In June 2025, the School of Arts of Peking University will join hands with the University of Turin in Italy (Università degli Studi di Torino, UNITO) to launch a new summer school project: “The Aesthetics of Automotive Design: Beauty in Motion”. The project will last three weeks, combining art theory, industrial practice and cultural investigation, aiming to build a bridge between China and Italy in the fields of art and humanities.
The course will be held at the Centro Scienza Nuova “Umberto Eco”, the leading interdisciplinary research platform in the humanities in Italy. The center was jointly established by the University of Turin and the Polytechnic University of Turin in 2019 to explore the profound interaction between digital technology and humanities.
The summer school curriculum includes special lectures, seminars, academic visits, and practical projects, focusing on the aesthetics, forms, and symbols of automotive design. The students will not only participate in classroom learning in Turin but also go to Milan, a famous design city in Italy, for a day trip and visit many famous industrial design institutions (such as Pininfarina and Blue Engineering). During this trip, the students will also have the opportunity to communicate with many contemporary artists in Pisa, Pistoia, and other places.

The summer was born from a collaboration between Andrea Baldini (PKU) and Tiziana Andina (Labont, UniTo). The activity is part of the broader project between UniTO and PKU aimed at strengthening scientific and didactic collaboration between the two universities to create a high-level international curriculum.
The summer school is part of the Scienza Nuova summer program, following the other international summer school hosted by Harvard also taking place at Scienza Nuova.
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