“Architecture is a collective knowledge produced through the efforts of a multitude.within their multitude, two forms of collaboration unfold: a synchronic one, and a diachronic one, which connects all design attempts in a multifaceted Architectura Universalis.

The Possibility of collaboration now relies upon a broader “agreement with” all previous architecture.To put it another way, collaboration today is based on collaborations of the past. Indeed, it is possible to collaborate precisely because there is a shared body of knowledge that provides the basis for agreement. Collaboration is possible because architectural knowledge is one and given, and thus inevitably shared”

SAN ROCCO is a magazine about architecture.
SAN ROCCO does not solve problems. It is not a useful magazine.
SAN ROCCO is neither serious nor friendly.
SAN ROCCO is written by architects. As such, SAN ROCCO is not particularly intelligent, or philologically accurate. In SAN ROCCO, pictures are more important than texts.
SAN ROCCO is serious. It takes the risk of appearing naive.
SAN ROCCO will not last for ever. There will be no more than 20 SAN ROCCOs for the single five-year plan.
San Rocco is the name of a place in Monza, not a nice place. Giorgio Grassi and Aldo Rossi engaged in a design competition for this place in 1971. The project was not built; ordinary housing blocks were built instead.

Editor: Matteo Ghidoni
Language: English
Pages: 196

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SAN ROCCO #5 / Scary Architects, Matteo Ghidoni ( Ed.), published by San Rocco.

The latest issue of San Rocco Magazine confronts the horror of architecture: “What should we think of the architects who have decided to scare the rest of the world deliberately? And what about buildings that are not just big and uncanny, but deliberately dark, windowless, gloomy, repulsive, or anti-human?”

SAN ROCCO is a magazine about architecture.
SAN ROCCO does not solve problems. It is not a useful magazine.
SAN ROCCO is neither serious nor friendly.
SAN ROCCO is written by architects. As such, SAN ROCCO is not particularly intelligent, or philologically accurate. In SAN ROCCO, pictures are more important than texts.
SAN ROCCO is serious. It takes the risk of appearing naive.
SAN ROCCO will not last for ever. There will be no more than 20 SAN ROCCOs for the single five-year plan.
San Rocco is the name of a place in Monza, not a nice place. Giorgio Grassi and Aldo Rossi engaged in a design competition for this place in 1971. The project was not built; ordinary housing blocks were built instead.

D 15 €

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San Rocco 04/ abstract
FUCK CONCEPTS! CONTEXT!

Contemporary architecture is generally presented with the phrase “My concept is . . . ”, in which the blank is filled in by some sort of notion: “My concept is freedom”, “My concept is the iPad”, “My concept is the Big Bang”, “My concept is democracy”, “My concept is panda bears”, “My concept
is M&M’s”. This statement is then followed by a PowerPoint presentation that begins with M&M’s and ends with round, pink bungalows on paradisiacal Malaysian beaches. According to concepts, to design is to find what buildings are: an ontology for dummies that turns banality into spectacle. Thus, the library is the books, the stadium is the muscles, the promenade is the beach, the aquarium is the fish, the swimming pool is the water and grandmother’s garage is grandmother.
Concepts protect us from running the risk of engaging with form. Why should we bother with form when we have an idea? Why waste time seeking beauty when we can claim that we are solving problems? Why think when we can happily sit around a table and do some brainstorming? Why take the pains to learn something when we can shout “Eureka!” in your face?
Anyhow, it is possible to escape from this selbstverschuldete Minderheit. Complexity exists, in re, in context. Cities and territories are here, and it is possible to understand them!

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SAN ROCCO #2 / The Even Covering of the Field

San Rocco was the product of the collaboration of two young architects. San Rocco did not contribute to the later fame of its two designers. It is neither “standard Grassi” nor “standard Rossi”. Somehow it remains between the two, strangely hybrid, open and uncertain, multiple and enigmatic.

The purity and radicalism of the design does not involve any intolerance. San Rocco suggests an entirely new set of possibilities. It seems to be the beginning of a new type of architecture, or the first application of a new type of architecture, or the first application of a new – and happy – design method that has not been developed further.

San Rocco proposes the possibility of reusing architectural traditions that lie outside of private memory (contrary to Rossi’s usual approach) without erasing personal contributions (contrary to Grassi’s usual approach). In San Rocco, common does not mean dry, and personal does not mean egomaniacal. San Rocco seems to suggest the possibility of an architecture that is both open and personal, both monumental and fragile, both rational and questioning.

Editor: Matteo Ghidoni
Contributors SAN ROCCO #2: Simon de Dreuille & Sam Jacob, Giovanni Piovene, Freek Persyn, Oliver Thill & Bas Princen, Mathias Gunz, Giorgio Talocci, Ignacio Uriarte, Giovan Battista Salerno, Michele Bonino and Subhash Mukerjee, Jonathan Sergison, Andrea Zanderigo, Erica Overmeer, Luca Trevisani, Florian Beigel and Philip Christou, Ioanna Angelidou, Virginia Chiappa Nunes and Pietro Pezzani, Joseph Grima, Yellowoffice, Anton Ginzburg, Kersten Geers, Eric Troussicot, Matilde Cassani, Pier Vittorio Aureli, 2A+P/A, Andrea Branzi, Nicholas de Monchaux, Francesca Pellicciari and Pier Paolo Tamburelli, Vittorio Gregotti, Rolf Jenni, Christian Muller Inderbitzin and Milica Topalovic, Stefano Grazian

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San Rocco – N#1 Islands

San Rocco was the product of the collaboration of two young architects. San Rocco did not contribute to the later fame of its two designers. It is neither “standard Grassi” nor “standard Rossi”. Somehow it remains between the two, strangely hybrid, open and uncertain, multiple and enigmatic.

The purity and radicalism of the design does not involve any intolerance. San Rocco suggests an entirely new set of possibilities. It seems to be the beginning of a new type of architecture, or the first application of a new type of architecture, or the first application of a new – and happy – design method that has not been developed further.

San Rocco proposes the possibility of reusing architectural traditions that lie outside of private memory (contrary to Rossi’s usual approach) without erasing personal contributions (contrary to Grassi’s usual approach). In San Rocco, common does not mean dry, and personal does not mean egomaniacal. San Rocco seems to suggest the possibility of an architecture that is both open and personal, both monumental and fragile, both rational and questioning.

D 15€

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