and variables of the project leading to different formal expressions. On the other, it focuses on the building, understood as a technique to “produce” architecture, where new technologies and new materials are not merely tools but also essential elements of the architectural work. In this way the villa becomes different from the theme of the common house or from that of the minimalist house, by using rules in the choice of material and in the techniques that are every time different depending on the theme under exploration and on the contingency of place. It is also visible the rigorous rationalism that distinguishes the author's appropriation of certain themes of rural architecture. The pages of “Casabella” and the events of the contemporary Triennali form the preliminary material for the writing of this chapter given that they are primary sources to individuate projects and writings produced by Pagano and contemporary architects on this theme. These writings and projects, when compared, reconstruct the evolution of the idea of the rational house and, specifically, of the personal research of Pagano. The second part regards the reading of three of Pagano’s projects of houses as a built verification of his theories. This section constitutes the central part of the thesis since it is aimed at detecting a specific methodological approach showing a theoretical and ideological evolution expressed in the vast edited literature. The three projects that have been chosen explore the theme of the house, looking at various research themes that the author proposes and that find continuity in the affirmation of a specific rationalism, focussed on concepts such as essentiality, utility, functionality and building honesty. These concepts guide the thought and the activities of Pagano, also reflecting a social and cultural period. The projects span from the theme of the villa moderna, Villa Colli, which, inspired by the architecture of North Europe, anticipates a specific rationalism of Pagano based on rigour, simplicity and essentiality, to the theme of the common house, Casa a struttura d’acciaio, la casa del domani, which ponders on the definition of new living spaces and, moreover, on new concepts of standardisation, economical efficiency and new materials responding to the changing needs of the modern society. Finally, the third project returns to the theme of the, Villa Caraccio, revisiting it with new perspectives. These perspectives find in the solution of the open plant, in the openness to nature and landscape and in the revisiting of materials and local building systems that idea of the freed house, which express clearly a new theoretical thought. Methodology It needs to be noted that due to the lack of an official Archive of Pagano’s work, the analysis of his work has been difficult and this explains the necessity to read the articles and the drawings published in the pages of «Casabella» and «Domus». As for the projects of Villa Colli and Casa a struttura d’acciaio, parts of the original drawings have been consulted. These drawings are not published and are kept in private archives of the collaborators of Pagano. The consultation of these documents has permitted the analysis of the cited works, which have been subject to a more complete reading following the different proposed solutions, which have permitted to understand the project path. The projects are analysed thought the method of comparison and critical reading which, specifically, means graphical elaborations and analytical schemes, mostly reconstructed on the basis of original projects but, where possible, also on a photographic investigation. The focus is on the project theme which, beginning with a specific living (dwelling) typology, finds variations because of the historico-political context in which Pagano is embedded and which partially shapes his research and theoretical thought, then translated in the built work. The analysis of the work follows, beginning, where possible, from a reconstruction of the evolution of the project as elaborated on the basis of the original documents and ending on an analysis of the constructive principles and composition. This second phase employs a methodology proposed by Pagano in his article Piante di ville, which, as expected, focuses on the plant as essential tool to identify the “true practical and poetic qualities of the construction”(Pagano, «Costruzioni-Casabella», 1940, p. 2). The reading of the project is integrated with the constructive analyses related to the technical aspects of the house which, in the case of Casa a struttura d’acciaio, play an important role in the project, while in Villa Colli and in Villa Caraccio are principally linked to the choice of materials for the construction of the different architectural elements. These are nonetheless key factors in the composition of the work. Future work could extend this reading to other house projects to deepen the research that could be completed with the consultation of Archival materials, which are missing at present. Finally, in the appendix I present a critical selection of the Pagano’s writings, which recall the themes discussed and embodied by the three projects. The texts have been selected among the articles published in Casabella and in other journals, completing the reading of the project work which cannot be detached from his theoretical thought. Moving from theory to project, we follow a path that brings us to define and deepen the central theme of the thesis: rational building as the principal feature of the architectural research of Pagano, which is paraphrased in multiple ways in his designed and built works.

