The origins of Giancarlo De Carlo's Building Development Plan for Pavia University

In 1970s many factors accelerated the development of Pavia University and affected its relationship with urban evolution, generating effects that persist to present days. Due to 1950s population boom and to general socio-economic growth, in the whole country university subscribers tripled between 1950 and ’69, giving rise to the so-called mass university and causing a strong overload of universities. Since ’67, Law 641 settled funds for university buildings and called for five-year development plans. However youth protests in late '60s produced a great cultural ferment that swept academia resulting in a rethinking of universities’ structure and social role. In this socio-economic and cultural climate, in Pavia a season of rethinking was inaugurated about the organization of university buildings and their relationship with the city. Following the L.641/67 the University instituted a Permanent Advisory Committee for Building, which in turn commissioned architect Giancarlo De Carlo to prepare a Building Development Plan (1970-74). In his plan De Carlo defined a multipolar model, by which – through the permeability and attractiveness of university buildings – he was trying to break through the both physical and psychological border separating the university from city life.