Dal Co highlights how, in recent decades, society has exhibited this phenomenon of a constant “need” for novelty, a craving for “more”—concepts that, unlike many other prominent architects, Chipperfield does not pursue. He believes instead in the extraordinary power of a simple, traditional gesture. His architecture refers both to place and time, yet does so by reusing architectural elements deeply rooted in human consciousness—sometimes even unconsciously—thereby creating works that resonate with our architectural subconscious.

Personally, I believe we have lost sight of the social purpose of architecture, making way for economic interests. We’ve come to favor the permanence of material over the permanence of meaning. Our ambition now lies in bowing to a perverse market that offers prestige only to those who generate the most profit.

We’ve lost the ambition of the Bauhaus, which aimed to bring refined design into the most modest homes, using industry as a tool to realize what now seems like a utopian dream.

Meanwhile, as architecture becomes increasingly instrumentalized by the machinery of capitalism, criticism focuses on small dots in the void—singular works of evident quality that, in some way, escape this harmful mechanism, yet are certainly not representative of the destructive system surrounding them. It seems that the intention is to weave, with complete nonchalance—and perhaps even while hiding—a veil in front of our eyes, torn only in the selected spots where seeing is convenient.

What’s worse is that architects—though fortunately not all—are aware of this reality, and are even willing to take part in it, to feed the machine.

And then there are the schools—like the Politecnico di Milano—which have been basking for years in their now tasteless broth, stubbornly trying to paint it as nourishing in the eyes of students forced to survive in a sterile environment. An environment that cannot truly educate, being too narrow-minded and arrogant to self-criticize, to grow, to reflect.

I therefore conclude, as a student, with the hope that this conference will be truly acknowledged by the architectural school—that it will be genuinely absorbed and understood; that it might serve as a starting point for identifying the needs of the future, and for forming architects capable of facing them.