Urban walls as architectures of the limit, even before military fortifications, have represented for centuries the physical and political image of “urbs” and “civitas”, synthesis of the city shape and symbol of power. As cell membranes, walls were the envelope, the urban skin on which the ancient binomial “city-countryside” was structured (today we would say “city-landscape”). The research lies in the assumption that the development of the contemporary city, an open city, has radically altered the relationship between walls and cities, reversing the semantic order: if once the walls contained the city, now it is the city that contains the walls. As a consequence urban walls, although urban walls have lost the meaning of last limit, they continue to constitute a limit. They represent a delicate border between ancient city and contemporary city. This important aspect leads us to investigate the object wall not only with respect to the historical or conservative topics, but also through the research about the urban space, because the old walls have lost their original role of defense but they have assumed new meanings in the urban context and they are a great potential in terms of regeneration of the historic city. As a linear two-faced devices, these borders represent places of urban permeability and now express places of accessibility, therefore the idea of hospitality. At the same time, beyond the actions of consolidation, the protection of cultural heritage must start from the urban rehabilitation of past architectures to new places of the future. Leaving the dangerous idea of monument, city walls must be given back to the contemporary city as architectures, and as architectures, so that they can live, they must simply be lived. The paper analyzes the case study of the walls of Seville as an urban device capable of generating new balances and new interpretations of the city. The system of walls becomes again a structural element of the urban form as a permeable perimeter between ancient and new city. The contemporary project draws a new urban image by means of possible enhancement scenarios both of the object and of the parts of the city that are intercepted by fortified infrastructures. By analyzing a largely interrupted perimeter, the research develops a study on the idea of absence focusing on the concepts of ruin, fragment, and trace. This is done through the evocation of lost unity and through the spatial power that ancient walls still express today.
Tracing the borders of the ancient city: the case study of Seville walls / Fiorelli, Angela. - (2020), pp. 130-137. (Intervento presentato al convegno Creativity and reality. The art of building future cities. 1st ICONA International Conference on Architecture tenutosi a Roma).
Tracing the borders of the ancient city: the case study of Seville walls
Angela Fiorelli
2020
Abstract
Urban walls as architectures of the limit, even before military fortifications, have represented for centuries the physical and political image of “urbs” and “civitas”, synthesis of the city shape and symbol of power. As cell membranes, walls were the envelope, the urban skin on which the ancient binomial “city-countryside” was structured (today we would say “city-landscape”). The research lies in the assumption that the development of the contemporary city, an open city, has radically altered the relationship between walls and cities, reversing the semantic order: if once the walls contained the city, now it is the city that contains the walls. As a consequence urban walls, although urban walls have lost the meaning of last limit, they continue to constitute a limit. They represent a delicate border between ancient city and contemporary city. This important aspect leads us to investigate the object wall not only with respect to the historical or conservative topics, but also through the research about the urban space, because the old walls have lost their original role of defense but they have assumed new meanings in the urban context and they are a great potential in terms of regeneration of the historic city. As a linear two-faced devices, these borders represent places of urban permeability and now express places of accessibility, therefore the idea of hospitality. At the same time, beyond the actions of consolidation, the protection of cultural heritage must start from the urban rehabilitation of past architectures to new places of the future. Leaving the dangerous idea of monument, city walls must be given back to the contemporary city as architectures, and as architectures, so that they can live, they must simply be lived. The paper analyzes the case study of the walls of Seville as an urban device capable of generating new balances and new interpretations of the city. The system of walls becomes again a structural element of the urban form as a permeable perimeter between ancient and new city. The contemporary project draws a new urban image by means of possible enhancement scenarios both of the object and of the parts of the city that are intercepted by fortified infrastructures. By analyzing a largely interrupted perimeter, the research develops a study on the idea of absence focusing on the concepts of ruin, fragment, and trace. This is done through the evocation of lost unity and through the spatial power that ancient walls still express today.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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