Opening of the Academic Year 2025–26
Dear students, esteemed colleagues, distinguished guests,
It is with a sense of emotion and profound responsibility that I welcome you to the inauguration of the academic year of the Degree Program in Building Engineering–Architecture at the University of Pisa.
Today we are not only celebrating the beginning of a new cycle of studies, but we are also reaffirming the value of knowledge, research, and education as fundamental tools for building a more advanced and more just future. And it is no coincidence that I use the word building: because you, future engineers and architects, will quite literally be called upon to shape the world to come.
And let us be clear: this happens in a historical moment in which rational and scientific thought itself is under attack—that very worldview which has enabled humanity to reach levels of well-being and progress never before known. Along with it, the academic world too is being questioned—the highest cultural and scientific authority in our society. This is happening also in the fields of architecture and engineering, with, on the one hand, the dangerous resurgence of irrational tendencies that view construction uncritically as an assault on the planet, and on the other hand, attempts to conceive the architecture of the city not as a collective and civic art, but merely as the disguise of spatial ideas dictated either by profit or by political radicalism.
The Identity of Our Program
The Degree Program in Building Engineering–Architecture is unique in the Italian academic landscape. It arises from the encounter of two disciplines that, historically, have looked upon each other with respect, sometimes admiration, but also, for at least two centuries now, with a certain distance.
Kenneth Frampton, the great British historian, dates the beginning of Modernity precisely to the 1747 separation of the École des Ponts et Chaussées from the École des Beaux-Arts. In other words, our era is founded upon the very split between these two ways of human knowledge: civil engineering and architecture. We, however, believe that these two forms of human endeavor—these two ways of transforming and adapting Nature through reason and human labor—must return to their original harmony.
Here in Pisa, in our program, these two souls coexist, dialogue, and overlap. Our aim is not simply to train engineers who know Palladio or architects who master structural techniques: we want to form complete professionals, guided by the tools of critical thinking, capable not only of designing but also of recognizing the intellectual—and therefore social—value of this process of understanding and transforming the world.
Tradition and Innovation
To study in Pisa means to come into contact with a centuries-old academic tradition. The walls of this University have witnessed brilliant minds: from Galileo Galilei, who revolutionized scientific thought, to Enrico Fermi, who opened the doors to modern physics.
But tradition alone is not enough. Even though every architect and building engineer can consider themselves fulfilled only when they can say, as Adolf Loos warned, “the way I build is the way the ancient Romans would have built.” It is the dialectic with progress that makes tradition and knowledge necessary, and not the other way around.
We live in a complex era, marked by environmental crises, profound social and political transformations, and technological revolutions. The building engineer–architect of the 21st century is the professional figure called upon to define answers to such issues within the scope of his or her disciplinary competencies—those concerning the forms of the built environment in which our private and collective lives unfold, the study of settlements, and the control and transformation of the territory.
This is why our Program undergoes constant updates, without undermining the deepest sense of our mission. Recently we have introduced new digital tools that will radically change how we perceive and describe the phenomenal reality of our profession, and we have proactively engaged with the challenge of sustainability.
On this last subject, allow me to dwell for a moment, as I had the honor of serving for several years on the University’s Sustainability Committee. On this matter, which clearly relates to an undeniable environmental emergency, two schools of thought are today confronting each other.
On the one hand, what I call the apocalyptic-millenarian perspective, which, in short, holds that the environmental crisis is inherent to our social structure and therefore cannot be solved except through a general palingenesis presupposing the liquidation of our civilization as we know it.
On the other hand, those who maintain that solutions to this grave problem must be found, as has always been the case throughout History, within the bounds of human rationality and scientific thought. We clearly lean toward this second hypothesis.
The Role of Education
In this context, university education assumes a crucial role. It is not only a matter of transmitting knowledge, but of forming conscious citizens, cultured professionals capable of exercising critical and analytical thought on the issues that society presents to us.
Our Degree Program is structured to provide a solid, multidisciplinary education. You will study the mechanics of materials and the history of architecture, structural design and urban planning, building physics, restoration, methods of representation, modes of construction, and architectural composition.
To you, first-year students, I say: welcome. You have chosen a stimulating, but also extraordinarily demanding path. You will face years of study, projects, sleepless nights. But you will also encounter intellectual discoveries, friendships and alliances, cultural passions that will accompany you for life.
I wish I could tell you it will be an easy journey. But I cannot—I would be lying. Speaking truthfully, I tell you that years of hard work await you. After many years of teaching, and even more years of studying, one thing is evident to me: every project, whether in architecture or engineering, is above all the solution to a practical problem. And the solution to such problems lies in work, not in the form that results from it. Ours is still a craft, forged by laws dictated by necessity, by the conditions set by reality, by the effort required to overcome them. Those who practice this craft focus on this alone: slow, patient work. And this is what unites all great architecture and all great civil engineering in Italy, throughout history.
Whether this suffices to define our work as a “poetic profession,” I cannot say. But I am certain that its civil and moral value lies therein.
And above all—to the freshmen again—do not believe that “creativity,” whatever that may mean, is a shortcut to the hard work that awaits you. “Creativity is a consolatory myth,” as Capuano, the character in Paolo Sorrentino’s film The Hand of God, warns us. For those who perform this craft without illusions, doing is always and only redoing. Architecture and engineering works serve primarily to give rise to more architecture and more engineering works. This is the only true purpose of tradition, of masters and their works: to find in the labor of others the meaning of your own. This means conceiving architecture, engineering, and urban planning as practical and positive activities, as historical and verifiable facts, starting precisely from the understanding of the conditions that produced them.
To you, continuing students, I say: keep studying with patience, despite the failures and mistakes we all have encountered at some point in our careers. Do not be overly concerned with the success of forms, but rather strive to develop a way of working that is precise, appropriate to the problem posed, exemplary, and transmissible. Every exam passed, every laboratory attended, every internship completed is a step toward this goal.
To Faculty and Staff
To my fellow faculty members, I extend my most sincere thanks. Your dedication, competence, and passion are the foundation of this Program. Teaching is not only the transmission of knowledge and skills: it is also guidance, and above all, an example—the example of intellectual rigor that defines our profession.
To the technical and administrative staff, I express my gratitude for your often silent but indispensable work. Without you, nothing would function.
Together, we are a community. And as such, we must continue working to make this Program increasingly inclusive, open, dynamic, efficient, and responsive to the questions that society—often in a confused manner—asks of us.
Conclusion
To inaugurate an academic year means to open new questions each year. And to attempt to resolve them, year after year, in a fairer and more advanced form.
May this be a year of growth, of dialogue, of building.
Happy academic year to you all.
Thank you.
Prof. Arch. Luca Lanini
President of the Degree Program in Building Engineering–Architecture
University of Pisa