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#19 Aequòpolis
2006

Vertical or Horizontal city?

by Pedrag Matvejevic

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There is a famous story bandied about by the world’s leading historians. They say that, at a certain point in Babylon, part of the city was occupied by invaders and enemies, and the other parts knew nothing about it. In other words, there was no communication between the various parts of the city (…).

The problem I’ve been feeling as a major one since I’ve been in Italy is also how to manage the vertical development of cities. Imagine the vertical development of Naples, or Rome, there are at least ten metres down to ancient Rome… or Genoa. Lots of Italian cities have this problem: how to manage their vertical development. There is another, similar problem: horizontal development which is getting out of hand.

Nobody knows where the city ends, where the suburbs begin, where the boundaries are of the villages that were once the suburbs, or how to control this unnatural extension of the city. Modern history has made us face up to certain rather large problems. I mention some of them in the last edition of the Breviario Mediterraneo… for example, the problem of a city that wants to find itself again, as a whole entity.

We’ve seen cities divided, destroyed, the way in which we need to rebuild a city without damaging its historic architecture, changing something, but knowing what to change so that the condition of the city, its image, does not.

Pedrag Matvejevic

Originally from Mostar in Bosnia Herzegovina, he is a writer and former professor, firstly in French Literature at the University of Zagreb, then in Comparative Literature at the Sorbonne, Paris. This is where, at the start of the Balkan war in 1991, he sought asylum and exile. He then moved to Rome, where he now lives, teaching Slavic Studies at the La Sapienza University.

Tags: architecture, babylon, breviario mediterraneo, cities, city, genoa, horizontal, Italy, naples, pedrag matvejevic, rome, vertical

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THE POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY
Daniele Sandri
Aequòpolis should not be a place that pollutes and strips natural resources down to the bone, but it should blend into them, becoming an integral part of them.
Silvia Amaduzzi
Utopolis. Today, a just city is a Utopia; an emerald City to be built from the errors of unsustainable development in the modern megalopolis.
Domenico D'Alessio
Aequòpolis, the city that gives a natural aspect to urbanisation. A city that allows you to feel as though you were someone in a sea of nobodies, to find an equilibrium in which you can feel alive.
Guido Tamino
The reality portrayed is a perceived, fleeting, rapid and confused one. It is the reality that we intercept, perceive and experience, as we walk.
Andrea Cadorin
The artificial installation has become naturalised, and Nature has become urbanised. A selective process.
Francesca Pasini
Cities give great chances, from a perfect stranger you can become someone. This is the reason why many people live in a big city.
Katja Onjukka
People need more open, green spaces where they can relax, breathe fresh air, smell the grass. We have to discover the secret of greenery.
Mario Ruggiero
Starting with the observations of Daverio, "is the growth of cities a question of numbers?" and Branzi "a city has to offer opportunities" I’ve seen a growing, seeping form of random development, mainly driven by the market. A development that risks isolating the individual.
Fabrizio Luca
Modern cities compress, draw in and heap together any kind of shape, like a funnel. Yet Nature tries to adapt itself to this city.
Simone Trotti
This is Bangkok, a city of angels and temples. Bangkok, unrecognisable. It overruns all boundaries and keeps expanding. Insatiable.
Ilaria Di Emidio
A liveable city, a possible city. Not destroying what exists, but redesigning it, changing the perspective: today, cities are not wrong, just interpreted badly.
Ilaria Di Emidio
A liveable city, a possible city. Not destroying what exists, but redesigning it, changing the perspective: today, cities are not wrong, just interpreted badly.
Giorgio Caviglia
The city is created and grows fed by its diversity. All attempts at planning should be aimed at making the most of its peculiarities.
Susanna Ferraro
Vertical development as an objective; the text becomes part of the metropolitan fabric, integrating and elevating it towards an aequòpolis.
Cristina Venanzetti
You can see the city because the eye of a 20th century human being can distinguish more than 100 different shades of grey. There has also been a physiological adaptation to cities that are ever greyer.
Maria Rosaria Delle Cave
Outside of the conurbations, towards the provinces, losing yourself in the unexplored footpaths to find yourself.
Katja Onjukka
People need more open, green spaces where they can relax, breathe fresh air, smell the grass. We have to discover the secret of greenery.
Stefano Cremisini
An idealised space where nothing is stronger. Everything is on the same level, there is no dimension, no above and no below. A utopian cohabitation of different shapes.
Domenico D'Alessio
Aequòpolis, the city that gives a natural aspect to urbanisation. A city that allows you to feel as though you were someone in a sea of nobodies, to find an equilibrium in which you can feel alive.
Tommaso Colombo
The city is a cohesion of different realities. The basic idea is to transpose this variety of aspects which make up the city through a type of “aequòpolis” composed of different features.
Vincenzo Lodigiani
While preserving the inevitable, oppressive and negative aspects of the great modern metropolis, the new city has the ability to transform itself, offering its inhabitants escape routes towards refuges where they can find their own equilibrium, on a personal or group level.
Paola Slongo
Metropolitan suburbs like giant Tetris blocks: anonymous masses suffocating the sky; indeterminate pieces of solitude fixed in a precarious equilibrium.
Beatrice Cesana
Large cities are like Leopardi’s hedge. A barrier to be overcome with the help of the planners’ imagination.
Ilaria Comello
In some cities, going home is not something that everybody wants to do: architecture and good government can make sure that it is.
Sabrina Grillo
“A famous story says that in Babylon, part of the city was occupied by enemy invaders and the other parts knew nothing about it. The city was not communicating with itself.” Predrag Matvejevic
Paola Busnelli
Sustainable city... to live or to lie? Man is at the heart of the question. Man is responsible for the answer: Live or lie? Act or submit?

