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

5. Freedom

The three histories do not divide the century in similar ways, nor along the same lines; the sub-periods they highlight, and the breaks between them, do not always coincide with the great events that marked Europe's political, institutional, economic and social history. The "great generation," for instance, occupies the central part of the century; growth and dissolution of the city both start in the preceding century and will certainly continue in the following one as does, even if in a different way, the search for the concrete dimensions of individual and collective welfare.
The city does not immediately change as a consequence of great events such as wars, revolutions or changes in political systems. These events slither around it creating different degrees of friction and drag. The city changes as a consequence of deeper-rooted transformations in the social and power structure, in imagery, in technical and political culture; the transformations are obviously linked to the events I'm referring to, but not in simple ways. This leads me to reflect upon continuity and discontinuity in European urban history, or rather, upon one of the main categories of history which is inertia. Without this concept, it is truly very difficult to reflect upon history.
This is why it seems to me that, at the core of the three histories of the construction of the principle discourse regarding urbanism over the entire 20th century and its slow modifications, like at mid- century, there is a fundamental problem and a slow search for its solution. It is the problem of individual and collective freedom. There are the ideas and ideologies regarding the relationships between the individual and society and, in terms of the city and the discourse on urbanism, there are different ways to express these ideas (and ideologies) through the construction of life space.