The RUFA Talks 2025/2026 series continues with an event open to the public and with free admission, dedicated to the figure of Andrea Branzi and his theoretical and pedagogical legacy, at the heart of the talk Andrea Branzi and the School of Piazza Bausan.
An architect, designer, and theorist, Andrea Branzi was one of the most authoritative figures in the debate on contemporary design, making a decisive contribution to redefining the role of design as a field of cultural, critical, and social experimentation. The meeting aims to explore the relevance of his thought today through a dialogue between Francesca Balena Arista and Nicoletta Morozzi Branzi, with particular attention to his radical and unconventional educational approach.
The talk draws from the experience of the so-called School of Piazza Bausan, a term coined by Branzi to describe an experimental educational practice developed from 2010 onwards outside traditional academic frameworks. A form of teaching understood not as the transmission of standardized professional models, but as an open field of research, capable of shaping generations of self-taught individuals ready to confront the complexity of the contemporary world with critical and project-based autonomy. As Branzi himself wrote in an article published in INTERNI magazine in 2014, the School of Piazza Bausan assumes that the role of a design school is to guide students toward “walking on their own legs,” developing visions and tools beyond disciplinary conventions.
The talk represents a moment of shared reflection on the value of education as a space of freedom, on design as a critical tool, and on the legacy of Andrea Branzi, whose teachings continue to question the present and suggest new trajectories for the future of design and education.