Le facciate come luogo dell’interazione tra spazi interni ed esterni: case e strade di Roma medievale

The facades of buildings are the privileged place of the exchange between interior and exterior: on them are organized - primarily through doors and windows - the entry and exit of people and everything they need, the passages of air and light, and visual interaction. However, facades also often constitute the support of structures, which, original or progressively added, extend the covered part interacting in urban areas with streets or their airspace as porches, canopies, stairs, balconies, overpasses, latrines. On the facades then are layered elements related to the connection always between indoor and outdoor spaces, such as flues, niches, supports for flashlights, animal attachments, but also closures and screens such as window frames and curtains, and again elements - fixed or movable - aimed at signaling the identity or activity of the occupants and their prestige, such as coats of arms, flags, drapes, insignia, spolia etc. It happens, consequently, that facades can become a place of clash, even in the physical sense, between the inside of the inhabited/private space and the outside with the public streets, which tend to prevail against each other, a clash that is more critical from the point of urban planning if it takes place on highly frequented routes, according to a dynamic present in a more or less intense way in every temporal and geographical context and well alive in medieval Urbe. The contribution proposes a brief excursus on the main of these aspects.