Seventeenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Cultural heritage and mobility are strongly related in two aspects; cultural spaces have been generators of movement in urban areas, attracting large flows of people; movement on a larger scale and across time, if crystallized, can form part of both an intangible and tangible urban heritage. The spatial element selected to frame this study is the critical container of mobility and heritage sites; the space of the street. The element of the street is not limited to a mere functional element of cities; being a public space, a networked space, a space to project the image of the city, it performs multiple roles within the city. How do the characteristics of the street space affect the valorization of cultural sites and cultural movement? Can the street, carrier of intangible (movement) and tangible (space) become a cultural artifact per se? This project tackles these questions through the territory of Rome, a palimpsest with rich anatomy. Its thousand years of urbanization, the vast and conflicting heritage of the city, the variety of representational regimes, and its geographical features make it the most appropriate ground to explore the hypothesis from a multiplicity of angles, time periods, and methods. Within the city’s broad chronological division, we use methodologies applied in the fields of urban design and the study of cities to read three main episodes aiming to understand, test, and project upon possible alternatives for the future city of Rome; a core aspect of which is the reinterpretation of its relationship between movement and culture.