Marco Frascari's Dream House

Marco Frascari (1945–2013) was a dedicated teacher of architecture, an extraordinary storyteller, and an eminent thinker and theorist of architecture. He was the Director of the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, since 2005. From 1997 to 2005 he held the chair of G. T. Ward Professor at the Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center at Virginia Tech, USA. Previously, he spent seventeen years as professor at the Architecture School at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, with an interruption of two years that he spent teaching at The Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA, where he wrote Monsters of Architecture (1991). He earned his Dottore in Architettura (1969) at the IUAV (Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia). He moved to the United States in 1975 and received the Master of Science in Architecture at the University of Cincinnati, USA (1978). In 1981, he completed a PhD at the University of Pennsylvania. His work has been widely disseminated in journals, books, and magazines. His scholarly activity included academic conferences, lectures, and teaching periods in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. His well-read article, "The Tell-Tale Detail", a seminal essay translated into Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese, continues to stimulate discussion as one of the most influential pieces of its kind since its publication in 1981. His last book Eleven Exercises in Architectural Drawing: Slow Food for the Architect’s Imagination was published by Routledge (2011). Federica Goffi is Associate Professor (2007–present) and Associate Director, Graduate Programs, at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. She is currently teaching architectural drawing, studio, and a PhD colloquium. She was Assistant Professor at the Interior Architecture Department of the Rhode Island School of Design, USA (2005–2007). She holds a PhD from the Washington-Alexandria Architectural Center at Viginia Tech, USA. She has published book chapters and journal articles on the threefold nature of time–weather–tempo, as it informs notions of "built conservation" (AD, ARQ, In.Form, Interstices, Int.AR). Her book Time Matter[s]: Invention and Re-imagination in Built Conservation: The Unfinished Drawing and Building of St. Peter’s in the Vatican was published by Ashgate in 2013. She holds a Dottore in Architettura from the University of Genoa, Italy. She is a licensed architect in her native country, Italy.

• Preface. Panta Rhei: in the Drawn and Written Lines of the "Dream House". Reading Drawings: A "Science Without a Name".  1. A Congenial Inauguration.  The Magic Meal.  The Ingredients.  2. Telling and Casting.  The Requirements of the Play.  The Incubation  3. The Importance of Dreaming in Architecture.  The Magic Threshold.  A Mantic View.  The Magic of Translation.  The Trade.  4. The Origin and Beginning of the Dream House.  The Practice of Dreaming.  Description of the Design of the House-Tower.  5. The Present Architecture Smells Bad.  Vita Beata.  The Happiness of Bathroom Imagination.  6. The Analogical Monster.  The Drawings of the House-Tower.  The Recto and the Verso.  Conclusions.  Dream Long and Hard Enough.  Drawings, Model and Sketchbooks for the House-Tower.  Bibliography.  Postscript.  Federica Goffi Interviews Claudio Sgarbi: Oneiric Recollections of a Design.  Index.

'This book presents the architect, scholar and teacher, Marco Frascari’s offering to architecture. It achieves a rare unity of theory with design exploration and project design in both text and image. Beginning students will receive a comprehensive view of what design entails and advanced architects will enjoy following the paths traced out by his winged compass, the golden instrument of Frascari’s mobile and erudite imagination.' - Paul Emmons, Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center, Virginia Tech