From Architecture of the City to architectures for the cities runs a substantial difference. First one fills urban void with monumental scale building. Second one put new buildings as a frame of urban voids. We aim to focus this difference, supporting the idea that contemporary cities need architecture to provide a network of services for improving their quality of life, not their monumental quality. The roman plan of Sixtus V was exemplary for Rossi’s theories, fixing the succession of street-square-obelisk-Basilica and producing an urban pattern that worked as a sort of Counter-Reformation Church trademark, in which the Basilica represented the monumental element that gives identity to the whole. From this famous urban pattern, still readable in the city of Rome nowadays, descends Rossi idea that a community can find identity through the form of its institutional architecture. But this theory is passed throughout the gap between ideal and reality, in front of the failure of politics, the uncertainties of institutions and the inanity of policy to manage urban transformation. Consequently, today we define an anti-rhetorical condition for contemporary urban architectures: to be friendly user, conceived for the cities, to serve citizens and visitors, no more to represent themselves. Recent architectural researches outline some possible operative strategies. strategy # 1 Housing as a qualified urban facility As a sort of upgraded Unité implemented to respond to a double scale of needs, ones of the inhabitants, others of neighborhood, housing can avoid a sense of closure and expand urban vitality, at the very opposite of the duality of 'fabric' and 'monument. strategy # 2 Infrastructure as material of architecture Finally freed from the exclusive dominion of technical engineering, infrastructure passes to be material of architectural design to minimize its brutal impact and to allow, at the same time, a qualified kinetic fruition of the cities. strategy # 3 Public spaces as a network Small diffuse interstitial spaces inter-connected allow a continuous walk/bike fruition producing an high quality of public spaces, generating a sort of ‘democratic life style’ in which the citizens can have same opportunities in terms of mobility and urban fruition.
From Architecture of the City to architectures for the cities / Raitano, Manuela. - (2012). (Intervento presentato al convegno Cities in Transformation ─ Research & Design Ideas, Methods, Techniques, Tools, Case Studies EAAE/ARCC Conference on Architectural Research Milano tenutosi a Milano nel 7-10 June 2012 - Politecnico di Milano).
From Architecture of the City to architectures for the cities
RAITANO, Manuela
2012
Abstract
From Architecture of the City to architectures for the cities runs a substantial difference. First one fills urban void with monumental scale building. Second one put new buildings as a frame of urban voids. We aim to focus this difference, supporting the idea that contemporary cities need architecture to provide a network of services for improving their quality of life, not their monumental quality. The roman plan of Sixtus V was exemplary for Rossi’s theories, fixing the succession of street-square-obelisk-Basilica and producing an urban pattern that worked as a sort of Counter-Reformation Church trademark, in which the Basilica represented the monumental element that gives identity to the whole. From this famous urban pattern, still readable in the city of Rome nowadays, descends Rossi idea that a community can find identity through the form of its institutional architecture. But this theory is passed throughout the gap between ideal and reality, in front of the failure of politics, the uncertainties of institutions and the inanity of policy to manage urban transformation. Consequently, today we define an anti-rhetorical condition for contemporary urban architectures: to be friendly user, conceived for the cities, to serve citizens and visitors, no more to represent themselves. Recent architectural researches outline some possible operative strategies. strategy # 1 Housing as a qualified urban facility As a sort of upgraded Unité implemented to respond to a double scale of needs, ones of the inhabitants, others of neighborhood, housing can avoid a sense of closure and expand urban vitality, at the very opposite of the duality of 'fabric' and 'monument. strategy # 2 Infrastructure as material of architecture Finally freed from the exclusive dominion of technical engineering, infrastructure passes to be material of architectural design to minimize its brutal impact and to allow, at the same time, a qualified kinetic fruition of the cities. strategy # 3 Public spaces as a network Small diffuse interstitial spaces inter-connected allow a continuous walk/bike fruition producing an high quality of public spaces, generating a sort of ‘democratic life style’ in which the citizens can have same opportunities in terms of mobility and urban fruition.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
