Architect, Town Planner, Author, Writer and Professor of Urbanism and Architecture at The University of Notre Dame School of Architecture Rome Studies, he also collaborates with the University of Miami School of Architecture since 2009.
Ettore Maria Mazzola has published books and articles on a wide variety of topics dealing with 20th century architecture, urbanism and urban sociology, including political themes in architecture and urbanism, the impact of new materials, and sustainability. He is author of La Città Sostenibile è Possibile – The Sustainable City is Possible, introduction by Paolo Marconi (Gangemi Edizioni, Rome 2010), Contro Storia dell’Architettura Moderna, Roma 1900-1940 - A Counter History of Modern Architecture, Rome 1900-1940, (Alinea Edizioni, Florence 2004), Architettura e Urbanistica, Istruzioni per l’uso - Architecture and Town Planning, Operating Instructions, introduction by Léon Krier (Gangemi Edizioni, Rome 2006) and Verso un’Architettura Sostenibile – Toward Sustainable Architecture introduction by Paolo Portoghesi, (Gangemi Edizioni, Rome 2007), he’s also the author of the essays The Importance of Local Spirit and Sense of Place: Side Effects of the Underestimation in Modernist Town Planning,published on the Social Science Research Network in August 2009, “Proposal for a “new” sustainable urbanism of Mediterranean Basin”, paper published on the Volume 4 of the Conference on Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development, edited by Suliman M. Fortea and Jamal Al-Qawasmi , CSAAR Press, 2010, “The sustainable city is possible – a possible strategy to recover urban qualities and local economies”, paper published on the Volume 1 of the Conference on Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development, edited by Suliman M. Fortea and Jamal Al-Qawasmi , CSAAR Press, 2009; “Monuments and Environment are not separable”, essay published in the book “The Venice Charter Revisited – Modernism, Conservation and Tradition in the 21st Century”, edited by Matthew Hardy for the I.N.T.B.A.U., with introduction by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008
Graduate in Architecture at The Università di Roma “La Sapienza”.
Ettore Maria Mazzola, is an architect expert of restoration and urban-architectural design, and co-editor of Il Covile, a journal devoted to many disciplines including history, theory and criticism of architectural and urban design. He taught for 12 years as assistant professor at the University “La Sapienza”, and since 2001 he teaches at the Rome Program of the University of Notre Dame. Since August 2009 he’s also collaborator of the University of Miami Rome Program.
Member of the Prince of Wales’s Foundation and INTBAU, Member of Making Cities Livable, Member of the International Scientific Committee of the INTBAU for The Venice Charter Revisited (2006).
He received honorable mentions for the architectural contests “Millennium Belvedere in Poundbury”; “Rione Rinascimento al Parco Talenti” in Rome; “Cities of Stones”; “il Borgo – Sub Comparto 1” in Castel San Pietro Terme, in 2006, the project for Pantelleria for the International Competition “Cities of Stones” (co-author with Samir Younés), was rewarded with the publication and the exhibition at the Biennale of Venice; in 2006 he was Member of the International Scientific Committee of the INTBAU for The Venice Charter Revisited, in 2009 he was Member of the International Scientific Committee for Fifth International Conference on Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development Organized by Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Al-Fateh University, Libya In collaboration with The Center for the Study of Architecture in the Arab Region (CSAAR) (3 - 5 November, 2009 Tripoli, Libya), in 2010 he was Member of the International Scientific Committee for The Second International Conference on Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development organized by The Center for the Study of Architecture in the Arab World (CSAAR) in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, Jordan and the University of Dundee, School of Architecture, UK (12 - 14 July, 2010 Amman, Jordan).
Today he’s also Member of the Committee for Urbanism of Italia Nostra; Member of the INTBAU, and Member of Making Cities Livable.
Practice Philosophy
Differently from current way of doing, I believe that proper urban designing must necessarily take into consideration aspects such as:
• urban sequenceswith public spaces needed where people can gather and socialize properly are central reference points for those using them;
• the containing of space, in the sense of the proper ratio between the width of streets and/or squares and the height of the buildings bordering them;
• the designing of edges or limits to the work performed toprevent“sprawling” development;
• the blending of functions toobviatethe social and environmental disaster resulting from the policy of zoning;
• the need for variety in street fronts built to prevent the ugliness of districts where constructions are milled out, one after the other, as if from the same mold;
• the social ramifications of the works must be considered. New town developments should serve to integrate and socialize the inhabitants, rather than isolate them.
The value of continuity in buildings, streets and piazzas needs to be reaffirmed, that is, among places assigned to private aspects of daily life and those designated for extended relations: new districts (but also existing ones that are renewed) should be conceived of as composite spaces in which buildings and/or special ones are only one component of the urban composition, important but not enough to satisfy the need for gathering together and for social relations!