r

their collective aspect as "a species f ." enriched our work with a
reference as author't' t' '. o formation, he
I a IVeas it ISsuggestive.

Urban Ecology and Psychology

In the preceding section, I tried to emphasize the fact that through archite~tur~,
perhaps
. f hmore. than any other point of'vìiew.one can aITI'veat a comprehenslVe VI-
sion o t e Clt~ and an understanding of its structure. In this sense, I under-
scored the studies ofthe house by Viollet-Ie-Duc and Demangeon, and suggested
the u.sefulness of a comparative analysis oftheir findings. Moreover, I suggested
that m Le Corbusier's work such a synthesis has already been accomplished.

I now wish to introduce into this discourse some observations on ecology and
psychology, the latter in its application to urban science. Ecology as the know-
l~dge of the relatio~s~ips between a living being and his environment cannot be
dls.cussed here. T.hls IS a problem which has belonged to sociology and. natural
philosophy ever since Montesquieu, and despite its enormous interest, it would
take us too far afield.

Let us consider only this question: how does the locus urbis, once it has been de-
termined, influence the individuai and the collective? This question interests me
here in the ecological sense ofSorre: that is, houi does the environment influence
the individuai and the collecfive? For Sorre, this question was far more interest-
ing than the opposi te one ofhow man inftuences his environment. 13 With the lat-
ter question, the idea of human ecology changes meaning abruptly and involves
the whole history of civilization. We already responded to this question, or to the
system that the two questions form, when at the beginning ofthis study we de-
fined the city as a human thing par excellence.

But as we have said, even for ecology and the urban ecology to which we refer,
this study has meaning only when the city is seen in the entirety of its parts, as a
complex structure. The historically determined relationships and influences be-
tween man and the city cannot be studied by reducing them to a schematic model
of the city as in the urban ecology models of the American school from Park to
Hoyt. These theories can offer some answers, as far as I can see, relative to
urban technics, but they have little to contribute to the development of an urban
science founded on artifacts and not on models.

That the study of collective psychology has an essential part in the study of the
city seems undeniable. Many of the authors to whom I feel closest in this work
base their studies on collective psychology, which in turn is linked to sociology.
This linkage has been amply documented. Collective psychology has bearing
upon alI the sciences where the city as an object of study is of primary impor-
tance.

Valuable information also may be obtained from the experiments conducted

under the banner ofGestalt psychology, as undertaken by the Bauhaus in the do-
*The dictionary defines "technics" (Italian main ofform and as proposed by the American school of Lynch. 14 In this book, I
tecnica) as "the study of principles of an
have particularly made use of some ofLynch's conclusions with respect to the re-
art or of the arts in generaI, especially
practical arts" (Webster's New Twentieth .
sidential district , as confirmation of the distinctive character of. different dis-
Century Dictionary, Unabridged, 2d ed.). tricts within the city. There have been, however, some mappropnate extensions
This is the meaning intended here and in ofthe methods of experimental psychology; but before addressing these I should
what follows.-Ed. touch briefly on the relationship between the city and architecture as technics. *
I

11') 1
In speaking of the constitution of an artifact and of its memory, I am thinking of
these problems Iargely in terms of their collective nature; they pertain to the
city, and thus to its collective citizenry. I maintain that in an art or a science the
principles and means of action are elaborated collectively or transmitted
through a tradition in which alI the sciences and arts are operating as collective
phenomena. But at the same time they are not collective in alI their essentiai
parts; individuais carry them out. This relationship between a collective artifact,
which is necessarily an urban artifact, and the individuaI who proposes and
single-handedly realizes it can only be understood through a study of the
technics by which the artifact is manifested. There are many different technics;
one of them is architecture, and since this is the object of our study, we must
here be concerned with it above all, and with economics and history only to the
extent that they are manifested in the architecture ofthe city.

The relationship in architecture between the collective urban artifact and the in-
dividuaI is unique with respect to the other technics and arts. In fact, archi tec-
ture presents itself as a vast cuiturai movement: it is discussed and criticized
well beyond the narrow circle ofits specialists; it needs to be realized, to become
part ofthe city, to become "the city." In a certain sense, there is no such thing as
buildings that are politically "opposed," since the ones that are realized are aI-
ways those ofthe dominant class, or at Ieast those which express a possibility of
reconciling certain new needs with a specific urban condition. Thus there is a di-
rect relationship between the formulation of certain proposais and the buildings
that arise in the city.

