Perfect Acts of Architecture: Five Lectures on the Villa / TPOD

This lecture series aim to present contemporary and historical case study of Villas as site of architectural experimentation. The villa is perhaps the most enduring type in the history of architecture. Its rise was link with the gentrification of rural land by the Roman elite who appropriated the farm and transformed it into a luxury residence. Rediscovered in the Renaissance the villa served as an apparatus to domesticate and appropriate the unruly countryside. Until today the villa remains the most outstanding symbol of status and privilege. And yet the villa is also an exceptional – in the literal sense of the word - place of architectural experimentation. By virtue of the close dialogue between client and architect, or architect and builders the villa becomes an intense laboratory in which quintessential aspects of architecture – type, form, space, structure and material – are radically challenged and perhaps reinvented.
This lecture series is part of the Superstudio ‘Negative Utopia: An Illustrated History of the Villa’ taught by TPOD at EPFL.Upcoming lectures:

7th of October, François Charbonnet (Made In); " Villa Chardonne" (18:00-20:00) - FOYER SG
13th of October, Filippo Fanciotti: " The Last Supper of the Midwest: Staging Rituals and Reolt in a Carpenter-Gothic Farmhouse" (18:00-20:00) - FOYER SG
27th of October, Michela Bonomo: " Their Place in the Sun. Tacit Agencies in Villa Graziani and Villa Guinness in Sardinina" (18:00-20:00) - FOYER SG
28th of October, Nemaja Zimonjic ( TEN Architect): " Villa Avala" (18:00-20:00) - FOYER SG



Image: Giusto Utens, Villa di Poggio a Caiano, 1599–1602. Tempera on panel, ca. 141 × 237 cm.