Established in 1976 by Spazio e Società’s founder Giancarlo de Carlo (1919-2005), the International Laboratory for Architecture and Urban Design (ILAUD) was conceived as a counter-university which united Team X figures and representatives from some international leading schools in architecture. During a highly ambitious eight-week Summer course, the ILAUD participants were challenged to develop strategies for urban interventions, based on a thorough analysis of the physical environment, it’s historic fabric, topography and landscape.

The ILAUD yearbooks, the extensive and relatively untapped ILAUD archives in Modena and oral interviews with former staff and students offer a lens on the development of architectural theory over twenty-eight consecutive years in an educational setting. During the formative ILAUD years, the studio briefs read as a strong plea for reuse and participation in architecture and urban planning. Later, throughout the 1980s and 90s, other theoretical reflections such as ‘language’, ‘signs’, ‘territory’ and ‘identity’ were tested through student designs.

This project not only aims to develop a visual and intellectual history of the notions of reuse and participation by looking at visual sources such as student works but also to critically evaluate the educational values for contemporary education. It will ask how the strategies to deal with built heritage and urban regeneration have changed since the 1970s, and compare current educational programs focused on adaptive reuse and heritage studies with these early ambitions.

This research project brings together the intersecting fields of architecture theory, architectural education, urban planning, visual studies and pedagogy.