But it is equally obvious that this relationship can aiso be considered in its sepa-
rate terms. The world of architecture can be seen to unfold and be studied as a
logical succession ofprinciples and forms more or Iess autonomous from the real-
ity of locus and history. Thus, architecture implies the city; but this city may be
an ideaI city, of perfect and harmonious relationships, where the architecture
develops and constructs its own terms ofreference. At the same time, the actual
architecture of this city is unique; from the very first it has a characteristic-and
ambiguous-relationship that no other art or science possesses. In these terms
we can understand the constant polemical urge of architects to design systems in
which the spatial order becomes the order of society and attempts to transform
society.

Yet outside of design, even outside of architecture itself, exist urban artifacts,
the city, monuments; monographs on single works in particular periods and en-
vironments demonstrate this. In his study of Florence in the Age of Humanism,
André Chastel'f demonstrates clearly alI the links between civilization and art,
history, and politics which informed the new vision of Florence (as also Athens,
Rome, and New York) and the arts and processes that were shaping it.

If we consider Palladio and the historically determined cities of the Veneto in

which we find his work, and how the study ofthese cities actualIy transcends Pal-
ladio the architect, we find that the concept of locus from which we began these
arguments acquires its full meaning; it becomes the urban context, and is iden-
tifiable as a single artifact. Again we can ask, where does the singularity reside?
It resides in the single artifact, in its materiaI, the succession of events that un-
folds around it, and the minds ofits makers; but aiso in the pIace that determines
it-both in a physical sense and above alI in the sense of the choice of this pIace
113
 and the indivisible unity that is established between it and the work.

The history ofthe city is also the history of architecture. But we mu~t remember
that ~he history of architecture is at most one point of vie,": from WhI~hto loo~ at
the c~ty. The failure to understand this has led to much tìme spent In studymg
the c~ty and its architecture in terms of its images, or else an attempt to study
the CItyfrom the standpoint of other sciences for example psychology. But what
can psychology tell us ifnot that a certain individual sees the city in one way and
that other individuals see it in another? And how can this private and unculti-
vated vision be related to the laws and principles from which the city ~st
emerged an~ through which its images were formed? Ifw~ are.concerned with
the CItyarchItecturally from more than a stylistic point of view, it d~es not make
sense to abandon architecture and occupy ourselves with something else. In-
deed, no one would entertain the idea that when the theoretIcIans tell us that
buildings must respond to criteria of firmness commodity, and delight, they
must explain the psychological moti ves behind thìs principle.

When Bernini speaks disdainfulIy of Paris because he finds its Gothic landscape
barbarous, 16 we are hardly interested in Bernini's psychology; instead we are in-
terested in the judgment of an architect who on the basis of the total and specific
culture of one city judges the structure of another city. Similarly, that Mies van
der Rohe had a certain vision of architecture is important not for ascertaining
the "taste" or the "attitude" ofthe German middle class relative to the city, but
for allowing us to appreciate the theoretical basis, the cultural patrimony of
Schinkelesque classicism, and other ideas with which this is connected in the
German city.

The critic who discusses why a poet has used a particular meter in a certain pIace
in his poetry is considering what compositional problem has presented itself to
the poet on a specific occasiono And thus in studying this relationship he is con-
cerned with literature, and possesses alI the means necessary for grappling with
this problem.

How Urban Elements Become To take this analysis further, we must address ourselves to artifacts themselves,
Defined both typical and atypical, to try to understand how certain problems arise and
become clarified in and through them. I often think, from this point of view, of
the meaning of symbolism in architecture-and among the symbolists, of the
"revolutionary architects" of the eighteenth century and of the Constructivists
(who also were revolutionary architects). The present theory probably permits
the most sensible explanation of symbolism, for to think of symbolism solely in
terms of how a particular symbol actually served an event is simply a
functionalist position. Rather, it is as ifprecisely at the decisive moments ofhis-
tory architecture reproposed its own necessity to be "sign" and "event" in order
to establish and shape a new era. 17