Max Bill in Italia . Lo spazio logico dell'architettura

I Max Bill is an intense giornata of a big fresco. An analysis of the main social, artistic and cultural events throughout the twentieth century is needed in order to trace his career through his masterpieces and architectures. Some of the faces of this hypothetical mural painting are, among others, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Kandinskij, Klee, Mondrian, Vatongerloo, Ignazio Silone, while the backcloth is given by artistic avant-gardes, Bauhaus, International Exhibitions, CIAM, war events, reconstruction, Milan Triennali, Venice Biennali, the School of Ulm. Architect, even though more known as painter, sculptor, designer and graphic artist, Max Bill attends the Bauhaus as a student in the years 1927-1929, and from this experience derives the main features of a rational, objective, constructive and non figurative art. His research is devoted to give his art a scientific methodology: each work proceeds from the analysis of a problem to the logical and always verifiable solution of the same problem. By means of composition elements (such as rhythm, seriality, theme and its variation, harmony and dissonance), he faces, with consistent results, themes apparently very distant from each other as the project for the H.f.G. or the design for a font. Mathematics are a constant reference frame as field of certainties, order, objectivity: ‘for Bill mathematics are never confined to a simple function: they represent a climate of spiritual certainties, and also the theme of non attempted in its purest state, objectivity of the sign and of the geometrical place, and at the same time restlessness of the infinity: Limited and Unlimited ’. In almost sixty years of activity, experiencing all artistic fields, Max Bill works, projects, designs, holds conferences and exhibitions in Europe, Asia and Americas, confronting himself with the most influencing personalities of the twentieth century. In such a vast scenery, the need to limit the investigation field combined with the necessity to address and analyse the unpublished and original aspect of Bill’s relations with Italy. The original contribution of the present research regards this particular ‘geographic delimitation’; in particular, beyond the deep cultural exchanges between Bill and a series of Milanese architects, most of all with Rogers, two main projects have been addressed: the realtà nuova at Milan Triennale in 1947, and the Contemporary Art Museum in Florence in 1980. It is important to note that these projects have not been previously investigated, and the former never appears in the sources either. These works, together with the most well-known ones, such as the projects for the VI and IX Triennale, and the Swiss pavilion for the Biennale, add important details to the reference frame of the relations which took place between Zurich and Milan. Most of the occasions for exchanges took part in between the Thirties and the Fifties, years during which Bill underwent a significant period of artistic growth. He meets the Swiss progressive architects and the Paris artists from the Abstraction-Création movement, enters the CIAM, collaborates with Le Corbusier to the third volume of his Complete Works, and in Milan he works and gets confronted with the events related to post-war reconstruction. In these years Bill defines his own working methodology, attaining an artistic maturity in his work. The present research investigates the mentioned time period, despite some necessary exceptions. II The official Max Bill bibliography is naturally wide, including spreading works along with ones more devoted to analytical investigation, mainly written in German and often translated into French and English (Max Bill himself published his works in three languages). Few works have been published in Italian and, excluding the catalogue of the Parma exhibition from 1977, they cannot be considered comprehensive. Many publications are exhibition catalogues, some of which include essays written by Max Bill himself, some others bring Bill’s comments in a educational-pedagogical approach, to accompany the observer towards a full understanding of the composition processes of his art works. Bill also left a great amount of theoretical speculations to encourage a critical reading of his works in the form of books edited or written by him, and essays published in ‘Werk’, magazine of the Swiss Werkbund, and other international reviews, among which Domus and Casabella. These three reviews have been important tools of analysis, since they include tracks of some of Max Bill’s architectural works. The architectural aspect is less investigated than the plastic and pictorial ones in all the main reference manuals on the subject: Benevolo, Tafuri and Dal Co, Frampton, Allenspach consider Max Bill as an artist proceeding in his work from Bauhaus in the Ulm experience . A first filing of his works was published in 2004 in the monographic issue of the Spanish magazine 2G, together with critical essays by Karin Gimmi, Stanislaus von Moos, Arthur Rüegg and Hans Frei, and in ‘Konkrete Architektur?’, again by Hans Frei. Moreover, the monographic essay on the Atelier Haus building by Arthur Rüegg from 1997, and the DPA 17 issue of the Catalonia Polytechnic with contributions of Carlos Martì, Bruno Reichlin and Ton Salvadò, the latter