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THEMATIC DRIFT OF THE MAGAZINE
The magazine concentrates on the correspondence between city and citizens based on the civic value of architecture.
It is worth recalling... and Hans Georg Gadamer does so very well, in attributing Architecture a “ruling and founding” rôle. The meeting with a work of art is an experience of belonging to one and the same horizon - ourselves and the work - of mutual awareness.
It is upon this “mutual awareness” that we run into difficulty, both in general terms, of a lack of Civilisation - and in the specific case of Architecture. The deficit of awareness is why “people” do not recognize the works that are built, while the only current values seem to be deformity and the spectacular. Not that we should return to the rigour of Alberti, who in “De Familia” pointed to Order, moral Virtue and Good, but we should at least think of a recovery of capacity and the desire “to express architectural motivations”, of being able to return to an understanding of the terms, of their meaning. Because this community, which at times does not seem to find itself with any awareness, is also that of scholars of architecture, Researchers and Professors: they are “offered” and arranged a free (and we trust welcoming) space in which to compare positions, various “fundamental points of view”. And even a “mnemonic device”, to recall the scientific (or pseudo-scientific) presuppositions of a tradition of urban studies and a project - the Architecture Project, upon which so many have lavished their toil and commitment.
Not that the contents of this Magazine have the presumption or foolish ambition to act as awareness for anyone, whether good or evil, but it could assume the rôle of “know-all” or a “magic mirror”, in which we can know and recognize ourselves (since there is no knowledge without memory) or of a “vigil”, that makes us sensitive to the hindrances that obstruct our work as architects and professionals and which transform the market of building production into a space of disappointment rather than opportunity.
We do not know well via which channels the sense of belonging and the concept of identity pass nowadays; certainly, we will not have the pleasure of seeing Architecture persevere in its representative rôle, which corresponds to its nature and vocation. If there is a paradigm that is common to the European city it should be sought precisely in the figure of the urbs, which is the symbolic form in which the members of civitas can be recognized.
This Magazine brings together essays and reflections by Italian and international architects and scholars and is perfectly integrated with the “mission” of the Festival of Architecture, which consists in a space for critical reflection on the themes of community architecture, the landscape, the quality of public spaces, within a debate that is current in Italy and Europe, so that citizenship continues to be - as claimed by the German philosopher Johann Herder, one of the fathers of European cultural identity - the self-same language as the city itself.
Lamberto Amistadi, Enrico Prandi
