scar

Laboratories to read the landscape
at Fondazione Prada

Middle School class 2B – A. Toscanini – I.C. F. Filzi – Milano

Teachers: B. Cagnoni, D. Manenti, and V. Chatzipetros

3A – I.P.S.C. W. Kandinsky (high school)

Teachers: A. De Blasi, F. Cannata, A. Rizzo, A. Franzone

Students from the Politecnico di Milano

The video uses a sequence of images to document the educational workshops conducted by the ScAR team at Fondazione Prada in the Scalo di Porta Romana area. The workshop was held on the eighth floor of the new Fondazione Prada tower designed by OMA. This extraordinary observatory presents a panorama encompassing the entire city to the north and extending as far as the Alps. The ascent up the tower and observation of the landscape connected the project in the southern suburbs with the rest of the city. As students looked out from the tower, they became familiar with the landscape before their eyes, comparing different representations of the urban area (maps, building details, panoramic photographs) and their own mental representations (the city of monuments and landmarks). At a later time, they were invited to take part in a group exercise during which they were asked to draw the landscape from real life, sharing their observations and working by segments on a single collective portrait of the landscape. The workshop was offered to different age groups, from middle and high school students to first year students in the School of Architecture Urban Planning Construction Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano.