From the Projects of Destruction to the Equal City. An Archaeology of the Project

Conference theme: Theory of city’s interpretation. Theory of urban form Abstract. The contribution analyses how Franco Purini elaborated, through two emblematic projects – the Projects of Destruction (1992) and the Equal City (Venice Biennale, 2000) – a sy- stematic reflection on the urban form of Rome, founded on the dialectical relationship betwe- en morphological knowledge and design invention. The Projects of Destruction, nine plates in which Purini erases and alters the city starting from the constitutive rules that define it, are inter- preted as a reductio ad absurdum that, through the destructive act, makes legible the deep structures of the urban text. The Equal City, presented at the Venice Biennale of 2000, represen- ts instead the utopian and visionary moment of this trajectory: a demonstrative city, founded on the modular grid and on the equality of dwelling conditions, which critically interrogates the contemporary city. The essay proposes to read this trajectory as a form of archaeology of the project, capable of activating new relations among historical permanences, urban space and the possible transformations of the city.