Pratiche dell'architettura in Vittorio Ugo (1957-1987)

Vittorio Ugo (Palermo, 1938-2005) is an Italian architect, mostly known in Italy and France as theorist and a critic as well, Professor at University of Palermo from 1964 to 1987. Much less known is his architectural work as author of projects on different scales: architecture, urban-planning, design. The years from 1957 to 1987 represent a sort of long training period, which prepare the second phase of Ugo’s biography, devoted exclusively to the Theory of Architecture. Born from a family of artists - his grandfather was a sculptor, his father an architect - he was looking for an original way to be an architect, feeling an ethical need to see architecture from a scientific point of view. The main argument of this research, starts from the belief that the fame of Vittorio Ugo as a theorist, together with his open International impulse - France and Japan were his second homeland – conceals a complex "apprenticeship ", yet to be revealed. Many of his former pupils wondered who he was, where he came from, what had determined his passion of teaching and the care he devoted to his students. In 1978, he was living in Paris attending the heated debates that took place at the prestigious Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, inside the courses of Louis Marin and Hubert Damisch. «[...] Que venait chercher Victor Hugo auprès de cette école de pensée sémiologique?» What was Vittorio Ugo looking for in that school of semiological thought? Philippe Potié was asking a few years ago. How to explain the choice of Ugo to devote himself to the Theory, after twenty years of designing?

La ricerca verte sulla figura di Vittorio Ugo (1938-2005), architetto e urbanista palermitano , docente presso la Facoltà di architettura di Palermo dal 1964 al 1987. Della complessa attività di Ugo, che nella seconda fase si svolge principalmente a Milano, la tesi mette a fuoco il periodo 1957-1987, anni che comprendono la formazione universitaria e la sua poco nota attività di architetto e urbanista a Palermo.