publication concentrating on a few Bill’s themes and architectures. An urge to studying and going in depth in Max Bill’s works was marked in 2008 by the centenary of his birth and by a recent rediscovery of Bill as initiator of the ‘minimalist’ tradition in Swiss architecture. Bill’s heirs are both very active in promoting exhibitions, researching and publishing. Jakob Bill, Max Bill’s son and painter himself, recently published a work on Bill’s experience in Bauhaus, and earlier on he had published an in-depth study on ‘Endless Ribbons’ sculptures. Angela Thomas Schmid, Bill’s wife and art historian, published in end 2008 the first volume of a biography on Max Bill and, together with the film maker Eric Schmid, produced a documentary film which was also presented at the last Locarno Film Festival. Both biography and documentary concentrate on Max Bill’s political involvement, from antifascism and 1968 protest movements to Bill experiences as Zurich Municipality councilman and member of the Swiss Confederation Parliament. In the present research, the bibliography includes also direct sources, such as interviews and original materials in the form of letters correspondence and graphic works together with related essays, kept in the max+binia+jakob bill stiftung archive in Zurich. III The results of the present research are organized into four main chapters, each of them subdivided into four parts. The first chapter concentrates on the research field, reasons, tools and methodologies employed, whereas the second one consists of a short biographical note organized by topics, introducing the subject of the research. The third chapter, which includes unpublished events, traces the historical and cultural frame with particular reference to the relations between Max Bill and the Italian scene, especially Milan and the architects Rogers and Baldessari around the Fifties, searching the themes and the keys for interpretation of Bill’s architectures and investigating the critical debate on the reviews and the plastic survey through sculpture. The fourth and last chapter examines four main architectures chosen on a geographical basis, all devoted to exhibition spaces, investigating Max Bill’s composition process related to the pictorial field. Paintings has surely been easier and faster to investigate and verify than the building field. A doctoral thesis discussed in Lausanne in 1977 investigating Max Bill’s plastic and pictorial works, provided a series of devices which were corrected and adapted for the definition of the interpretation grid for the composition structures of Bill’s main architectures. Four different tools are employed in the investigation of each work: a context analysis related to chapter three results; a specific theoretical essay by Max Bill briefly explaining his main theses, even though not directly linked to the very same work of art considered; the interpretation grid for the composition themes derived from a related pictorial work; the architecture drawing and digital three-dimensional model. The double analysis of the architectural and pictorial fields is functional to underlining the relation among the different elements of the composition process; the two fields, however, cannot be compared and they stay, in Max Bill’s works as in the present research, interdependent though self-sufficient. IV An important aspect of Max Bill production is self-referentiality: talking of Max Bill, also through Max Bill, as a need for coherence instead of a method limitation. Ernesto Nathan Rogers describes Bill as the last humanist, and his horizon is the known world but, as the ‘Concrete Art’ of which he is one of the main representatives, his production justifies itself: Max Bill not only found a method, but he autonomously re-wrote the ‘rules of the game’, derived timeless theoretical principles and verified them through a rich and interdisciplinary artistic production. The most recurrent words in the present research work are synthesis, unity, space and logic. These terms are part of Max Bill’s vocabulary and can be referred to his works. Similarly, graphic settings or analytical schemes in this research text referring to or commenting Bill’s architectural projects were drawn up keeping in mind the concise precision of his architectural design. As for Mies van der Rohe, it has been written that Max Bill took art to ‘zero degree’ reaching in this way a high complexity. His works are a synthesis of art: they conceptually encompass all previous and –considered their developments- most of contemporary pictures. Contents and message are generally explicitly declared in the title or in Bill’s essays on his artistic works and architectural projects: the beneficiary is invited to go through and re-build the process of synthesis generating the shape. In the course of the interview with the Milan artist Getulio Alviani, he tells how he would not write more than a page for an essay on Josef Albers: everything was already evident ‘on the surface’ and any additional sentence would be redundant. Two years after that interview, these pages attempt to decompose and single out the elements and processes connected with some of Max Bill’s works which, for their own origin, already contain all possible explanations and interpretations. The formal reduction in favour of contents maximization is, perhaps, Max Bill’s main lesson.

