The article "The Importance of Spatial Organization in Teaching" by
Paola Perullo (published in issue 38 of this magazine last October) hasthe merit of addressing a central issue, despite the fact that in recent
decades it has become less relevant, even among those who live and work
in the world of education. This indifference has grown over time,
especially as a result of the dire condition of school buildings in our
country, which over the years has accumulated an inextricable series of
critical issues, repeatedly and clearly denounced by teaching,
technical, and administrative staff, by trade unions, and, above all, by
student protests.
Some summary references[for more details see Legambiente (ed.),
Ecosistema scuola.[XXV Report on the Quality of School Buildings and
Services in Italy, 2025]to address the problem in its concrete form:
* most school buildings were built between 1960 and 1976;
* approximately 47% of the school buildings have a certificate of occupancy;
* only 53.2% of buildings have a static test and 53.5% have a fire
prevention certificate;
* the safety conditions of school buildings vary greatly between North
and South, with one in two buildings requiring maintenance and
retrofitting in the southern regions;
* 70% of school buildings are classified in the lowest energy efficiency
classes;
* approximately 25% of buildings have architectural barriers that have
not yet been removed;
* state funds allocated for extraordinary maintenance of school
buildings have undergone systematic and significant cuts, especially in
the South;
* the newly allocated funds (PNRR) are insufficient to address the
aforementioned needs. These critical issues will only worsen in the
medium term.
The data presented above express, albeit briefly, the dire situation of
school buildings in our country, which has been replicated by successive
governments, who, regardless of political orientation, have consistently
pursued the liberal logic of vertical cuts even in education at all
levels, as has happened in other essential public services and areas.
In this regard, it is significant to underline that in Italy:
"The total budget law, according to calculations by "MILEURX -
Observatory on Italian Military Expenditure," is nearly 35 billion
euros, over a billion more than in 2025, a 3.52% increase in percentage
terms: Italy continues to raise the bar for military spending for next
year as well. Just as the Ursula majority in Europe has focused its
efforts on investments in the defense industry, the Meloni government
confirms the steady growth trend in funding for the sector while
continuing to ignore the opposition, unions, and civil society groups
who are calling for resources to be allocated to welfare, education, and
healthcare.[Marco Pasciuti, Rearmament, the dossier: "Military spending
will increase by 1 billion in 2026. This does not include the 23 billion
already planned for the next three years," Il Fatto Quotidiano,
29/10/2025
(https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2025/10/29/spesa-militare-aumento-miliardi-difesa-notizie/8176244/)]
It is therefore clear that to address the crisis, governments and
capital have invested and are investing heavily, deliberately, and
consciously in military spending, attacking the living conditions of
workers, men and women, and the most vulnerable social groups through
attacks on historic labor gains, contractual rights, the purchasing
power of wages and pensions (which decreased by 8.7% between 2008 and
2025), and through job insecurity, as well as through cuts to public
services. These essential services have become, with progressive and
widespread privatization, areas for the redistribution of profits and
rents. But the protection of capitalist interests has inevitably also
had negative consequences in local and urban settings, with the
progressive deterioration and systematic erasure of spaces, both open
and closed, where daily interactions between individuals occur, with
dramatic consequences for the quality of life and the ability to build
and replicate solid social and class alliances.
With the partial exception of university buildings, the spaces where
education takes place on a daily basis have been among the hardest hit:
the quality of teaching has been severely undermined, particularly its
participatory and anti-authoritarian content, leaving room for the
hierarchization of the education system, which now flaunts a function
and work organization similar to that of large industrial corporations.
This progressive corporatization of education has been followed by the
emergence of a meritocratic, disciplinary, and subservient drift to the
objectives of capital, laying the foundations for the emergence of
decidedly authoritarian practices-think of the entire COVID crisis. Nor
should we underestimate the research funding provided by armaments
industries under the pretext of "dual use," where technologies designed
for peaceful uses and purposes can equally well be used for military
purposes, such as the manufacture and management of armaments.
It is from all these premises that militarism, with all its divisive,
repressive, sovereignist, reactionary, and nationalistic elements, is
growing and asserting itself in society and in schools of all levels.
