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E-book Small Forgotten Places in the Hearth of Cities

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Penilaian

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The city is the womb of our history and our civilisation. It is the largest work of art ever created by humanity. The city is «the supremely human achievement» (Lévi-Strauss, 1973: 124) and the driving force of the development of thought, progress and social accomplishments. Over time it has become the main place of production, exchange and the consump-tion of goods; not only tangible goods, but also intangible ones, such as culture, beau-ty and social capital. Each city appears to us as «an immense repository of human labour» (Cattaneo, 1858: 52-54). At the same time, cities «also testify to values; they constitute memory and permanence.» (Rossi, 1982: 34). From Etymologiae (624-636 d.C.) by Isidoro di Siviglia,2 the city is the synthesis of two concepts. The first – the city as urbs – sees the city as a physical entity, the construc-tion of structures and infrastructures, the concrete result of human, individual and group action on the environment (first natural; then anthropic). The second – the city as civi-tas – sees the city as a symbolic, intangible entity, a network of functions and intense so-cial, cultural and information exchanges (Fustel de Coulanges, [1864] 1978; Mumford, 1961; Deevey, 1963; Castells, 1989; 1996; Romano, 2008; Castells & Himanen, 2014), «exchanges of words, of desires, of memories» (Calvino, 1983: 42) as well as the centre of the choices and activities that govern aspects of the inhabitants’ lives. A city «is not, in other words, merely a physical mechanism and an artificial con-struction. It is involved in the vital processes of the people who compose it; it is a product of nature, and particularly of human nature.» It is – as Robert Park contin-ued – «a state of mind, a body of customs and traditions, and of the organized at-titudes and sentiments that inhere in these customs and are transmitted with this tradition.» (Park, 1925: 1).The city is a context in continuous evolution, a place where the creative processing of new ideas and concepts occurs and new opportunities arise. It is the precarious syn-thesis of all changes that have taken and take place there. These changes, when they cannot be understood or tackled, are referred to as “momentous.” Today, much more so than in the recent past, the changes that concern city life come in rapid succession, are interconnected and increasingly seem to raise ques-tions more than provide answers: the profound changes to the demographic and so-cial structure, urban drift and multiculturalism, new lifestyles and the emergence of new requirements, the environmental question, the relationship between humans and nature, health, the digital challenge, etc. (see Laurìa et al., 2020a). Moreover, the effects brought about by such changes are not always immediately clear or decipher-able. Often, they emerge gradually until they become stable and long-lasting. Chasing problems each time they emerge on the basis of the available data cannot be the solu-tion. Processes closed in on themselves, however rigorously conducted, do not seem suitable to address a situation undergoing such rapid evolution.3 Nowadays, manag-ing change in city life seems to be a challenge greater than us. First and foremost, due to the impossibility of providing effective local responses in a world structured by in-creasingly global processes (Castells, 1996; Bauman, 2005); then, due to our limits in anticipating how the city of the future will be (see Gregotti, 2000), as the recent pandemic crisis has dramatically confirmed.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

725 LAU s

Penerbit

France : Firenze University Press., 2021

Deskripsi Fisik

159 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9788855184977

Klasifikasi

725

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Public Structures Architecture

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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