Swiss Talks #1
H18:00
Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi
Fabio Gramazio
Martino Pedrozzi
H18:00
Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi
Fabio Gramazio
Martino Pedrozzi
Intelligenza costruttiva. Artificial and Manual Perspectives in the Making and Unmaking of the Planet
The research of Gramazio & Kohler explores the intersection between the digital and construction, investigating how robotics and artificial intelligence can generate new material logics and design processes capable of expanding the field of architecture.
In contrast, Martino Pedrozzi’s “recompositions” emerge from a minimal and collective gesture: gathering and reorganising the stones of abandoned Alpine settlements, restoring meaning to the landscape through a slow, manual, and shared practice.
Though seemingly distant, these two approaches converge in their ability to question the relationship between humanity and construction, between time and memory. Whether through algorithms or stones, both place cultural value on the act of making, acknowledging that every architectural gesture entails a responsibility towards the planet and the community.
Swiss Talks is a series of conversations dedicated to current directions in contemporary architecture in Switzerland, now in its ninth edition. Over the past three years, the programme has developed along three thematic axes corresponding to the Istituto Svizzero’s programme lines: Art (2023), Territory (2024), and Science (2025), each explored in dialogue with architecture.
The 2025 edition focuses on scientific research carried out within Swiss schools of architecture, highlighting contributions that stand out not only for their methodological rigour, but also for their capacity to foster innovation, experimentation, and new ways of thinking. The curatorial project aims to spotlight particularly significant research experiences, in terms of duration, outcomes, and the originality of their processes, that have the potential to impact the relationship between architecture and society in a lasting way.
As with previous editions, the cities hosting the talks also help shape the thematic choices.
Fabio Gramazio
Martino Pedrozzi
With Michel Carlana
Moderated by Francesca Chiorino
Introduction by Ilyas Azouzi
For this initiative, a request has been submitted to the CNAPPC for the recognition of 2 professional development credits for architects. Registration is mandatory: www.casabellaformazione.it
A project by Istituto Svizzero, in collaboration with CasabellaFormazione.
We would like to thank the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia for their hospitality.
Fabio Gramazio is an architect and Full Professor of Architecture and Digital Fabrication at the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich, where he also studied. He is the co-founder, alongside Matthias Kohler, of the practice Gramazio Kohler and its associated research unit, which explores the integration of computational design, robotics, and material innovation. In the academic field, he leads courses and programmes dedicated to digital design and advanced fabrication, with 1:1 scale experiments that connect data, tools, and building processes.
Martino Pedrozzi holds a degree in architecture from EPFL Lausanne. He is a senior lecturer at the Academy of Architecture at Università della Svizzera italiana, where, since 2003, he has conceived and directed WISH – Workshop on International Social Housing, a summer school programme. He founded his practice in Mendrisio and regularly conducts teaching activities and workshops with Swiss architecture schools, focusing on the relationship between rigorous design inventiveness, manual craft, education, and the transformation of mountain territories.
Michel Carlana graduated from the Iuav University of Venice, where he currently teaches Architectural and Urban Design. He is co-founder of the Treviso-based practice Carlana Mezzalira Pentimalli, which has completed, among other projects, the School of Music (2021) and the Civic Library (2022) in Bressanone. For Electa Mondadori, he edited Forme di strutture (2011), a monograph on the Swiss engineering firm Conzett Bronzini Gartmann AG. He is also the author of the editorial project Quirino De Giorgio: An Architect’s Legacy, published by Park Books in 2019.
Francesca Chiorino is an architect, author, and curator. She studied architecture at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia, graduating in History in 2003, and also studied at the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona in Spain. Since 2005, she has been a member of the editorial board of Casabella, and in 2011 she founded her own architecture practice. She curates architecture conferences and events, and regularly publishes critical texts and essays in specialist journals and monographic volumes. Since 2023, she has been the curator of Swiss Talks.
Ilyas Azouzi has been Head of the Science, Research and Innovation at Istituto Svizzero since February 2025. A historian specialising in the political and urban history of Fascist Italy, his research focuses in particular on the architectural legacy of Italian colonialism. He holds a PhD in History from University College London (UCL), a Master’s degree in Art History from the University of Lausanne, and a Master’s in Architectural History and Theory from the Bartlett School of Architecture.
SAVE THE DATE
Sign up to this event to receive a notification email
©Ivo Trumpy
Rock Print, Architectural installation at the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial, 2015 © Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich
©Alfio Tommasini
Gantenbein Vineyard, Facade Detail, Non-Standardised Brick Façade, Fläsch, Switzerland, 2006 © Gramazio Kohler Architects, Zurich. Photography: Ralph Feiner