Boullée writes, "A sphere, at alI times, is equal only to itself; it is the perfect
symbol of equality. No body possesses, as it does, this exceptional quality: that
each of its facets is equal to all the others." The symbol of the sphere thus can
sum up an architecture and its principles; at the same time, it can be the very
condition for its being constructed, its motive. The sphere not only represents-
or rather, does not represent, in itself is-the idea of equality; its presence as a
~~~ere, and thus as a monument, is the constitutin~.::f e~~~~~~. 1
 One also thinks in this connection of the discussions (which were only superfi-
cially typological) ofthe centraI plan in the humanist period: "the function ofthe
[centraI plan] building is double; it releases the soul as effectively as possible to
its contemplative faculties and by this arrives at a sort oftherapeutic spirituality
that exalts and purifies the spectator; yet the very sublimity ofthe work consti-
tutes an act of adoration that attains a religious tone through its absolute
beauty.,,18

The disputes over the central pIan, while they accompanied tendencies to reform
or simplify religious practice within the church, led to the rediscovery of a type
of pIan that was one of the typical forms of early antiquity before it became the
canonical church type of the Byzantine empire. It is as if a continuity ofurban ar-
tifacts which had been lost had to be rediscovered amid new conditions, which
then became new foundations. Chastel summarizes all of this when he states,
"Three series of considerations come into play in the choice of the central plan:
the symbolic value attributed to the circular form, the great number of geomet-
rie speculations prompted by studies of volumes in which the sphere and cube
were combined, and the prestige of historical examples. ,,19

The centrally planned church of San Lorenzo in Milan is a good example.P' The
scheme of San Lorenzo immediately reappears in the Renaissance; Leonardo
continually, almost obsessively, analyzes it in his notebooks. The scheme be-
comes in Borromini's notebooks a unique artifact whose form is strongly influ-
enced by two great Milanese monuments: not just San Lorenzo but also the
Duomo. Borromini mediates between these two buildings in all of his architec-
ture and, coupling the Gothic verticalism of the Duomo with the central plan of
San Lorenzo, introduces into them strange, almost biographical characteristics.

In the San Lorenzo we see today, the various types of additions to it, from the
medieval (the Chapel of St. Aquilinus) to the Renaissance (Martino Bassi's
dome), are stilI apparent, while the entire structure occupies the place ofthe an-
cient Roman baths, in the very heart of Roman Milan. We are clearly in the pre-
sence of a monument; but is it possible to speak of it and its urban context purely
in terms of form? It seems far more appropriate to look for its meaning, its
reason, its style, its history. This is how it appeared to the artists ofthe Renais-
sance, and how it became an idea of architecture that could be reformulated in a
new design. No one can speak ofthe architecture ofthe city without understand-
ing such artifacts; they constantly demand further investigation for they consti-
tute the principai foundations of an urban science. An interpretation of symbolic
architecture in these terms can inform all architecture; it creates an association
between the event and its sign.

Certain works which participate as originaI events in the formation of the city
endure and become characteristic over time, transforming or denying their orig-
inaI function, and finally constituting a fragment ofthe city-so much so that we
tend to consider them more from a purely urban viewpoint than from an ar-
chitecturai one. Other works signify the constitution of something new and are a
sign of a new epoch in urban history; these are mostly bound up with revolution-
ary periods, with decisive events in the historicai course of the city. Thus the
need to establish a new standard ofjudgment arises more or Iess necessarily dur-
ing certain periods of architecture.

~""",, 115

----~bill--
 I have trl'ed t o diff . b t
I terentiate e wee.
n an urban artifact and architecture in itself,
.
but with resp ect t our ban are hit I ec ture , the most important and concretely verifì-
.
able facts OCCurth h th . idence ofthese two aspects, and through the In-
roug e comci . b ki b h h'
fiuence that one exerts over the other. Although this 00 I~ a. out t e are itec-
tu re of the city , and consl'd ers th e problems of architecture m itself and those of .
urban architecture taken as a whole to be intimately connected, there a~e certam
problems of architecture which cannot be taken up here; I refer specifìcally to
compositional problems. These decidedly have have their own autonomy. They
concern architecture as a composition, and this means that they also concern
style.

~rchitecture, along with composition, is both contingent u~on and det.e~mina-

tIve ofthe constitution ofurban artifacts, especially at those times when it IS cap-
able of synthesizing the whole civil and political scope of an epoch, when it is
highly rational, comprehensive, and transmissible-in other words, when it can
be seen as a style. It is at these times that the possibility of transmission is im-
plicit, a transmission that is capable ofrendering a style universal.

The identification of particular urban artifacts and cities with a style of architec-
ture is so automatic in certain contexts of space and time that we can speak with
discrete precision of the Gothic city, the baroque city, the neoclassical city.
