Antonio Becchi
Biography
Antonio Becchi graduated in Architecture at the University of Genoa (1988, cum laude and “dignità di stampa”) with a thesis about Radici storiche della teoria molecolare dell'elasticità, con particolare riguardo alla Theoria philosophiae naturalis di R.G. Boscovich. 1994 he has taken his PhD in Storia delle scienze e delle tecniche costruttive in Florence (thesis: I criteri di plasticità: cento anni di dibattito, 1864-1964). Since 1996 he is researcher at the University of Genoa and since 2002 Visiting Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin). His research interests are in the field of the history of construction, history of theoretical mechanics and of mechanics applied to architecture. He taught at the Genoa University (both at the Faculty of Architecture and the Faculty of Engineering) and at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura of Venice following courses: “Caratteri costruttivi dell’edilizia storica”, “Statica”, “Scienza delle Costruzioni”, “Storia del costruire”, “Restauro architettonico”. Between 1989 and 2000 he spent regularly research periods in Göttingen and Paris (École des Ponts et Chaussées e École Polytechnique). Since 1992 he collaborates to the international research project Between Mechanics and Architecture, coordinated by Patricia Radelet de Grave (University of Louvain-la-Neuve). Since 2000 he is head of the research Archivio dell’arte e della scienza del costruire (University of Genoa) and since 2007 of the project Bibliotheca Mechanico-Architectonica, founded by the Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca in the context of the Progetti di ricerca di rilevante interesse nazionale (PRIN). As Visiting Scholar of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin) he is working on the project Epistemic History of Architecture and is in charge of the research Mechanics-Construction-Architecture. Structural mechanics from Heron to Philippe de La Hire. He was member of scientific committees of international congresses: First International Congress on Construction History (Madrid, 20-24 January 2003); Theory and Practice about Construction: Knowledge, Instruments, Models (Ravenna, 27-29 October 2005); Second International Congress on Construction History (Cambridge, UK, 29 March-2 April 2006). He is also a member of the scientific committee of the congress Guidiubaldi, 1607-2007. Celebrazioni del IV centenario della morte di Guidobaldo del Monte (Urbino and Mombaroccio, 15-16 June 2007). He was co-founder of the Associazione Edoardo Benvenuto per la ricerca sulla scienza e l’arte del costruire nel loro sviluppo storico (1998; president Prof. Jacques Heyman, Cambridge University). He has organized international conferences and promoted scientific research in the field Between Mechanics and Architecture, editing three books with M. Corradi, F. Foce and O. Pedemonte: Towards a history of construction, Birkhäuser, Basel 2002; Essays on the history of mechanics (Birkhäuser, Basel 2003); Construction history. Research perspectives in Europe (Kim Williams Books, Firenze 2004). In the same research field he has published two monographies: A. Becchi, F. Foce, Degli archi e delle volte. Arte del costruire tra meccanica e stereotomia (Marsilio, Venezia 2002) and A. Becchi, Q.XVI. Leonardo, Galileo e il caso Baldi: Magonza, 26 Marzo 1621 (Marsilio, Venezia 2004).
Bibliography
Works
Becchi, Antonio, I criteri di plasticità: cento anni di dibattito (1864-1964), Tesi di dottorato, Firenze 1994.
Becchi, Antonio, Eggs, turnips and chains: rhetoric and rhetoricians of architecture, in H. Schlimme (ed.), Practice and Science in Early Modern Italian Building. Towards an Epistemic History of Architecture, Electa, Milano 2006, pp. 97-112.
download from Epistemic History of Architecture
Becchi, Antonio, Wusste Galileo davon? Die Architektur als Theatrum pro experimentali philosophia, in “Jahrbuch der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft 2007” (digital edition).