Pier Paolo Tambureli is an Italian architect who works in Milan. This in itself imposes a certain architectural authority, especially for us, who remain highly motivated by the modern work of the Renaissance and the rationalist work of the great masters of the North, Aldo Rossi and Giorgio Grassi.
On the first event he has just published On Bramante and on the second event he published Due saggi sull´architectura, a book he gave me in the summer of 2013, which I read on the beach in Moledo, under the mist of the Atlantic, which seemed to me the perfect scenario for a dreamlike homily of timeless architecture.
In both texts he proves his project-theory that ancient and recent history, in architecture, do not exactly have a conventional chronology; rather, they are matter of permanent (ir)reflection, used, in a timeless manner, for the mental construction of the architectural project. This is what we see when we look at its most important building, the Casa della memoria, built in the Lombard capital. An opaque and dense square volume composed under the rigidity of 3 structural alignments, which reveals an unexpected fluidity and a surprising spatiality Chandigarh-style inside. The vault has the appearance of a tectonic altarpiece with depths of images in brick masonry, the same as the pediments of Filipo Brunelleschi’s basilicas, because they were not finished in marble. The portraits and scenes that confer charisma and content to the façade are, as in Piero della Francesca’s paintings, absolutely two-dimensional and in depth, in this case, de-materializing the solidity of its construction and diluting the abstraction of its materiality.
His office is entitled BAUKUH, a term that evokes the art of building as architecture is defined by the German language.But the language of neologism makes room for something that may transcend the mere social utility of the craft. His theoretical and practical work is, in fact, theoretical-practical and it will be virtually impossible to separate his built work from his written work. Founder of the most interesting and influential scientific magazine on European architecture in recent decades, San Rocco (whose title quotes one of the most radical unbuilt projects by the ephemeral duo Grassi Rossi), Pier Paolo speaks and draws architecture and its project, in a mixture of official ease and knowledge of gravity. The true Loosian Mason who knows (a lot) of Latin.
Like most good and important architects, he is an all-encompassing professor, having been a professor at the Polytechnic of Milan, the Berlage Institute, the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the Harvard GSD, the University of Illinois in Chicago, and the Porto Academy at FAUP, where we are now pleased to welcome you back to our doctoral course’s option of study E, Theory and Practice of Design. At the moment, he is a professor at the University of Technique (TU) of Vienna of Austria for the subject of Theory of the Design. The history of our course would never be complete without an architecture lesson by Pier Paolo, whom I thank for having promptly accepted our invitation. Grazzie mille.
Nuno Brandão Costa, 14th March 2023