These stylistic definitions immediately become morphological definitions; they
precisely define the nature of urban artifacts. In these terms it is possible to
speak of civic design. For this to occur, it is necessary that a moment of decisive
historical and political importance coincide with an architecture that is rational
and definite in its forms. It is then possible for the community to resolve its prob-
lems of choice, to desire colledively one kind of city and to reject another. I wilI
come back to this in the last chapter of this book in discussing the issue of choice
in the context of the political problem of the city. For now it is enough to state
that no choices can be made without this historical coincidence, that the con-
stituting of an urban artifact is not possible otherwise.

The principles of architecture are unique and immutable; but the responses to
different questions as they occur in actual situations, human situations, con-
stantly vary. On the one hand, therefore, is the rationality of architecture; on the
other, the life ofthe works themselves. When an architedure at a particular mo-
ment begins to consti tute new urban artifacts which are noi responsive to the ac-
tual situation of the city, it necessarily does so on the level of aesthetics; and its
results inevitably tend to correspond historically to reformist or revolutionary
movements.

The assumption that urban artifacts are the founding principle of the constitu-
tion of the city denies and refutes the notion of urban design. This latter notion is
commonly understood with respect to context; it has to do with configurating
and constructing a homogeneous, coordinated, continuous environment that
presents itself with the coherence of a landscape. Itseeks laws, reasons, and or-
ders which arise not from a city's actual historical conditions, but from a pIan, a
generai projection ofhow things should be. Such projections are acceptable and
realistic only when they address one "piece of city" (in the sense Wespoke of the
city ofparts in the first chapter), or when they refer to the totality ofbuildings;
but they have nothing useful to contribute relative to the formation ofthe city.
Urban artifacts often coexist like lacerations within a certain order; above all, l
lUi !
 ·LORI 'n.I,}.IR
Io s.unuouo.qsV olfJ tiq pe.uxle.td
'VO.IDtnupuno.un» 01f7 pu» o.IO_I{jonl1:
OZUO.W7UVsIOVJ!nsv8 oIOj() IW/cl Il
·/lOl./W
'J.W~OODW
OZUJ.l07uvs Io VJn_lsn8 OL
 they constitute f ther than continue them. A conception which reduces
~he form of urbanorms ra to an ìmage and to t h e taste w hilC h receives
artifacts . t his i
IS ~mage
IS ultimately too limited for an understanding of th~ stru~ture of ur~an artifacts.
In contrast is the possibility to interpret urban artifacts m all of their fullness, to
resolve a part of the city in a complete way by determinin~ all the relationships
that can be established as existing with respect to any artifaet.

In a study on the formation of the modern city, Carlo Aymonino illustrated how
the task of modern architecture is "to pinpoint a series of concepts and relation-
ships which, ifthey have some fundamentaIlaws in common from a technological
and o~ganizational standpoint, become verified. in pa~ial model~, and ~re dif-
fer~ntI.ated p.recisely through their resolution m a firushed ~rc~~tectoruc form
whìch IS specifìe and recognizable." He goes on to state that with the end ofthe
system of horizontal usage [zoning provisions], and with purely volumetric-
quantitative bui!ding utilization [standards and regulations], the architectural
sec~ion ... becomes one of the governing images, the generating nucleus of the
entIre composition. ,,21

It seems to me that to formulate a building in the most concrete way possible,

especially at the design stage, is to give a new impulse to architecture itself, to
reconstitute that total vision of analysis and design on which we have so urgently
insisted. A conception ofthis type, in which the architectural dynamic prevaiIs in
the form powerfully and fundamentally, responds to the nature of urban ar-
tifacts as they really are. The constitution of new urban artifacts-in other
words, the growth of the city-has always occurred through such a precise de-
finition of elements. This extreme degree of definition has at times provoked
non-spontaneous formulations, but even iftheir real modes of actualization could
not be anticipated, these have served as a generaI framework. In this sense the
developmental pIan for a city can be significant.

This theory arises from an analysis of the urban reality; and this reality con-
tradicts the notion that preordained functions by themselves govern artifacts
and that the problem is simply to give form to certain functions. In actuaIity,
forms in the very act of being constituted go beyond the functions which they
must serve; they arise like the city itself. In this sense, too, the building is one
with the urban reality, and the urban character of architectural artifacts takes
on greater meaning with respect to the design project. To consider city and
buildings separately, to interpret purely organizational functions in terms of
representation, is to return the discourse to a narrow functionalist vision of the
city. This is a negative vision because it conceives ofbuildings merely as scaffold-
ings for functional variations, abstract containers that embody whatever fune-
tions successively fili them.

The alternative to the functionalist conception is neither simple nor easy, and if
on the one hand we reject naive functionalism, on the other we must stili come to
