No. 11 (2013): Sea and the City

The balanced relation between the city and the sea was at the centre of the Greek philosophy. During the flourishing of the Hellenic civilization, Plato began wondering about the appropriate characteristics of a site for an urban settlement near the sea. An ideal-type of urban settlement model resulted, based on accessibility, safety, hygienism, productivity, proximity to energy sources, prosperity.

The new city-sea relation has to be studied as a valorisation, not as mere protective measures prescribed by ordinary landscape/town planning tools, or as design interventions for the aesthetic renewal of waterfront building facade. We need to go further, allowing the city to demolish definitely the port barriers which still deprive it of the fruition of its sea, acting consistently with the intervention designed and implemented by Hippodamus of Miletus in Athens during the Age of Pericles, so that the city could join its port (Piraeus), thought with some mediation: a protective wall which would sanction a right of reciprocal belonging, physically and institutionally, between the city and the sea.