The Landscape in Defining a New Model of the City

The modern city, with its rapid growth and abandonment, which are too fast to be absorbed by historical settlements and physical/social coherence, represents the explosion of a mosaic of distinct fragments, each either with their own form (historic centres, planned communities, large infrastructures) or lacking a form and definite function (nebulae, rubble, sprawl, abandoned central and peripheral areas, derelict lands). Today the loss of environmentally and socially conscious urban design also has to deal with the effects of climate change, which is becoming more aggressive where resource consumption has been the most furious and disordered. Modern landscapes measure dramatically the spatial success of such dynamics and the repercussions that these changes have on the life of cities and their inhabitants. The vulnerability of the city as read through the landscape should be confronted by designing innovative social, economic, and environmental responses that allow them to endure and form the basis for new landscapes. This means configuring and connecting fragments of the city together without nostalgic unitary visions or the fear of overwriting in order to reorganize the pieces, rereading and reinterpreting their connection to the context, recreating new places.