Costruire in continuità. L’Aula Magna dell’Università degli Studi di Perugia di Giuseppe Nicolosi

This paper aims to investigate architectural design as a tool for building in continuity with the historic city through a compositional analysis of a case study emblematic of the city of Perugia: the Aula Magna of the University of Perugia, designed and realized by Giuseppe Nicolosi between 1950 and 1958, when it was inaugurated. It is a true monument-building, seemingly simple in its austerity, yet the outcome of extensive design research. While the connection between this building and the city is frequently emphasized in terms of expression and language, this study seeks to demonstrate its typological and proportional relationship with other liturgical spaces in Perugia. The compositional analysis was carried out using the project variant drawings found in the Nicolosi archive as well as photos from the photographic collection of the University of Perugia. It has then been developed through the method of interpretative drawing, considering the building not as a standalone monument but as an architectural element of the urban system. This approach involved a reverse process, beginning with the construction and tracing back to the inception of the compositional idea, which helped identify some design principles that Nicolosi may have used to create a new “sacred” space within the city of Perugia.