Three stories for the XXth century
II International Ph.D Seminar on Urbanism,
Barcelona, 27.06.05
by Bernardo Secchi

4. Examples

These histories make up the three main chapters of my book. Each is followed by an example of a city that I know well enough, having tried in the past, by means of a process of obtaining knowledge through project design, to understand and design their future or the future of an important part of it.
For instance, the first history, on growth and dissolution of the European city, is followed by a text describing Siena, something that might appear strange; the second, the "great generation," is exemplified by some pages dedicated to a grand ensemble, les Hauts de Rouen; the third, the search for individual and collective welfare, is illustrated through a text dedicated to Milton Keynes. The last chapter concludes with some pages devoted to the North-West-Metropolitan-Area - the region between Brussels, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Köln - an area that I suggest to be an icon of the new form of the metropolis. Naturally, these examples afford me the possibility to address some more general issues.
Why these examples? Because the 20th century, the century of the anguish I described previously, was pervaded by an ambiguous feeling of nostalgia for the ancient city, perceived and idealized as the physical representation of "community." This leads me, on the one hand, to discuss an issue that was important during that century, and which gave rise to the conflict marking European culture between modernists and ant-modernists and on the other, to show how frequently banal was its interpretation in terms of conservation.
Siena, like many other historic European cities, offers us, as it offered the "great generation," some important conceptual lessons regarding the status and role of public space, the many devices that link and separate public and private space, the grammar and syntax of the sequences between public and private spaces, the grammar and syntax of built space and its symbolic value.
In this same way, Les Hauts de Rouen gave me the opportunity to face three main issues. First, the dimensions of the parts of the cities which we typically call grands ensembles in France, Großsiedlungen in Germany and other words in other countries, are so vast that it is impossible to think of demolishing them. It would be better to attempt work with them, as we did in Rouen, by "adding and subtracting" as Vasari instructed and as every generation worked with its historic legacy in a process of a cumulative selection which lies at the origin of the richness of the ancient city. Secondly the platenbauen which are the chief urban building-block of these urban areas, give us the opportunity to reflect upon technical progress and the construction of the city. Beginning in the 18th century and throughout the 19th,, the construction of the city gave impetus to a great amount of technical progress. During the following century, the opposite occurred; the city tried to utilize what was produced in other fields - typically in the mechanical sector - and was not able to resolve its own problems. Third, Les Hauts de Rouen is a typical late-1950's project ; it is well designed and well enough built, an example of the characteristic "banalisation" of the "great generation's" grand exempla. A certain distance separated the quality of the first seminal exempla and the following mass productions in the post-war period. How is a process of banalization structured? What is the role of bureaucracy, of codes, of distraction or of the lack of research?
Milton Keynes elicits a reflection upon the New Town experience - and not only the English one. During the 20th century, more than four thousand new towns were built in an immense effort to provide a different direction for urban history. Built for a society with high levels of welfare, Milton Keynes also represents a movement towards aesthetics even while aspiring to represent an ecologically correct design process. From here, I can discuss the role of aesthetics in the search for consensus along with recent trends in "populist" design forms.
The Northwestern Metropolitan Area is, finally, in my opinion, the icon, as I said before, of a new form of metropolis, perhaps of the future metropolis. An icon is not a model; its influence on other cities and territories passes through imagination and re-elaboration, and not through imitation.