Rafael Moneo: la complessità del vuoto. Dalle matrici formali dell'opera di Oteiza e Chillida

The experience of void, essential to the production of forms and to make use them, can be considered as the base of the activities that attend to the formative processes. If void and matter constitutes the basic substances of architecture. Their role in the definition of form, the symbolic value and the constructive methods of it defines the quality of the space. This job inquires the character of space in the architecture of Moneo interpreting the meaning of the void in the Basque culture through the reading of the form matrices in the work of Jorge Oteiza and Eduardo Chillida. In the tie with the Basque culture a reading key is characterized by concurring to put in relation some of the theoretical principles expressed by Moneo on the relationship between place and time, in an unique and specific vision of the space. In the analysis of the process that determines the genesis of the architecture of Moneo emerges a trajectory whose direction is constructed on two pivos: on the one hand architecture like instrument of appropriation of the place, gushed from an acquaintance process who leans itself to the reading of the relations that define the place and of the resonances through which measuring it, on the other hand the architecture whose character is able to represent and to extend the time in which he is conceived, through the autonomy that is conferred to them from values. Following the trace characterized from this hypothesis, that is supported on the theories elaborated from Moneo, surveying deepens the reading of the principles that construct the sculptural work of Oteiza and Chillida, features from a search around the topic of the void and to its expression through the form. It is instrumental to the definition of a specific area that concurs to interpret the character of the space subtended to a vision of the place and the time, affine to the sensibility of Moneo and in some way not stranger to its cultural formation. The years of the academic formation, during which Moneo enters in contact with the Basque artistic culture, seem to be an important period in the birth of that knowledge that will leads him to the formulation of theories tied to the relationship between time, place and architecture. The values expressed through the experimental work of Oteiza and Chillida during years '50 are valid bases to the understanding of such relationships. In tracing a profile of the figures of Oteiza and Chillida, without the pretension that it is exhaustive for the reading of the complex historical period in which they are placed, but with the needs to put the work in a context, I want to be evidenced the important role carried out from the two artists from the Basque cultural area within which Moneo moves its first steps. The tie that approaches Moneo to the Basque culture following the personal trajectory of the formative experience interlaces to that one of important figures of the art and the Spanish architecture. One of the more meaningful relationships is born just during the years of his academic formation, from 1958 to the 1961, when he works like student in the professional office of the architect Francisco Sáenz de Oiza, who was teaching architectural design at the ETSAM. In these years many figures of Basque artists alternated at the professional office of Oiza that enjoys the important support of the manufacturer and maecenas Juan Huarte Beaumont, introduced to he from Oteiza. The tie between Huarte and Oteiza is solid and continuous in the years and it realizes in a contribution to many of the initiatives that makes of Oteiza a forwarder of the Basque culture. In the four years of collaboration with Oiza, Moneo has the opportunity to keep in contact with an atmosphere permeated by a constant search in the field of the plastic art and with figures directly connected to such atmosphere. It’s of a period of great intensity as in the production like in the promotion of the Basque art. The collective “Blanco y Negro”, than is held in 1959 at the Galería Darro to Madrid, is only one of the many times of an exhibition of the work of Oteiza and Chillida. The end of the Fifties is a period of international acknowledgment for Chillida that for Oteiza. The decade of the Fifties consecrates the hypotheses of a mythical past of the Basque people through the spread of the studies carried out in the antecedent years. The archaeological discoveries that join to a context already rich of signs of the prehistoric era, consolidate the knowledge of a strong cultural identity. Oteiza, like Chillida and other contemporary artists, believe in a cosmogonist conception belonging to the Basques, connected to their matriarchal mythological past. The void in its meaning of absence, in the Basque culture, thus as in various archaic and oriental religions, is equivalent to the spiritual fullness as essential condition to the revealing of essence. Retracing the archaic origins of the Basque culture emerges the deep meaning that the void assumes as key element in the religious interpretation of the passage from the life to the death. The symbology becomes rich of meaningful characters who derive from the fact that it is a chthonic cult. A representation of earth like place in which divine manifest itself but also like connection between divine and human, and this manipulation of the matter of which the earth it is composed is the tangible projection of the continuous search of the man towards God. The search of equilibrium between empty and full, that characterizes also the development of the form in architecture, in the Basque culture assumes therefore a peculiar value that returns like constant in great part of the plastic expressions, than in this context seem to be privileged regarding the other expressive forms. Oteiza and Chillida develop two original points of view in the representation of the void through the form. Both use of rigorous systems of rules sensitive to the physics principles and the characters of the matter. The last aim of the Oteiza’s construction is the void like limit of the knowledge, like border between known and unknown. It doesn’t means to reduce the sculptural object to an only allusive dimension because the void as physical and spiritual power is an active void, that possesses that value able to reveal the being through the trace of un-being. The void in its transcendental manifestation acts at the same time from universal and from particular, like in the atomic structure of the matter, in which on one side it constitutes the inner structure of every atom and on the other one it is necessary condition to the interaction between all the atoms. The void can be seen therefore as the action field that concurs the relations between the forms but is also the necessary condition to the same existence of the form. In the construction of Chillida the void represents that counterpart structuring the matter, inborn