Dare forma allo spazio del convivere

Today, the relationship between social, cultural, political transformations and spatial processes can be critically re-thought as the increasing articulation of spaces of places and spaces of flows. This article argues that the relationship between architecture and politics emerges through the intertwining of issues present in the discourses and the practices of both, which entails a prospective of action and transformation of the city that necessarily expresses an assumption of responsibility. These issues link the city’s historical, cultural and material-functional dimensions and originate from memories and the possibility of their future destination. They refer also to the ability to perceive, experience, and enact alternatives to the present: they concern the imaginative ability to think otherwise. In this regard, the multidimensional notion of “public space” is crucial, because it involves the articulation of spaces as well as the function and significance of buildings, but also the quality of relationships, experiences and urban life that happen in them. The weaving of flows, networks, places, and bodies in the urban fabric promises new forms of being-in-common that invite architecture, urban planning, and politics to be interpreters of this “desire for connection”, the peculiar aspect that defines spatial and symbolical forms, but also relational modalities.