«The project must be able to build places even before buildings, spaces in which to allow and facilitate the meeting of people, their need to be together as cities have always taught us» Vincenzo Corvino, Giovanni Multari

The volume edited by Pierre-Alain Croset and published by Marsilio Arte, reconstructs thirty years of activity of architects Vincenzo Corvino (1965) and Giovanni Multari (1963) in the form of a dialogic tale: award-winning buildings and projects, but also a story about the profession of architect. In six chapters, the “why” and “how” of a design approach that is both pragmatic and experimental, always rigorous and moved by a strong ethical tension, which conceives architecture as a dialogue with the city, the landscape and every pre-existence, are highlighted.

What makes the book unique, as the author himself writes in his introductory essay Architecture as Dialogue, is the narrative structure based on the continuous dialogue between theory and practice, between history and the future, between project and society-in keeping with the very character of the work of the two architects.

The narrative unfolds through recorded conversations with the architects, selected and rewritten by Croset with a critical but participatory slant, and accompanied by fact sheets, photographs, and drawings of more than fifty projects.

The first chapter, Public Spaces and Urban Connections, in addition to being an account of the firm’s origins and early successes, recounts the design of public spaces as a form of city building and citizenship.

The second chapter, Monumental Restorations, deals with the most substantial part of their production, which focuses on the relationship with the existing and therefore on recovery and restoration interventions, such as the restoration of the Pirelli skyscraper in Milan or the recovery of the Capodimonte museum in Naples, highlighting the ability to read history as an innovative engine of the project and not as a passive constraint.

In the third chapter, Representation buildings, the focus shifts to the theme of metamorphosis and the modification of the existing, discussing questions of architectural language, and its values of representation in the relationship between existing and new, starting with a few small-scale projects and culminating in the major project for the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Catanzaro.

The fourth chapter, The “house inside the house”, introduces a reflection on the ways in which Corvino and Multari intervene as contemporary architects inside historic buildings ruined by the ravages of time, through the compositional instrument of the inclusion of autonomous volumes inside other volumes.

The fifth chapter, The functions of inhabiting: residences and schools, is the only one in which buildings and projects are grouped according to a typological classification, with a series of interesting residential projects characterised by their relationship with the urban context but also by the pursuit of maximum cost-effectiveness.

Finally, the sixth chapter, Decommissioned locations, is devoted to the most recent projects, many of which are still under construction. Here the firm’s most experimental research directions and the challenges that the coming years impose are manifested: environmental sustainability, flexibility of use, transformation of urban infrastructure, and dialogue with the landscape.

The book is thus intended not only as a comprehensive survey of Corvino and Multari’s work, but as a broader reflection on the meaning of making architecture today, the role of the architect in society, and the value of the project as a critical, civic and cultural tool.

The volume concludes with an extensive apparatus section containing a rich bibliography and a complete list of projects.