in it, the element in absence of which wouldn’t be variations neither distinctive characters to define the phenomenal variety of the world. The physics laws become the subject of the sculptural representation, the void are the instrument that concurs to catch up the equilibrium. Chillida dedicate himself to experience the space through the senses, to perceive of the qualities, to tell the physics laws which forge the matter in the form and the form arranges the places. From the artistic experience of the two sculptors they can be transposed, to the architectonic work of Moneo, those matrices on which they have constructed their original lyric expressions, where the void is absolute protagonist. An ambit is defined thus within which the matrices form them drafts from the work of Oteiza and Chillida can be traced in the definition of the process of birth and construction of the architecture of Moneo, but also in the relation that the architecture establishes with the place and in the time. The void becomes instrument to read the space constructed in its relationships that determine the proportions, rhythms, and relations. In this way the void concurs to interpret the architectonic space and to read the value of it, the quality of the spaces constructing it. This because it’s like an instrument of the composition, whose role is to maintain to the separation between the elements putting in evidence the field of relations. The void is that instrument that serves to characterize the elements that are with in the composition, related between each other, but distinguished. The meaning of the void therefore pushes the interpretation of the architectonic composition on the game of the relations between the elements that, independent and distinguished, strengthen themselves in their identity. On the one hand if void, as measurable reality, concurs all the dimensional changes quantifying the relationships between the parts, on the other hand its dialectic connotation concurs to search the equilibrium that regulated such variations. Equilibrium that therefore does not represent an obtained state applying criteria setting up from arbitrary rules but that depends from the intimate nature of the matter and its embodiment in the form. The production of a form, or a formal system that can be finalized to the construction of a building, is indissolubly tied to the technique that is based on the acquaintance of the formal vocation of the matter, and what it also can representing, meaning, expresses itself in characterizing the site. For Moneo, in fact, the space defined from the architecture is above all a site, because the essence of the site is based on the construction. When Moneo speaks about “birth of the idea of plan” like essential moment in the construction process of the architecture, it refers to a process whose complexity cannot be born other than from a deepened acquaintance of the site that leads to the comprehension of its specificity. Specificity arise from the infinite sum of relations, than for Moneo is the story of the oneness of a site, of its history, of the cultural identity and of the dimensional characters that that they are tied to it beyond that to the physical characteristics of the site. This vision is leaned to a solid made physical structure of perceptions, of distances, guideline and references that then make that the process is first of all acquaintance, appropriation. Appropriation that however does not happen for directed consequence because does not exist a relationship of cause and effect between place and architecture, thus as an univocal and exclusive way does not exist to arrive to a representation of an idea. An approach that, through the construction of the place where the architecture acquires its being, searches an expression of its sense of the truth. The proposal of a distinction for areas like space, matter, spirit and time, answering to the issues that scan the topics of the planning search of Moneo, concurs a more immediate reading of the systems subtended to the composition principles, through which is related the recurrent architectonic elements in its planning dictionary. From the dialectic between the opposites that is expressed in the duality of the form, through the definition of a complex element that can mediate between inside and outside as a real system of exchange, Moneo experiences the form development of the building deepening the relations that the volume establishes in the site. From time to time the invention of a system used to answer to the needs of the program and to resolve the dual character of the construction in an only gesture, involves a deep acquaintance of the professional practice. The technical aspect is the essential support to which the construction of the system is indissolubly tied. What therefore arouses interest is the search of the criteria and the way to construct that can reveal essential aspects of the being of the things. The constructive process demands, in fact, the acquaintance of the formative properties of the matter. Property from which the reflections gush on the relations that can be born around the architecture through the resonance produced from the forms. The void, in fact, through the form is in a position to constructing the site establishing a reciprocity relation. A reciprocity that is determined in the game between empty and full and of the forms between each other, regarding around, but also with regard to the subjective experience. The construction of a background used to amplify what is arranged on it and to clearly show the relations between the parts and at the same time able to tie itself with around opening the space of the vision, is a system that in the architecture of Moneo has one of its more effective applications in the use of the platform used like architectonic element. The spiritual force of this architectonic gesture is in the ability to define a place whose projecting intention is perceived and shared with who experience and has lived like some instrument to contact the cosmic forces, in a delicate process that lead to the equilibrium with them, but in completely physical way. The principles subtended to the construction of the form taken from the study of the void and the relations that it concurs, lead to express human values in the construction of the site. The validity of these principles however is tested from the time. The time is what Moneo considers as filter that every architecture is subordinate to and the survival of architecture, or any of its formal characters, reveals them the validity of the principles that have determined it. It manifests thus, in the tie between the spatial and spiritual dimension, between the material and the worldly dimension, the state of necessity that leads, in the construction of the architecture, to establish a contact with the forces of the universe and the intimate world, through a process that translate that necessity in elaboration of a formal system.