Il paesaggio della strada. Cambiare passo per la cura della città e della gente

Our cities and the communities that live in them are suffering. The former ones because they are often in state of neglect, the latter because they can’t find answers to their problems. Politicians are unable to identify either long-term strategies or concrete daily actions to devote themselves to and are usually subject to the most practical attraction of temporary events. As the title of our research suggests, “The city of cure and the care of the city”, we need to call back common sense and devote time to taking care of things. To return to focus on the care of the city, with the same dedication with which we dedicate ourselves to the care of the body, means to return to think about the needs of the people and the importance of accessibility and connectivity, mobility, in its different and multiple forms, which include fast and slow pace. In order to do this, it is necessary to return to systemic visions, into which the small things of everyday life can be embedded. Today, the forms of this ethic have focused on environmental infrastructures, recycling of resources, the need to re-evaluate local commerce and welfare architecture, and the conformations of public space. It’s important to return to take care of street life. The street is the public space par excellence, the main place of organization of collective life. Neglected by the modernity, this space offers great potential to return to conceive places of community. To do this it’s necessary to change step, to recover the fundamental practice of walking invoked in recent years also by the world of physicians for its fundamental health benefits. It’s necessary to think about a city no longer subordinated to the use of the car, but capable of offering, as Rudofsky said, roads for people. During the 20th century, in fact, the street underwent a drastic transformation from an architecturally configured urban environment to a technical space for circulation. The increase in the mobility of people and goods is the main cause of this mutation, which in the 19th century took shape with the enlargement of the road section. Le Corbusier introduced the terms of this problem in the Ville Radieuse by proposing the separation of pedestrians and cars and the detachment of the buildings from the streets. Piero Bottoni was the first to start talking about a “vital road”, referring to the models of the historical Italian city. A term that communicates the strength and attractiveness that urban space must have. At the end of the 50’s a stimulating season of studies on the road began, with Team X and more recently with Jan Gehl. In the U.S.A. we can mention J. Jacobs and the Boston MIT group (Kepes and Lynch), G. Cullen, R. Venturi, S. Anderson. Between the end of the last century and the beginning of the new millennium, the need to rethink the space of the street has become apparent all over the world. Stitching up fragmented and disconnected territories, increasing or reactivating green or blue areas, encouraging sustainable mobility, creating areas for sport, rest or play are someof the measures taken. New operational experiments and new urban typologies have been carried out with the aim of increasing recreational and wellness spaces, safety, urban care: among these the idea of the “Supermanzana” of Salvador Rueda, the reconversions of obsolete roads or railway systems for walking (for instance, the Promenade plantée, the High Line or the Ferrocarril park of Cuernavaca), the child-friendly city as formulated by Tonucci, try to give back to the city public space to be covered on foot or by bicycle and green paths set up with recreational facilities. The need to subtract space from construction, to restore the soil to its “breathing” functions and to consider the environment as a whole are not contemporary inventions. The famous “Emerald Necklace” that Olmsted developed for Boston, where parks became urban nodes of a continuous linear system, dates back to the late 19th century. The realization generated a series of other experiments in Kansas City, Minneapolis, Cincinnati and Chicago. In 1930 Olmsted developed a project for Los Angeles that aimed to create a unified system of beaches, parks, playgrounds, natural reserves through the creation of a network of greenways, mainly along watercourses, forming linear parks, dedicated to environmental control, recreation and transport. Projects that can be of inspiration for us today.