Città vecchia nuovi edifici. Old city new buildings. Architettura e Contesto

Having founded a civilisation, on the one hand based on the urban phenomena of the city and, on the other, based on a relationship of symbiosis with the landscape is a peculiarity that certainly is not exclusively Italian, but in this country, for a series of reasons, through centuries it has assumed unmistakable importance. The dualistic relationships of building/city and city/countryside have defined, over time, the contents of a principle of identity within which, beyond political contingencies, the inhabitants of small and large centres alike have identified themselves. The attention to context, whether it be natural or artificial, structures the idea of this temporal continuity. This essay proposes an analysis of some of its various architectural declinations: the relationship between buildings in the changing and layered city, between the city and its parts and between the city and the landscape.