The subject Comparative Architecture, carried out in the MBArch Master of the ETSAB (UPC), proposes the comparison of 10 pairs of images as a methodology for learning architecture. Throughout the course, students elaborate 10 texts in which the multiple relationships established between two architectural or artistic works emerge; highlighting those aspects of both images that otherwise would not have arisen.
In this matter, the choice of comparable examples, as well as the historical, stylistic or disciplinary mainstreaming of the works is essential, since they allow establishing relationships that go beyond typological, spatial or temporal patterns and allow very different discourses depending on the chosen 'opponent'.
The paper will explain, based on 10 arguments, the teaching methodology implemented during 10 courses taught in Comparative Architecture (2010-2020). A learning system that is, at the same time, an instrument of analysis and a project tool, which aims to sharpen the gaze and the critical sense of the student.
From the necessary 'archaeological survey' of disassembling the apparent forms to reassembling them through the comparisons made, concepts such as: version, analogy, contradiction, deformation, transformation, extension, reference, paradox, reminiscent or hyperbole, arise. Terms that are found in the connections that are established between the images and that grant a unitary argument to the personal recomposition that the comparative process entails.
As an example, we will explain, among others, the master lines that arise from the mutual enlightening of works such Giuseppe Terragni’s Casa del Fascio in Como (1936) and the Rafael Moneo’s Murcia City Council (1998); the AEG by Peter Behrens (1913) and the Fronleichnamskirche in Aquisgran by Rudolf Schwarz (1930); or the Rotating House drawing by Paul Klee (1921) and the Kal’at Sim’ân Monastery plant in Syria (450-470). Works whose comparison show the mysterious qualities that brought them together.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version
