{"id":5395,"date":"2021-01-01T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-01T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.agora-magazine.com\/2021\/01\/01\/through-the-possible-cities\/"},"modified":"2021-02-12T13:15:54","modified_gmt":"2021-02-12T13:15:54","slug":"through-the-possible-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.agora-magazine.com\/en\/2021\/01\/01\/through-the-possible-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"Through the possible cities"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are some forms of art, which are defined as \u201cimmortal works\u201d, capable of breaking the frontiers of time and deeply embody universally shared principles and values beside the generational change. This is definitely the case of \u201cInvisible cities\u201d, a complex and multifaceted novel written by Italo Calvino that, then as now, it is able to transport us into another dimension, as enigmatic and visionary as surprisingly familiar and tangible.<\/em><\/p>\r\n

–<\/div>\r\n

Sofronia is the name of one of the cities that Italo Calvino describes in his famous novel \u201cInvisible cities\u201d, undisputed pillar of every visionary architect\/town planner. Sofronia consists of two half-cities: in the first one we can see \u201cthe great roller coaster with its steep humps, the carousel with its halo of chains, the wheel of the revolving cages (\u2026)\u201d<\/em>, while the second one \u201cis made of stones and marble-cement, with the bank, the workshops, the building, the slaughterhouse, the school and everything else\u201d<\/em>. One part is fixed, while the other is temporary, destined to be regularly assembled and disassembled. Therefore, every year \u201cthe labourers detach the marble pediments, lower the stone walls, the cement pillars, dismantle the ministry (\u2026)\u201d \u201cwhile the half Sofronia of the dartboards and carousels remains\u201d \u201cwaiting for the caravan to be back and for the life to start again\u201d<\/em>. There is a possible interpretation of this short narration, suggested by its unexpected ending: the \u201cheavy\u201d city builds in our heads the idea of the society\u2019s institution and structure that is constantly changing and rebuilding itself, whilst its \u201clight\u201d side stays playful and impatient. This contrast between rooted and ephemeral, solid and intangible, it is one of the recurring themes within the narration, whose cities sometimes define themselves by declaring their own laws, and sometimes seems utterly fleeting and vanishing.
We could use this anecdote to make a consideration about our times, leading to us asking to ourselves: Which connotations will our future societies have? What kind of expectations will we have? What desires? Will our city be made of stone or iron? Light or heavy? Defined or ephemeral?<\/p>\r\n\"Attraverso_citta_possibili-personal_zirma_I\"\r\n

<\/em>\u00a9 Gabriele Prinzivalli, personal Zirma – Le citt\u00e0 invisibili (I), 2020.<\/p>\r\n

Approaching the issue with a progressive attitude, we could assume a scenario of constant ferment, wherein people and cultures swirl together so fast that they liquefy into a tumultuous sea where the idea of space loses its founding status. As visionary as this may seem, it is not that far from today\u2019s city. In the book \u201cFirst lesson in urban planning\u201d, the author B. Secchi talks about how \u201curban planners, sociologists, anthropologists and economists in order to describe contemporary cities use terms like fragmentation, heterogeneity, discontinuity, disorder, chaos, which underline the absence of order and rationality evoking images far from the idea of place\u201d. Here we are, suddenly thrown right in the middle of the global city. We are once again blown away and overwhelmed by a reality that is filled with that heterogeneous and multifaceted component that the narration had previously introduced. Concentration, mixture and movement constitute the DNA of these world poles, which play a fundamental role in the socio-economical structure of today\u2019s societies. It is important to state that the purpose of this document it\u2019s not to guide one\u2019s opinion, nor deny the process of globalization that is already well under way: it\u2019s about running the current without being dragged by it. The awareness of an unavoidable contamination on a global level and the importance of a shared commitment in addressing the numerous challenges that the future holds it\u2019s particularly topical; that being said, it\u2019s also essential to maintain a critical debate with the reality and isolate some key points. To be able to do that we will once again need the help of the abovementioned novel. I would like to introduce you other three cities built by Calvino:<\/p>\r\n

