Revisiting Giancarlo De Carlo’s Participatory Design Approach: From the Representation of Designers to the Representation of Users

Marianna Charitonidou

doi:10.3390/heritage4020054

Abstract

The article examines the principles of Giancarlo De Carlo’s design approach. It pays special attention to his critique of the modernist functionalist logic, which was based on a simplified understanding of users. De Carlo′s participatory design approach was related to his intention to replace of the linear design process characterising the modernist approaches with a non-hierarchical model. Such a non-hierarchical model was applied to the design of the Nuovo Villaggio Matteotti in Terni among other projects. A characteristic of the design approach applied in the case of the Nuovo Villaggio Matteotti is the attention paid to the role of inhabitants during the different phases of the design process. The article explores how De Carlo’s “participatory design” criticised the functionalist approaches of pre-war modernist architects. It analyses De Carlo’s theory and describes how it was made manifest in his architectural practice—particularly in the design for the Nuovo Villaggio Matteotti and the master plan for Urbino—in his teaching and exhibition activities, and in the manner his buildings were photographs and represented through drawings and sketches. The work of Giancarlo De Carlo and, especially, his design methods in the case of the Nuovo Villaggio Matteotti can help us reveal the myths of participatory design approaches within the framework of their endeavour to replace the representation of designers by a representation of users. The article relates the potentials and limits of De Carlo’s participatory design approach to more contemporary concepts such as “negotiated planning”, “co-production”, and “crossbenching”. The article also intends to explore whether there is consistency between De Carlo’s theory of participation and its application.

Highlights

Giancarlo De Carlo (1919–2005) believed that the failure of how functionalism was understood during the modernist era is related to the fact that it remained “too simple and unsophisticated compared with the complexity of reality”
De Carlo identified two opposed approaches that characterised the architectural debates of the late sixties, which could be summarised in the schism between the modernist authoritarian patterns and the non-authoritarian ones
Pation design approach model implemented in the Nuovo Villaggio Matteotti was sucT=R&EW_EP=&EW_RP=10&EW_D=W5034&EW_P=LT_EW&&EW_ER=De!Carlo,!Giancarlo!: cessful is an interview that De Carlo gave to Werk in 1972

Summary

Introduction

Giancarlo De Carlo (1919–2005) believed that the failure of how functionalism was understood during the modernist era is related to the fact that it remained “too simple and unsophisticated compared with the complexity of reality”. By investigating the projects of ILAUD in Italy, the ARAU in Belgium, and the SAAL in Portugal, we can understand that participation in architectural and urban design practice can take many forms, from collective processes of design to collaborative construction and common management. These initiatives explored how new concepts, roles, and tools for participation could become part of the education of the architect and urban designer. Many of these groups emerged within the context of the struggles for civil rights and, made a plea to have non-hegemonic or “other” voices heard in the architectural and urban design processes

From Representation of Designers to Representation of Users

17 October

Giancarlo De Carlo and the Humanization of Architecture

Giancarlo

10. Photograph of the Nuovo

Towards a Conclusion or or to to “Co-Production”