grips with the whole offunctionalist theory. Thus we must mark out the limits
within which this theory is continuously formulated and the ambiguities which it
contains, even in the most recent proposals, which are sometimes self-contradic-
tory. I believe that we will not transcend functionalist theory unti! we recognize
the importance ofbothjorm and the rational processes of architecture, seeing in
form itself the capacity to embrace many different values, meanings, and uses.
Earlier I spoke ofthe theater in Arles, the Coliseum, and monuments in generaI
as examples of this argument.

118
 Once again, it is the sum of these values, including memory itself, which consti-
tutes the structure of urban artifacts. These values have nothing to do with
either organization or function taken by itself. I am inclined to believe that the
way a particular function operates does not change, or changes only by neces-
sity, and that the mediation between functional and organizational demands can
occur only through formo Each time we find ourselves in the presence of reai
urban artifacts we realize their compIexity, and this structurai compIexity over-
comes any narrow interpretation based on function. Zoning and generaI organi-
zational schemes can onIy be references, however useful, for an anaIysis ofthe
city as a man-made object.

I now wish to return to the reiationship between architecture and locus, first to The Roman Forum
propose some other aspects ofthis probIem and then to consider the value ofthe
monument in the city. We willtake the Roman Forum as an exampie because it is
a monument of fundamental importance for a comprehensive understanding of
urban artifacts.22

The Roman Forum, center of the Roman Empire, reference point for the con-
struction and transformation ofso many cities ofthe classicalworld, and founda-
tion of classicalarchitecture and the science ofthe city practiced by the Romans,
is actually anomalouswith respect to the origins ofRome itself. The city's origins
were at once geographical and historical. The site consisted of a Iowand marshy
zone between steep hills. In its center, among willowsand cane fieIdsthat were
entirely ftoodedduring the rains, was stagnant water; on the hills were woods
and pastures. Aeneas described the sight in this way: u••• and they saw herds of
cattle Iowing here and there in the Roman forum and in the elegant Carinae
quarter.,,23

The Latins and Sabines settled on the Esquiline, the Viminale, and the
Quirinale. These piaces were favorabie for meetings ofthe peopies ofCampania
and Etruria as well as for settlement. Archaeologists have established that as
early as the ninth century the Latins descended from the hills to dispose oftheir
dead in the valley of the Forum, just one of the valleys of the Roman coun-
tryside, and thus the pIace entered into history. The necropolis discovered by
GiacomoBoni in 1902-1905at the foot ofthe TempIe of Antoninus and Faustina
constitutes the most ancient testament man has left there. First a necropolis,
then the pIace of battles or more probabIy religious rites, the Forum increas-
ingIycarneto be the site of a new form of life, the principle ofa city being formed
by tribes scattered throughout the hills who converged there and founded it.

Geographicai formations indicated the way for paths, then for the roads that
climbedup the valleys along the lines that were least steep (Via Sacra, Via Ar-
giletus, Vicus Patricius), thereby chartingthe course ofthe extra-urban map. It
was based not on a clear idea ofurban design but instead on a structure indebted
to the terrain. This link between the terrain and the conditions ofthe city's de-
velopment subsequently persists throughout the whole history ofthe Forum; it
is present in its very form, rendering it different from that ofa city that is estab-
lished by pIan. The Forum's irregularity was criticized by Livy==thìs is the
reason that the ancient sewers, which formerly led through the public areas,
nowrun here and there under private buildings, and the form ofthe city more re-
sembles an occupied zone than one properly divided,,24-who blamed it on the
speed ofreconstruction after the sack ofthe city by the Gaulsand the impossibil-
119
 I have also spoken of architecture as technics. The question of technics should 78Plan of Brasilia, Lucio Costa,
not be underestimated by anyone addressing the problem of the city; clearly a 1957.
discourse about images is fruitless ifit is not concretized in the architecture that
forms these images. Architecture becomes by extension the city. More than any
other art, it has its basis in the shaping and subjection of material to a formaI con-
ception. The city presents itself as a great architectural, man-made object.

We have tried to show that a correspondence exists in the city between sign and
event; but this is insufficient unless we extend our analysis to the problem ofthe
genesis of architectural formo The architectural form of the city is exemplified in
its various monuments, each of which has its own individuality. They are like
dates: first one, then the other; without them we could not understand the pas-
sage of time. Although the present study is not concerned with architecture in it-
self but with architecture as a component of the urban artifact, we must note
that it would be foolish to think that the problem of architecture can be resolved
solely from the compositional viewpoint or newly revealed through a context or a
purported extension of a context's parameters. These notions are senseless be-
cause context is specific precisely in that it is constructed through architecture.
