MANIFESTO
This is my manifesto, it would be great if you could let me know what you think!
The Form of The City and The Necessity of Retreat
These places of retreat are the Contrade.
The Role of the Contrade
Protect or the role of ARCHITECTURE
It would be wrong to maintain that the function of architectural enclosure is solely to keep out inclement weather.
Inclemency is not exclusively meteorological and architecture can fulfill the role of an environmental censor also by tackling the urban pathology of diffuse sameness, of inescapable communion with its incessant connectivity.
Retreat or the role of INHABITANTS
Retreat as an efficient operation that echoes, reflects, conserves and reinforces a well determined way of life: an attempt to preserve the world in absolute consonance with a group’s set idea of it. In this scenario retreat becomes a new architectural paradigm aimed at preserving and defending the integrity of its content against undesired inroads, preventing entropy of meaning and energy-transfers.
Decide or the INHABITANTS AND ARCHITECTURE
Each Contrada is the iconic incarnation of a decision (from the Latin caedere: to cut). The act of caedere could be one of the ultimate invigorations of architecture; it would be one and the same with the political life, with the very structure and will of an embryonic society: to decide to cut the cord and begin sucking in their own air.
Relate or the DIALOGUE OF OPPOSITE STATES.
As such these Contrade are not just scattered fragments but are antithetically established, meaning that they are bound as a whole precisely by the way they react dialectically to each other. The assembled Contrade is here understood as the form of the city that incarnates the composition of contrasting parts.
The Form of the Contrade
Outside
Unlimited mobility, endless connectivity, the even and relentless distribution of parts that avoids conflict by balancing differences. The carpet-metropolis of supreme infrastructural perfection. Deprived of political power, it absorbs differences and becomes a machine for the homogenization of its inhabitants. It is constantly extinguishing potential growths which it could sustain with its economic corpulence. These potentials are enclosed and protected by the Recipients, potentials that become the Contrade.
Recipient or the CIRCUMSCRIBER
It sets the boundaries by restricting within limits each Contrada. It therefore establishes a system of opening and closing that simultaneously isolates different Contrade and makes them accessible. It determines the intensity at which the strength of the “inside” can be perceived. The Recipient is therefore the only architectural tool in the hands of the citizens. It is the method through which they appropriate a part of the generic city and re-appropriate their identity.
Inside or the SPACE OF DIFFERENCE
The Citizen’s appropriate a part of the city using the Recipient, and in turn they appropriate the Recipient as theirs. Over time the Recipient is extended by the grateful occupants of the Contrada, who identify with it more and more as the reason for their survival, until, creeping into the internal area from the edges, the Recipient merges with the remains of the city to become one complete Contrada.
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