City and the sea: maritime identity for urban sustainable regeneration

Abstract

The extraordinary shape of cities by the sea is the result of the synthesis between urban culture and maritime culture – a synthesis that is full of charm and semantic values. The harmonious union of maritime culture and urban culture offers a different point of view – the one that Konvitz defined as “Urban maritime culture” (Konvitz, 1978) – for appreciating the coastal human settlements.

Cities by the sea have been a really central theme in architectural and urban debate of last few decades. The suggestion behind the research is that to understand coastal and port cities we must move our point of view from the mainland on the sea – actually we must refer to maritime culture to understand urban culture in the city by the sea.

The contribution describes the main research findings related to several studies that, since 2009, the Group "City and Architecture" in the National Research Council of Italy has carried out about the relationship between city and sea. The starting point is to consider the maritime interpretation of seaside cities as a relevant issue for an innovative research related to urban planning and design in coastal urban areas.

The first phase of the research project has concerned with an original multidisciplinary methodology based on a mindful maritime re-interpretation of architectures and urban spaces and, more generally, of coastal urban areas. The second phase is aimed to refer the research results to real case studies with the broad involvement of multidisciplinary scholars, stakeholders and policy.

The approach has permitted a review of the waterfront renewal processes – in ever greater numbers over the last fifty years – in a very different way. The objective is to define innovative methodologies and strategies for enhancing maritime identity as key tool for the urban sustainable regeneration of cities by the sea.