Cagliari, Garden of the Faculty of Architecture

Garden of the Faculty of Architecture. Photo by Marta Cincotti, 2025, from Catalogo BBCC.

The garden of the Cagliari Faculty of Architecture is located inside the courtyard of the former Jesuit College, a seventeenth-century complex later modified and of the Faculty of Architecture. The most recent wing of the complex was designed by the Piedmontese architect Antonio Felice De Vincenti and built during the 18th century. In 1941, the entire complex passed into ownership of the University of Cagliari; since then the building has been adapted to academic destinations: first home to the Faculty of Letters and Teaching, then home to the Institute of Design of the Faculty of Engineering and, more recently, of the Faculty of Architecture. It is a green space, cloistered, historic, closed and introverted, with a regular layout, created with a convent function and transformed over time into a place for rest, representation and educational use. The green space, enclosed on all sides by arcaded buildings, is spread over a single level according to a regular score. The planimetric layout has a geometric subdivision into flower beds with trees and ornamental plants, distributed in a simple way. The vegetation, selected on the basis of climatic adaptability criteria, is composed of Mediterranean and ornamental species. It is heterogeneous and consists of ornamental and Mediterranean species, with the presence of Mexican palm trees of great vertical development, as well as citrus fruits and mulberries. The overall structure preserves the original Jesuit sobriety, reinterpreted in an academic and functional key. In the center of the garden there is a small fountain with a tub, in which there is a sculpture depicting a putto; around the fountain there are benchesfor parking.

Consult the Catalogue of Cultural Heritage — Garden Card of the Faculty of Architecture NCTN 2000253034

Interesting aspects
The garden is interesting for its position within an architectural complex of high historical value and for its typological consistency with the seventeenth-century convent courtyards. It constitutes a rare example of interior green space that has survived in the dense urban fabric of the Castle, and maintains an identity consistent with the values of sobriety and order typical of the Jesuit tradition.