Firstly, we could introduce Leonia, which \u201crefashions itself every day\u201d \u201con the sidewalks, encased in spotless plastic bags, the remains of yesterday\u2019s Leonia await the garbage truck\u201d<\/em> to clean up \u201cnot only the crushed toothpaste tubes or burned-out lightbulbs, but also water heaters, encyclopedias, pianos (\u2026)\u201d<\/em>. In fact \u201cLeonia\u2019s rubbish little by little would invade the world, if, from beyond the final crest of its boundless rubbish heap, the street cleaners of other cities were not pressing, also pushing mountains of refuse in front of themselves\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n

Then there\u2019s Pentesilea, another city that \u201cspreads for miles around a soupy city diluted in the plain; pale buildings back to back in mangy fields among plank fences and corrugated-iron shed\u201d<\/em>. Here we can find \u201cat the edges of the street, a cluster of constructions with shallow facades\u201d. \u201cAnd so you continue, passing from outskirts to outskirts, and the time comes to leave Pentesilea\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\"Attraverso_citta_possibili-personal_armilla\"\r\n

<\/em>\u00a9 Gabriele Prinzivalli, personal Armilla – Le citt\u00e0 invisibili, 2020.<\/p>\r\n

In the end, we have Trude, a city that doesn\u2019t surprise the main character at all. Marco Polo says: \u201cif i had not read the city\u2019s name written in big letters, I would have thought I was landing at the same airport from which I had taken off\u201d<\/em>. One might then wonder \u201cwhy come to Trude?\u201d<\/em>, but this is not important, because even if you leave it \u201cyou will arrive at another Trude\u201d<\/em>, since \u201cthe world is covered by a sole Trude which does not begin and does not end. Only the name of the airport changes\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\r\n

It\u2019s surprising how this three cities, designed by the author at the end of the 70\u2019s, described some of the most important contemporary cities in an almost predictive way.
Leonia is the city of consumerism, only worried to achieve a renewal for it\u2019s own sake. If the consumerism can find its first developments at the beginning of the industrial society, particularly during the 60\u2019s economic boom, nowadays this process has mutated and evolved itself in numerous forms. Going past the issue concerning the manufacture of comfort-producing goods, today\u2019s consumerism goes far beyond the materialdomestic sphere, becoming consumerism of places, images and ideas. The most important factor to consider is technological development, as the abundance of messages and information leads to their constant competition and to a race \u201ctowards the new more than the innovative\u201d\u00b9. In this way, the element of surprise and the spectacularity become fundamental laws inside a tank of textureless images. In this way, monuments become silent symbols with no tension.<\/p>\r\n

Pentisilea, for its part, becomes a metaphor to describe the urban sprawl. This term finds its definition during the 70\u2019s, reporting \u201cthat horizontal growth that loses the mesh of the city prolonging the uncontrolled overbuilding in the suburban areas, that end up being the extension of the mother city\u201d\u00b2. The low density of the urban and social structure produces unresolved and disconnected spaces, where container architectures thrive, such as malls, fast food and department stores. They draw their own laws from the market system and the industrial design, resulting in insignificant extras.<\/p>\r\n\"Attraverso_citta_possibili-personal_zirma_II\"\r\n

<\/em>\u00a9 Gabriele Prinzivalli, personal Zirma – Le citt\u00e0 invisibili (II), 2020.<\/p>\r\n

Last but not least it\u2019s Trude. This city really helps us focus on the phenomenon called architectural atopy. The term \u201ca-topy\u201d, with the ancient Greek privative alpha, underlines the lack of place. It\u2019s necessary to distinguish utopia (ou- non, topos\u2013 place) from atopy (a- without, topos- place). The first one describes an ideal space which could never find a realization into the real world, whilst the second one expresses the idea of an inactive place, with neither a positive or negative meaning\u2074. This is what happens nowadays in various architectural and urbanistic forms: we can find traces of this phenomenon both in the cities and suburbs, in the great displays of power of the economical headquarters or in the container architecture of the suburbs\u00b2. It\u2019s clear how this phenomenon requires economic laws outside the principles of construction. In the first case we could easily find unlikely architectures which, however, are ordinary in the extraordinary, while in the second one we could find nothing more than temporary architectural containers.
In this way we place ourselves far from the notion of \u201cbelonging\u201d and the willing to consider those \u201cenvironmental pre-existences\u201d that Rogers identifies as the project\u2019s basis. Living together also means to establish law and shared values which cannot prescind from the definition of a common identity, that also passes through architecture. We could also suggest that a good portion of today\u2019s social issues it\u2019s tied to the weakening of the sense of belonging and to the definition of a social identity that indicates a scale problem. Contrary to our hopes, the global system gets stuck on a political, economic, social and architectural level.<\/p>\r\n\"Attraverso_citta_possibili-personal_zenobia_II\"\r\n

