Urban Planning

In a contemporary era the ideal project goes from the design of a spoon to a city. The indissoluble link between every component of the city and the city itself it is now clear and studied. You cannot add another actor to a play without changing the plot. All the elements are mingled to each other as the people are mingled to them. The attention of people needs and habits has to mould the each project of every scale.

The interesting difference between a limited architectural project and one in an urban scale is the triple interaction between the architect, the client and the multiple users. The costumer did not and still does not often constitute the users. The architect has to mould the project on the balance between the client request and the users need. The real problem is to focus on the real need of the people. Cities are the melting pot of a multiple transactional network for the exchange of influence and information. When, instead is the city to mould people habits? Control is still a key point for the municipal request, masqueraded under in the good cases, innovative building. The modern era is the paradigm of security. Control is a political device that still governs us, Defining it back to the 18th Century, control and State will define a place secured only when it is delimited and at the same time it lets appear a potential danger: interior and exterior, peace and war, life and death, thus it becomes the pole of a constant dynamic relationship.

The first “modern” urban planning system was created in Paris in 1854 under the will of Napoleon III and the organization abilities of Georges Haussmann. Back then the triple relationship existed but were ignored. The total reconstruction of Paris was not for the people but t...

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