Talking Engineering

The literary genre of the dialogue is an ancient tradition. Ever since GianBattista Piranesi's "Parere sull'architettura", the dialogue has surely been one of the most common tools of rhetoric architects use when they want to communicate complex ideas and concepts directly and open them to alternative and contrasting evaluations. In a dialogue differing points of view are easily compared and it is simpler for the reader to explore the merits of an opinion and to make their own judgements. The main aim of this text however is not to suggest the supremacy of "structure" or "form" in the theory of design. Its real objective, in a slightly more ambitious and innovative sense, is to attempt to introduce the basis of the constructive imagination into the teaching of architectural design. This is something that the schools of architecture have relegated to the benches of specialisation and engineering technology. These latter disciplines have in turn often shown indifference to the problem of the design project and the quality of form.