Towards what kind of city?

Abstract

The virtual city exists in “time” whereas the real city exists in “space”. The first one is an expression of our imagination, the second one of our ability to create.

Time has articulated the images of cities as artisan philosophers, historians, artists, dreamers and even poets have given it to us.

Space has generated cities which have been worked upon by geographers, geologists, surveyors, and finally urban planners. Space and time however live together in both cities, even if with alternating states of subordination. The culture of thinking, of decision making and of working is the unifying center of both the cities; it is the generating element both of the crises and the prosperity of the cities and it works towards an overcoming of the first and for the pursuit of the second (prosperity) using the experience of the past for the making of a better future.