ABSTRACT
The title of Chapter 1 refers to several interconnected senses of “words on the square.” Thus, the etymology of the word agora reveals that it refers not only to a specific urban space, but also to the words exchanged in this space. When agoras and fora are given a name, this also reveals much about the meanings attached to these spaces – and the impact of history in the naming of squares. The echoes from antiquity in the names of Ricardo Bofill’s Antigone in Montpellier is a recent example of naming strategies. A contrasting example is Bjarke Ingels’ Superwedge in Copenhagen, a name signaling a desire to disrupt the traditional idea of the square as a framed space. Rhetoric, the art of using words, has always been closely connected to city squares, and phenomena such as rostras and ringhieras and other platforms are designed to facilitate speeches. This chapter traces the whole process from the naming of squares to the role of rhetoric on the square.