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Anonymous at Galleria illy London
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Martin Luther King
"Liberty is about our rights to question everything".

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Vertical or Horizontal city?

by Pedrag Matvejevic

Write a comment

Search illywords

Images

THE POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY

Daniele Sandri

Aequòpolis should not be a place that pollutes and strips natural resources down to the bone, but it should blend into them, becoming an integral part of them.

Silvia Amaduzzi

Utopolis. Today, a just city is a Utopia; an emerald City to be built from the errors of unsustainable development in the modern megalopolis.

Domenico D'Alessio

Aequòpolis, the city that gives a natural aspect to urbanisation. A city that allows you to feel as though you were someone in a sea of nobodies, to find an equilibrium in which you can feel alive.

Guido Tamino

The reality portrayed is a perceived, fleeting, rapid and confused one. It is the reality that we intercept, perceive and experience, as we walk.

Andrea Cadorin

The artificial installation has become naturalised, and Nature has become urbanised. A selective process.

Francesca Pasini

Cities give great chances, from a perfect stranger you can become someone. This is the reason why many people live in a big city.

Katja Onjukka

People need more open, green spaces where they can relax, breathe fresh air, smell the grass. We have to discover the secret of greenery.

Mario Ruggiero

Starting with the observations of Daverio, "is the growth of cities a question of numbers?" and Branzi "a city has to offer opportunities" I’ve seen a growing, seeping form of random development, mainly driven by the market. A development that risks isolating the individual.

Fabrizio Luca

Modern cities compress, draw in and heap together any kind of shape, like a funnel. Yet Nature tries to adapt itself to this city.

Simone Trotti

This is Bangkok, a city of angels and temples. Bangkok, unrecognisable. It overruns all boundaries and keeps expanding. Insatiable.

Ilaria Di Emidio

A liveable city, a possible city. Not destroying what exists, but redesigning it, changing the perspective: today, cities are not wrong, just interpreted badly.

Ilaria Di Emidio

A liveable city, a possible city. Not destroying what exists, but redesigning it, changing the perspective: today, cities are not wrong, just interpreted badly.

Giorgio Caviglia

The city is created and grows fed by its diversity. All attempts at planning should be aimed at making the most of its peculiarities.

Susanna Ferraro

Vertical development as an objective; the text becomes part of the metropolitan fabric, integrating and elevating it towards an aequòpolis.

Cristina Venanzetti

You can see the city because the eye of a 20th century human being can distinguish more than 100 different shades of grey. There has also been a physiological adaptation to cities that are ever greyer.

Maria Rosaria Delle Cave

Outside of the conurbations, towards the provinces, losing yourself in the unexplored footpaths to find yourself.

Katja Onjukka

People need more open, green spaces where they can relax, breathe fresh air, smell the grass. We have to discover the secret of greenery.

Stefano Cremisini

An idealised space where nothing is stronger. Everything is on the same level, there is no dimension, no above and no below. A utopian cohabitation of different shapes.

Domenico D'Alessio

Aequòpolis, the city that gives a natural aspect to urbanisation. A city that allows you to feel as though you were someone in a sea of nobodies, to find an equilibrium in which you can feel alive.

Tommaso Colombo

The city is a cohesion of different realities. The basic idea is to transpose this variety of aspects which make up the city through a type of “aequòpolis” composed of different features.

Vincenzo Lodigiani

While preserving the inevitable, oppressive and negative aspects of the great modern metropolis, the new city has the ability to transform itself, offering its inhabitants escape routes towards refuges where they can find their own equilibrium, on a personal or group level.

Paola Slongo

Metropolitan suburbs like giant Tetris blocks: anonymous masses suffocating the sky; indeterminate pieces of solitude fixed in a precarious equilibrium.

Beatrice Cesana

Large cities are like Leopardi’s hedge. A barrier to be overcome with the help of the planners’ imagination.

Ilaria Comello

In some cities, going home is not something that everybody wants to do: architecture and good government can make sure that it is.

Sabrina Grillo

“A famous story says that in Babylon, part of the city was occupied by enemy invaders and the other parts knew nothing about it. The city was not communicating with itself.” Predrag Matvejevic

Paola Busnelli

Sustainable city... to live or to lie? Man is at the heart of the question. Man is responsible for the answer: Live or lie? Act or submit?

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