Designing roads for health from the lesson of Bernard Rudofsky. The historical Mediterranean centers as paradigms of a city that produces healthy lifestyles and a pedestrian-friendly

In the Twentieth Century, the metropolis were invaded by automobiles, producing pollution and encouraging the coming up of unhealthy sedentary lifestyles and, consequently, of chronic diseases such as obesity, asthma and hypertension. This invasion was encouraged by the paradigms of urbanism and urban design of the Modern Movement, crystallized in the Athens Charter, that – consciously or unconsciously- realized metropolis and car-friendly roads. However, as early as 1969, the Austrian architect Bernard Rudofsky published an essay on the road that fiercely criticized the public space of the city of the Modern Movement and the habitat of American metropolises. In this paper, which preceded the theme of wellbeing in a different perspective from the hygienism of modernity, the urban environment of southern European historical centers is placed as a paradigm of a healthy lifestyle based on living outdoors. The narrow streets of the Mediterranean countries are described as places of sociability and as spaces for a real psycho-physical therapy: "Walking is more than a physical exercise, walking stimulates mind, especially if you do it in a congenial company". Rudofsky's vision is still current and useful for a right planning of the South-European public space. The author, in fact, considered the Mediterranean historical centers as containers of healthy lifestyles based on the culture of the street. The road seen as a spontaneous "theater of the world", constructed adapting itself to the physical, perceptive and cultural differences of the context and the landscape through stairs, ramps, porches and urban furnishings; as a place where you can perform countless works, social and recreational activities that "take care" of the pedestrian offering him refreshment, company and information; as a "gym" for the physical, civic and cultural education of citizens. Reproduce this type of "look", as for example in the proposals of the Italian Research Project of National Interest (PRIN) 2015-2019 about the roman case of the Sapienza Campus or about the urban section of the ancient Via Flaminia – shown in the exhibition “La strada. Dove si crea il mondo”(MAXXI Museum, Rome, 07/12/2018 - 28/05/2019) – it’s useful to try to close the gap in the design of public health spaces between the northern and southern European countries.