Man and the city form a bond that dates back to the dawn of history, a relationship that continues to re-present itself in a game of unfulfilled expectations and new, unpredictable design approaches. Model cities, like the Greek polis; decadent cities, like post-imperial Rome; fortress cities, city states, temporary cities, magnificent theatrical machines of the Baroque era. As well as multicentric, rhizomatic, telematic cities, symbols of the new post-industrial culture.
Giant cities reaching for the sky or hollowed into the bowels of the earth. Places of complex literature. In any case, awaiting renewal. As happens right now, in spite of the often announced ‘death of the contemporary city.’ The metropolis is reborn through the design of new, innovative social, economic and environmental responses.
Micro-centralism and major planning, urban guerrilla tactics and phenomena of co-housing contribute to generate new languages of urban design, expressed in projects ranging from micro to macro; the famous phrase of Ernesto Nathan Rogers, “from the spoon to the city,” becomes very timely once again.