The International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design was promoted in 1976 by the University of Urbino. lt ls an association whose members are the Schools of Architecture of Barcelona, Berkeley, Brussels, Grenoble, Lund, MIT, Oslo, UCLA, Zagreb and Zurich.

The Universities of Venice, Rome, Florence and Genova have taken part in ILAUD. The President of the Laboratory is the Dean of the University of Urbino, professor Carlo Bo; its Director is Giancarlo De Carlo.

Why Laboratory?

ILAUD is neither a School nor Summer Course, it is a place where continuous research is carried on, followed by architects - and non-architects - from different countries who meet, compare their ideas and their work, explore theoretical themes and draw up projects on a line of common interests.

Why International?

Because comparison between different experiences formed in different contexts fosters the development of new ideas in architecture. This has often been proved in the course of modern architecture: both CIAM and Team X were two aspects of this international confrontation. CIAM was searching for a universal architectural language, one that by fulfilling essential human needs could fit into any context. The aim of Team X on the other hand, was the search for a coherence that would guarantee quality to languages that are necessarily different since they emerge from different contexts. For ILAUD instead, the pluralism of contemporary society induces in the architectural process a multiplicity of wills and actions that cannot be expressed save through a multiple language. The search for this language implies the understanding and the redefining in creative terms of the nature of the relationships that develop between social groups and the physical space, and that are always different, as is the nature and the history of the places where they occur.

Why Architecture and Urban Design?

Because there is a tendency to separate the two terms of the binomial, upon the principle that difference in scale implies a difference in concept. ILAUD maintains instead that architecture and urban design are parts of the same problem - the organisation and form of physical space - and that their interdependence is such that no action can be conceived in one of the two parts without the consciousness of its reciprocity with the other.