SS:    You teach the project, the studio?

MG:    Yes, normally I teach the studio. Sometimes it happens that I teach something more theoretical, connected to architectural drawing, but mainly the architectural studio.

SS:    May I ask — perhaps as a side note in the broader discussion — what your current project at MIT is about? How did you conceive it? I imagine you have the academic freedom to propose the subject yourself.

MG:    Yes, it is an option studio, so I have the freedom to propose. Core studios, on the other hand, are more structured around certain topics that students might face in their first, second, or third year.  I decided to bring here in the beginning — like three years ago — a topic that I was already working with in Italy, in Genova especially, which is Enclosures. Somehow, starting from an article by Vittorio Gregotti, well, an editorial for the first issue of his amazing magazine, Rassegna, published in 1979, I guess, the first issue. I don’t know if you know this magazine Rassegna …

          It’s not really well known abroad — also because it was written in Italian — but it was a fantastic magazine, I would say, monographic, monothematic. It started in 79 and lasted for 77 issues and then it stoped. The very first issue of Rassegna is about enclosures, recinti in Italian, which is an ambiguous word in a way because it defines this idea of the architecture of the perimeter. But what Gregotti says about this topic is that — let’s say — he tries to provide a kind of possible definition, which is exactly what you are trying to do with this very broad concept. He sees it as an act of territorial conquer, but it’s an act of a primary act of construction that is done collectively.So it’s one of these foundation acts of architecture. I started to work on this with the students, trying to make projects that could add to the catalog of examples that Gregotti proposes — which is by definition incomplete — but at the same time, it offers this generosity of being completed by others. It’s almost like launching a series of proposals and then let it open to be completed by others. So as I worked two semesters on Enclosures, this year I decided to continue with this approach to architecture through specific single elements or basic gestures. And this time I proposed to work on the roof. So somehow I turned the problem 90 degree and moved from the centrality of the plan to that of the section. So the studio now is called Under One Roof, because we are interested in the collective and public agency of the roof. So not so much in itself as a technical element, but once again as a selective element — something that makes a territory discrete in defining what is under the roof and what is outside of the roof. The studio is interested in investigating the spatial, atmospheric, structural qualities of the space under the roof. And I’m working on two scales with the students: the first exercise is shorter and it’s a pavilion and then a civic infrastructure in the city.

SS:    Do you choose specific sites for these projects?

MG:    Yes, I propose some locations. In a way it’s tricky because I want to work locally. I want to work in Boston or here in the context where I am and it’s a context that I don’t know very well. So this is the main struggle every year to try to find the place, the site, the topic or the specific program that can go with the broader topic I am proposing. So we don’t start from: this is the site, this is the program, let’s design something — but it’s a project-based research. So for instance, now I am conducting the series of roof talks — I call them the roof talks — inviting offices or authors that dealt with the topic in an interesting manner and discussing with the students about one single project for each author in a very in-depth way. So yeah, finally we have sites, we have programs, but it’s not the first thing. I mean, I know it’s tricky, it’s like — you have to design a roof in the end.  And so you already know what would be the project.

SS:    If we move toward a discussion of San Rocco, I’m thinking right now about The Book of Copies, and it seems to me that the roof could be another topic worth exploring. Of course, it’s essential — one might even argue it’s the central issue in architecture.

MG:    Yes, I’m quite sure, I don’t remember, but there should be some book of copies around the topic of the roof, maybe a more specific kind of roof. And yes, the structure and the method of The Book of Copies really influenced my teaching in a way. Many times I ask the students to put together sort of a book of copies around the topic. For instance, we did it for the Enclosures, because it’s really this idea of creating — trying to explore this collective knowledge of the architecture that has been built or designed through time and, considering what are the relevant aspects we can find for our projects today. And so I like a lot to work with the students, at least in the preliminary phase of the studio, as a collaborative research unit in which the knowledge is shared. Especially here in the US I must say that the behavior of the students is a bit more individualistic. It’s not a surprise and it’s difficult to convey this idea that architecture is not a secret. It’s more like a shared knowledge and we should work together on a specific topic, then everybody develops their own proposals.

SS:    I think you have mentioned earlier the beginnings of San Rocco. From what we understand, it was a very collaborative process, which is fantastic. We’d like to ask about those early days: How did things come together? How did you all meet?

MG:    It’s true that collaboration is a word that we have always used. And it’s something both structural, I would say, in the DNA of San Rocco and a topic of discussion and an argument that interests us as a topic for the magazine. San Rocco is exactly a collaborative project made by four offices in the beginning. There were Salottobuono, baukuh, 2A+P/A, and also Kersten Geers, David Van Severen, and two photographers, Giovanna Silva and Stefano Graziani, and one graphic designer, Francesca Pellicciari. That was more or less, let’s say, the starting group. We knew each other from school, from the university in Venice. Well, many of us were studying in Venice and few in Genova and few in Rome, but we had a chance to meet each other during the school days because of the mutual interest in the projects and competitions that we were starting to develop. And I think one key figure we all worked and collaborated under was Stefano Boeri at the time when he came to teach at IUAV. At that time I was already graduating and then we collaborated with him. After my graduation, I moved to Milan to work with him mainly in the research and the academic environment. He was really a collector, a sort of reference point for many of us. After finishing the school, many of us started to collaborate with magazines, especially with Abitare and Domus, somebody with Casabella too. So we all had some editorial experience. Personally, with my office, we curated, we edited the section called Instructions and Manuals on Abitare Magazine under the direction of Boeri. So we met several times before starting San Rocco. We met by chance, sometimes with the occasion of an exhibition or the Biennale or other collective moments, and we started talking about the panorama of magazines at the time — especially Italian magazines. It was already 2007, 2008, so the economic crisis started to affect the financial resources of the magazines, and there was a huge debate around what kind of direction should they take — how to face this — and also the digital publishing was stronger and stronger, and that also posed a question about the future of paper publication. So, I would say that the outcome of this discussion was a sort of dissatisfaction with what was happening and with the kind of direction that some magazines took. In our opinion, they didn’t focus anymore on architectural problems, on the specifics of architecture, and they took a much wider range of problems, of arguments. So I think we were at dinner and we started saying: Why don’t we try to make our own magazine, our own publication? Why don’t we try to say what we want to say and see what are the things, the interest that we share  and try to create a platform that is not limited to Italy, but could generate a debate with other countries. We were also already looking a lot to Belgium, to the Netherlands, to what was happening in Switzerland, and so on. And so we simply said: “ Let’s try to do this”, and we started.

IM:    It was also kind of a small rebellion of some sort.

MG:    Maybe, yes. You can feel a bit of rage in some of the editorials, maybe, a bit of, like: “Enough!”.

SS:    Did you also have good models that you admired, like various magazines or publications that were somehow on the table as references?

IM:    Maybe older?

MG:    Yes, there is a bit of nostalgia, of course, in what happened, also in the idea of publishing on paper that we had since the beginning, because we were very fascinated by these products that we could touch. The Italian publishing Panorama had a lot of amazing references, like some directions of Casabella, the history of Domus, but even lesser-known magazines like Rassegna that I was mentioning before — each of us had their own favorites, of course. We didn’t really bring them and put them on the table, but we had them in our mind. Think about Terrazzo, for instance, this publication by Ettore Sottsass. We also started to understand, maybe, that what most of the magazines we loved had in common was a limited lifespan. So the possibility of recognizing a project that could cover, 20 issues, 10 maybe — Terrazzo, for instance, had 12 or 13 issues, Rassegna 77, certain moments of Casabella…

IM:    Maybe that was a decision made at the beginning.

MG:    Yes, in our case, yes. But in the case of Rassegna or Terrazzo, I think it was more a matter of money, a matter of conditions under which this happened. But you still have the feeling that the project had a precise task — to be completed in a certain number of issues. Maybe they already knew that it was not going to last forever. This is really good, in our opinion, we all agreed on this — on giving yourself a goal, a task, that makes the project more precise, more suitable for your intention. In that moment, when San Rocco was born, or after San Rocco was born, we observed that many fanzines, magazines around Europe, around the world were popping up. There was a renewed interest on publishing on paper, but many of them lasted only one issue, or they started and they never went on. So deciding from the beginning that we wanted to have 20 issues — a goal that we didn’t completely accomplish, because we made 16 in the end — was an assumption of responsibility, saying:  we want to do this — and then we will succeed, we will not succeed, let’s see, but this is our goal. That can change for external reasons. For instance, we immediately understood that in the beginning we declared we wanted to make four issues per year in order to have the 20 issues completed in five years. We immediately understood that it was impossible for us to do this, because it was not our main activity. All of us had offices or work — we had to do the profession. Some of us already started to be in the academic environment, pursuing academic career, so it was simply impossible to put together four books every year with the kind of project we had in mind. And that changed, but, at least in the beginning, if you don’t state your intention, it’s really difficult then to see the scope of your project.

SS:    Just out of curiosity — did you consider any alternative names before settling on San Rocco?

MG:    Not that I remember. We loved it right away — it was Italian and a bit unexpected. I don’t remember any other name. That’s a nice question. I don’t remember any other proposals before San Rocco, but I should check.