The singularity of any work grows together with its locus and its history, -which
themselves presuppose the existence of the architectural artifact.

I am therefore disposed to believe that the principal moment of an architectural

artifact is in its technical and artistic formation, that is, in the autonomous prin-
ciples according to which it is founded and transmitted. In more generaI terms, it
is in the actual solution that each architect gives to his encounter with reality, a
solution that is verifiable precisely because it relies on certain technics (which
thus also necessarily constitute a limitation). Within technics, by which is meant
the means and principles of architecture, is the capacity to be transmitted and to
give pleasure: "We are far from thinking that architecture cannot please; we say
on the contrary that it is impossible for it not to please, so long as it is treated ac-
cording to its true principles ... an art such as architecture, an art which im-
mediately satisfies such a large number of our needs . . . how could it fail to
please US?,,32

From the initial constitution of any architectural artifact a series of other ar-
tifacts begins; and in this sense architecture is extended to the design of a new
city like Palmanova or Brasilia. We cannot judge the designs of these cities
strictly as architectural designs. Their formation is independent, autonomous:
they are specific designs with their own history. But this history also belongs to
architecture as a whole because they are conceived according to an architectural
technic or style, according to principles and a generaI architectural idea.

Without such principles we have no way to judge these cities. Thus we can ap-
proach Palmanova and Brasilia as two notable and extraordinary urban ar-
tifacts, each with its own individuality and its own historical development. How-
ever, the architectural artifact not only embodies the structure ofthis individu-
ality, but it is precisely this structure that affirms the autonomous logic of the
compositional process and its importance. In architecture lies one of the funda-
mental principles ofthe city.

The study of history seems to offer the best verification of certain hypotheses The City as History
about the city, for the city is in itselfa repository ofhistory. In this book we have
127
made use ofthe historical method from two different points ofview. In the first,
the city was seen as a material artifact, a man-rnads object built over time and
retaining the traces of time, even if in a discontinuous way. Studied from this
point of view-archaeology, the history of architecture, and the histories of ind],
vidual cities-the city yields very important information and documentation.
Cities become historical texts: in fact, to study urban phenomena without the
use of history is unimaginable, and perhaps this is the only practical method
available for understanding specific urban artifacts whose historical aspect is
predominant. We have illustrated this thesis, in part the foundation of this
study, in the context ofthe theories ofPoète and Lavedan as well as in relation to
the concept ofpermanence.

The second point of view sees history as the study of the actual formation and
structure of urban artifacts. It is complementary to the first and directly con-
cerns not only the real structure of the city but also the idea that the city is a
synthesis of a series of values. Thus it concerns the collective imagination.
Clearly the fìrst and second approaches are intimately linked, so much so that
the facts they uncover may at times be confounded with each other. Athens,
Rome, Constantinople, and Paris represent ideas ofthe city that extend beyond
their physical forrn, beyond their permanence; thus we can also speak in this way
of cities like Babylon which have ali but physically disappeared.

I would now like to consider the second point ofview further. The idea ofhistory
as the structure ofurban artifacts is affirmed by the continuities that exist in the
deepest layers of the urban structure, where certain fundamental characteris-
tics that are common to the entire urban dynamic can be seen. It is significant
that Carlo Cattaneo, with his positivist background, in his study of the civic
evolution of cities which is considered the foundation of Italian urban histories,
discovered a principle that could be articulated only in terms ofthe actual history
of those cities.F' Re found in the cities the "unchanging terms of a geography
prior to the Romans which remained attached to the walls of the cities
(municipi). ,,34

In his description of the development of the city of Milan in the period after the
Empire, he speaks of the city's predominance with respect to other Lombard
centers, a predominance justified neither by its size, greater wealth or popula-
tion, nor by other apparent facts. It was more something intrinsic to the nature
of the city, almost a typological characteristic, of an undefinable order: "This
predominance was innate to the city; it was the tradition of a greatness prior to
the Ambrosian church, prior to the papacy, the Empire, the Roman conquest:
Mediolanum Galloruni Caput.,,35 But this quasi-mystical principle of order
then became the principle of urban history, resolving itself into the permanence
of civilization: "The permanence of the municipio is another fundamental fact
and is common to almost ali Italian histories. ,,36

Even in the times of greatest decadence, as in the late Empire when the cities
appeared as semirutarum urbium cada vera (the cadavers of half-ruined
cities),37 they were not in reality dead bodies, said Cattaneo, but only in a state