<\/em>\u00a9 Gabriele Prinzivalli, personal Zenobia – Le citt\u00e0 invisibili (II), 2020.<\/p>\r\n

So what should we do? There\u2019s no formula to address this situation. What we could do it\u2019s simply try to explain things and be aware of what is happening around us. In this way, through definition and detachment, we can proceed pursuing original proposal and rejecting the homologation. In practice, the concept of relationship, to which the term \u201cecological\u201d refers in an intrinsic way, could help us keep in mind that everything we do has a before and an after, an origin and a temporary modification; therefore the comparison with the foundations of the existing is essential. In conclusion, I would like to go back to the book we already used introducing you Andria: serene city of the sky.
It was built maintaining a strong connection to the celestial stars, which determined its buildings form. The author once again surprises us by immediately distancing us to the idea of a perfect and immobile city. On the contrary, through a \u201cpainstaking regimen\u201d, it modifies itself so that \u201ceach change implies a sequence of other changes\u201d \u201cthe city and the sky never remain the same\u201d.<\/p>\r\n

Reaching the end of the novel we can finally find a reference in Andria. Its strength and sturdiness doesn\u2019t come from its reluctance to change nor from a evolutionary eagerness: it relies on itself, maintaining consistency in its links, contaminating and being contaminated through a meticulous process, in a successful relationship between the rest of the universe and itself. For this reason, \u201ctwo virtues of the character of the inhabitants of Andria deserve to be mentioned: self-confidence and prudence\u201d.<\/p>\r\n

Translated into English by Alessandra Biondi.<\/p>\r\n

–<\/div>\r\n

Cover: \u00a9 Gabriele Prinzivalli, personal Zenobia – Le citt\u00e0 invisibili (I), 2020.<\/p>\r\n

\u00b9 V.Gregotti, Dentro l\u2019architettura<\/em>, Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 1991.
\u00b2 G.Dall\u2019Ongaro, Scenari Verso le citt\u00e0 age-friendly<\/em>, micron, Perugia, 2013.
\u00b3 M. Bovati, G. W. Reinberg, Il clima come fondamento del progetto<\/em>, Marinotti, Milan, 2017.
\u2074 A. di LuggoId, Introduzione Conferenza: Atopie, idee per la rappresentazione<\/em>, Naples, 2012.<\/p>\r\n

– I. Calvino, Le citt\u00e0 invisibili<\/em>, Mondadori, Milan, 2016.
– B. Secchi, Prima Lezione di urbanistica<\/em>, Laterza, Bari, 2000.
– C. Botticini, Identit\u00e0 architettonica, relazionismo progettuale<\/em>, tesi di Dottorato di ricerca in Progettazione architettonica e urbana XIV Ciclo, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, 2003.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are some forms of art, which are defined as \u201cimmortal works\u201d, capable of breaking the frontiers of time and deeply embody universally shared principles and values beside the generational change. This is definitely the case of \u201cInvisible cities\u201d, a complex and multifaceted novel written by Italo Calvino that, then as now, it is able [...]","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":5358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1047],"tags":[395,1118,1060,1117,502,1116,1119,604],"coauthors":[868],"class_list":["post-5395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-number07","tag-agora-en","tag-atopy","tag-how-will-we-live-together-en","tag-invisible-cities-en","tag-italo-calvino-en","tag-living-together","tag-rogers-en","tag-vittorio-gregotti-en","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t