And while it is necessary to denounce, protest, and strike, as has
happened in recent mobilizations against imperialist wars and rampant
militarism, it is equally essential to understand that this mass
opposition, to last-that is, to expand to a broader social and class
fabric-must be supported by the emergence of a widespread
anti-capitalist awareness.
What, then, should teachers and students do in practice when, after
having consciously demonstrated against the war, they return to the
classroom? What are the tools and spaces, including physical ones, to
replicate and concretize this awareness?
Pedagogy and teaching certainly do not provide a comprehensive answer to
this question unless all participants in teaching actively collaborate
to take the first practical step toward subverting the authoritarian
drift of education. And if schools of all levels had suitable
environments and tools for discussing and experimenting with creative,
communicative, and participatory forms capable of reconnecting to the
real world and its issues, the connection between education and social
awareness for the construction of a truly free society would certainly
be more viable.
In other, simpler words: having appropriate environments and tools at
their disposal would make it easier and perhaps even possible for
teachers and students to deepen and further develop the awareness born,
for example, from recent anti-war mobilizations.
But these environments and tools have been severely eroded by spending
containment policies: schools of all levels would therefore need to
initiate a profound reflection on the choices needed to establish
widespread hotbeds of social awareness. To be effective, these hotbeds
must be connected to the local community and be participatory from the
initial planning stages.
In this regard, there is no shortage of practical examples to draw upon,
nor are there any theoretical references: since the Second World War, in
fact, a broader vision of the concept of "dwelling" has been reaffirming
itself in architectural and urban planning debate, referring to the more
articulated and complex scale of the city, obviously including services.
This emerging and re-emerging concept was embraced by urban planners and
architects, including Giancarlo De Carlo, who since 1948 has expressed
concepts and practical guidelines that remain relevant today, despite
the passage of nearly eighty years. This proves that the necessary and
only partially begun journey is far from over, because architecture and
urban planning must not become isolated facts that have no intention of
impacting the structures on which capitalist society is based.
"The home is not just walls, the home is also space, light, sun, and the
external environment. And it's not just that: it also includes schools,
healthcare, green spaces, children's playgrounds, facilities for rest,
recreation, and culture-that is, services-equipment for work,
production, and exchange-that is, means of economic life. The home, in
short, extends to the community. And it is healthy, an effective tool
for humanity, if it fits harmoniously into the fabric of a healthy
community. The contemporary city is not only not a healthy community, it
isn't even a community at all; it is a physical agglomeration of
buildings and people with no connection to one another. Even if a
large-scale squatter movement[with this term De Carlo refers to the
direct action carried out by the homeless who, especially in England in
the post-World War I and II period, occupied empty buildings; Editor's
note], or a sharp increase in construction were to lead all men to live
in houses similar to those inhabited by the rich today, the human result
would still be miserable because the city of capitalist society is
inefficient and within its fabric the home cannot be healthy. The evil
of the home therefore coincides with the evil of the city."[Giancarlo De
Carlo, The Problem of Housing, «Volontà» no. 10/11, 1948]
There is therefore a profound connection that binds architecture and
urban planning together, in an exchange that complements each other and
determines the quality and livability of the urban environment, of the
functions that take place within it in order to improve the quality of
life. Moreover, a revolutionary process aimed at overcoming the sick
society embodied by the capitalist system cannot be the mere product of
enlightened technicians and politicians, or that of a narrow, organized
political vanguard. It arises and develops from the satisfaction of the
primary needs of the oppressed masses and the development of their
social awareness through active involvement, starting with the design of
architectural and urban spaces. Architecture and urban planning,
therefore, are understood as participation aimed at social progress, in
which the role of education at all levels becomes fundamental.
A utopia, undoubtedly, but, in De Carlo's own words, "a realistic
utopia," aimed at changing society. It is therefore necessary to
reevaluate the concept of utopia because "it is by seeking the
impossible that man has always achieved the possible. Those who have
wisely limited themselves to what seemed possible have never advanced a
single step."[Mikhail Bakunin, Philosophical Considerations on the
Divine Ghost, the Real World, and Man, 1871]
Further reading
Giancarlo De Carlo, The Architecture of Participation, Quodlibet,
Macerata, 2015.
Carlo Doglio, The Misunderstanding of the Garden City, CP editrice,
Florence, 1974.
https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
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