of shock. The relationship between the city and its region was a characteristic
sign ofthe municipio since "the city forms an indivisible body with its region.,,38
In ti me of war and invasions, in the most trying moments for communalliberty,
the unity between the region and the city was an extraordinary force; at times
 the region regenerated the destroyed city. The history of the city is the history
of civilization: "In the roughly four centuries of domination by the Longobards
and the Goths, barbarism grew ... cities were not valued except as fortres-
ses. . . . The barbarians were extinguished along with the cities to which they
had laid waste .... ,,39

Cities constitute a world in themselves; their significance, their permanence, is

expressed by Cattaneo as an absolute principle: "Foreigners are astonished to
see ltalian cities persist in attacking one another, although they are not sur-
prised to see this between one country and another; this is because they do not
understand their own militant temperament and national character. The proof
that the source of the enmity that encircled Milan was its power or, more cor-
rectly, its ambition, is that many ofthe other cities, when they saw it destroyed
and in ruins, thought that they would no longer have to fear it and joined to raise
it from the ruins. ,,40

Cattaneo's principle can be associated with many ofthe themes developed here;
it has always seemed to me that those very deep layers ofurban life which he had
in mind are largely to be found in monuments, which possess the individuality of
all urban artifacts, as has been emphasized many times in the course of this
study. That a relationship between a "principI e" of urban artifacts and form
exists in Cattaneo's thinking is apparent, even if one only examines his writings
on the Lombard style and the beginning ofhis deseription of Lombardy, where
the land, cultivated and made fertile over the course of eenturies, immediately
beeomes for him the most important testimony of a civilization.

His comments on the polemics over the Piazza del Duomo in Milan bear witness,
on the other hand, to the unresolved difficulties inherent in this complex prob-
lem. Thus his study of Lombard culture and ltalian federalism finishes by refut-
ing all the arguments, real and abstraet, in the debate over ltalian unification
and over the old and new meanings that the cities of the ltalian peninsula were
coming to have in the national framework. His study of federaIism not only al-
lowed him to avoid all the errors endemie to the contemporary nationalist
rhetorie, but aIso, in reeognizing the obstaeles to it, to see fully the new
framework in whieh the eities had begun to find themselves.

To be sure the great Enlightenment and the positivist enthusiasm that had ani-
mated the cities had waned by the time of ltalian unification; but this was not the
only cause of the citi es' decline. Cattaneo's proposais and the loeai style which
Camillo Boito preached were able to give baek to the cities a meaning that had
been obscured. There was aiso a deeper crisis, which was characterized by the
great debate in ltaly which took pIace after unification over the choice of a capi-
taI. This debate turned on Rome. Antonio Gramsci's observation on this subject
is most insightful: "To Theodor Mommsen, who asked what universai idea di-
rected Italy to Rome, Quintino Sella responded, 'That of science .. .' Sella's re-
sponse is interesting and appropriate; in that historical period science was the
new universal idea, the basis of the new culture that was being elaborated. But
Rome did not become the city of scienee; a great industriaI program wouId have
been necessary, and this did not happen.,,41 Sella's response, that is, remained
vague and ultimately rhetorical, even iffundamentally correct; to achieve such a
goal it wouId have been necessary to implement an industriaI program without
fearing the creation of a modern and conscious Roman working class ready to
participate in the development of a national politics.

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 The study of this debate over Rome as capitaI is of great interest for us eVen
today: it engaged politicians and schoIars of alI persuasions, alI of whom were
concerned over which tradition the city shouId be the repository of, and toward
which ItaIy it shouId direct its destiny as capitaI. Through this historicai cir_
cumstance, the significance of certain interventions which tend to characterize
Rome as a modern city and to establish a reiationship between its past and the
images of the other principai European capitais emerges more cIearIy. To see
this debate over the capitaI mereIy as a manifestation of nationalist rhetoric_
which was undoubtedIy present-means to pIace this important process within
limits too narrow to judge it; a similar process was typicai for a number of other
countries in various periods.

Instead, it is necessary to investigate how certain urban structures come to be

identified with the modei of a capitaI, and what reiationships are possibie be-
tween the physical reaIity of a city and this modeI. It is noteworthy that for
Europe, but not only for Europe, this model was Paris. This is true to such a de-
gree that it is not possible to understand the structure of many modern capi-
taIs-Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid, along with Rome and others-without recog-
nizing this fact. With Paris the entire historicaI-political process in the architec-
ture ofthe city takes a specific turn; but the meaning ofthis relationship can only
be discerned by elaborating the specific ways in which it carne about.

