ABSTRACT
Although the Italian piazza remains a significant object of study, recent decades have not seen the development of significant new examples of the genre (Aymonino and Mosco 2006; Alessi 2007). This situation contrasts with, for example, that in Spain during the same period where the impetus which stimulated a renewed architectural and urban exploration was the opening up of culture following the death of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. Italy’s own release from fascism, happening three decades earlier, however, had not coincided with a period in civic culture which valued and reinterpreted the spatial lessons of the traditional city. This ambivalence, an appreciation of the historic phenomenon of the piazza, and at the same time the treatment of the defined urban space as a mundane form with irritating and immovable constraints presented a conflict which has not yet been resolved. The sophistication of such personal readings of the political role of urban space as were discussed in the last chapter is only one aspect of the present situation of the Italian piazza, which broadly has two possible versions. Firstly, there is the widely held assumption that the type of enclosed public space that the piazza represents has become an outmoded form which is strictly an historical phenomenon. Changes in the planning of cities, their servicing, their architectural character, their traffic systems, the communicative aspects of the public realm, and shifting social patterns all serve to create a different type of urban space which is less tangible, less constrained by issues of time and place, a civic arena which tends towards the commercial and the virtual. Secondly, and directly opposed to the former, there is the position that the lessons such piazze contain present an exemplary type of public space which demonstrates that variety, flexibility, historical memory and contemporary aspiration, the most everyday events and the most sacred spaces might be layered into each other and create richly inspirational spaces which continue to demonstrate the importance of the physical experience, in terms of the authenticity of the familiar and the directness of sensation. Curiously, these two positions seem equally valid, and are not necessarily as mutually exclusive as they might at first appear. One can, of course, enjoy the facilities of an existing space without regarding that experience to be replicable in new situations. The experience can be accounted for by the consolation afforded by nostalgia. It is perfectly possible to hold both views simultaneously, a phenomenon I would ascribe to the strangely fascinating power of the piazza, its ability to subsume all types of phenomena into a sense of a shared experience, be it local, national or even international. Campo del Gesu, Venice, with temporary election hoardings. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315554198/410a42e5-6ff1-4cdb-bd1b-ced30394c02a/content/fig14_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