As aIways, a relationship is estabIished between the urban artifacts structuring

the city and the imposition of an ideaI project or generaI scheme, and the pattern
of this relationship is very complex. Certainly there are cities that realize their
own inclinations and others that do not.

The Collective Memory With these considerations we approach the deepest structure of urban artifacts
and thus their form-the architecture ofthe city. "The soul ofthe city" becomes
the city's history, the sign on the walls ofthe municipium, the city's distinctive
and definitive character, its memory. As Halbwachs writes in La Mémoire Col-
lective, "When a group is introduced into a part of space, it transforms it to its
image, but at the same time, it yields and adapts itselfto certain material things
which resist it. It encloses itself in the framework that it has constructed. The
image ofthe exterior environment and the stable relationships that it maintains
with it pass into the realm ofthe idea that it has ofitself.,,42

One can say that the city itself is the collective memory of its people, and like
memory it is associated with objects and places. The city is the locus ofthe col-
lective memory. This reiationship between the locus and the citizenry then be-
comes the city's predominant image, both of architecture and of landscape, and
as certain artifacts become part ofits memory, new ones emerge. In this entirely
positive sense great ideas flow through the history of the city and give shape to
it.

Thus we consider locus the characteristic principle of urban artifacts; the con-
cepts of locus, architecture, permanences, and history together help us to un-
derstand the complexity of urban artifacts. The collective memory participates
in the actual transformation of space in the works ofthe collective, a transforma-
tion that is always conditioned by whatever material realities oppose it. Under-
sto od in this sense, memory becomes the guiding thread of the entire complex
urban structure and in this respect the architecture of urban artifacts is distin-
130
 guished from art, inasmuch as the latter is an element that exists for itself alone,
while the greatest monuments of architecture are of necessity linked intimately
to the city. "... The question arises: in what way does history speak through
art? It does so primarily through architectural monuments, which are the willed
expression of power, whether in the name of the State or of religion. A people
can be satisfied with a Stonehenge only until they feel the need to express them-
selves in formo ... Thus the character of whole nations, cultures, and epochs .
speaks through the totality of architecture, which is the outward shell of their
being.,,43

Ultimately, the proof that the city has primarily itself as an end emerges in the
artifacts themselves, in the slow unfolding of a certain idea ofthe city, intention-
ally. Within this idea exist the actions ofindividuals, and in this sense not every-
thing in urban artifacts is collective; yet the collective and the individuaI nature
of urban artifacts in the end constitutes the same urban structure. Memory,
within this structure, is the consciousness of the city; it is a rational operation
whose development demonstrates with maximum clarity, economy, and har-
mony that which has already come to be accepted.

With respect to the workings of memory, it is primarily the two modes of actuali-
zation and interpretation that interest us; we know that these depend on time,
culture, and circumstances, and sin ce these factors together determine the
modes themselves, it is within them that we can discover the maximum ofreal-
ity. There are many places, both large and small, whose different urban artifacts
cannot otherwise be explained; their shapes and aspirations respond to an al-
most predestined individuality. I think, for example, of the cities of Tuscany,
Andalusia, and elsewhere; how can common generaI factors account for the very
distinct differences of these places?

The value of history seen as collective memory, as the relationship of the collec-
tive to its pIace, is that it helps us to grasp the significance of the urban struc-
ture, its individuality, and its architecture which is the form ofthis individuality.
This individuality ultimately is connected to an originaI artifact-in the sense of
Cattaneo's principle; it is an event and aform. Thus the union between the past
and the future exists in the very idea of the city that it flowsthrough in the same
way that memory flowsthrough the life of a person; and always, in order to be
realized, this idea must not onlyshape but be shaped by reality. This shapingis a
permanent aspect of a city's unique artifacts, monuments, and the idea we have
of it. It also explains why in antiquity the founding of a city became part of the
city's mythology.

TheAttic historians, who tried togive their country a list of kings, made out that Athens
in Erichthonios, the second primaeval Athenian with the curious birth-legend,
whichwe knowfrom the stories concerning Athene, a Kekrops reappeared....
Allegedly also, he built the shrine of Athena Polias, already mentioned, set up
the wooden image of the goddess in ii, and was buried on the spot.... It seems
rather that his significant name, which emphatically signijìes a "chthonian," a
beingfrom the underworld, originally meani not a ruler, not a king of this our
world above, but the mysterious child who was worshipped in mysteries and
mentioned in seldom-told tales.... The Athenians called themselves Kekrop-
idai after a primaeval being, but Erechtheidai after this their king and hero.t"
131