Rome: the eternal city / the vital
city?
Patrik Schumacher, Rome 2003
The notion of sustainability
that was orienting the various design interventions formulated during
the workshop was a notion of social, economic and cultural sustainability
rather than ecological sustainability. However, since the notion of
sustainability is usually associated with ecological questions I prefer
to speak of the ongoing “vitality” as the key problematic of the “eternal
city”.
In fact this question of the social,
economic and cultural vitality of the city is much closer to the heart
of the disciplines of urbanism and architecture. It is the challenge
posed to all historical entities in the modern world: how to cope with
the momentous transformative dynamic of modern civilization. This challenge
demands permanent competitive restructuring and reinvention. Instead the notion of sustainability places the emphasis on
the establishment of long-term cycles of reproduction. While the capacity
to survive is obviously to be presupposed I believe that the search
for long-term cyclical self-sufficiency is a fallacy. I would rather
promote a project of exploration that ultimately – in the long-term
- ventures into the unknown whereby only medium-term safe-guards
are given. This is the difference between reproduction and development:
Development is an irreversible process of transformation over transformation,
whereby the entities in question progressively deviate from the origin
or starting point until the original identity is irredeemably lost.
Each new level of development is a new point of no return.
In the specific case of Rome there
is an obvious tension between the preservation of a precious heritage
and the quest for ongoing vitality which
requires the incorporation of modern technological amenities and permanent
reprogramming of its buildings and urban spaces. There are some immediately
obvious compromises, for instance with respect to an efficient metropolitan
transport infra-structure. In order to safe-guard its dense historical
heritage Rome renunciates with respect to the installation of an underground
train system. This places an unusual burden upon the on ground traffic.
The historical fabric with its narrow and irregular street further
burdens the need for efficient traffic. However, the Romans cope and
compensate by means of their extensive use of scooters. The result
holds unusual opportunities for an intensified urban communication.
While the Roman architectural and
urban typologies seem robust and resilient enough against the onslaught
of new social demands, it should not become a dogma that the historical
fabric of the city has to be preserved in its entirety. Strategic substitutions,
superimpositions and various forms hybridizations might define the
relations between old and new. That an unleashed spatial imagination
has a role to play in the revitalization of the life of the city can
not be a priori excluded. In fact, the projects emerging from the workshop
displayed a refreshing level of creative irreverence in relation with
the historical fabric, without however descending into a crude or vulgar
attitude of confrontation.
Another tension to be resolved with
regard to the question of maintaining the historical heritage is the
tension between the needs of those who live and work in Rome versus
the needs of the tourists who threaten to swamp the breathing space
of the Romans. Is Rome a giant museum to be maintained as a destinaion
for international tourism or is it to develop as one of the most vital
and productive intellectual centers of Italy/Europe? This decision
has strategic economic import. Obviously tourism itself is an industry.
But is it an industry that fosters and sustains the highest possible
levels of education and material freedom within the population? Is
the tourism the industry that can make the most of the well educated
and cultured population that resides here? I believe there is a productive
level of tourism which helps to maintain a convenient density of facilities
like hotels, restaurants, shops, museums, theatres etc. which can be
utilized in parallel by those who live and work within the city. But
there are levels of tourism that overcrowd and suffocate the vital
life of the city.
The same tension has to be negotiated
by each museum and cultural institution. It is important that these
museums are not prioritising tourism, but instead offer a rich, and
varied programme for the citizens who live and work in Rome. This means
offering changing rather than fixed exhibitions, offering lecture and
conference programmes etc., in order to provide regular opportunities
for cross-professional, cultural communication for the professional
workforce of the city. This also means that the primarily art/heritage
based institutions should find ways to make their cultural programmes
relevant and vital for the contemporary culture/media industry.
The role of the Contemporary Art Centre
In this respect new cultural institutions
like the new Auditorium or the forthcoming Centre for Contemporary
Art (MAXXI) are of crucial importance for the cultural and professional
vitality of Rome. MAXXI will be well placed to productively fuse and
synergize a certain type of international “tourism” with its role as
communication platform for exchanges and cross-fertilization of various
vital contemporary industries. The location just outside of the historic
center afforded here the opportunity to experiment with spatial scenarios.
“Art” today is this open-ended
platform to reflect new social phenomena, e.g. like the new condition
of globalisation and multi-culturalism. Contemporary “Art” is also
a vital vehicle for the experimentation with new forms of communication
and possible applications of emergent technologies, e.g. as in internet
art and interactive electronic
art etc. Ultimately contemporary art is all about the playful invention and dissemination of radically
new perspectives on life. It feeds from and into all the most vital
and advanced productive industries of the contemporary world.
Contemporary art centres offer a frame or clearing for the unknown and untested to burst forward.
An art centre is a rather abstract, open-ended, and essentially anti-institutional form. It is a vacant field defined only negatively as the refusal to perpetuate the status quo and as a promise that things might be otherwise. There can be no strict typology as there is no positively defined function. It is subject to the open-ended series of re-interpretations of the very concept of art by each new generation of artists. The only certain constitutive characteristic is that it is public, i.e. that it initiates public events and constructs a public space. It is (or should be) a catalyst of mutation and incubator with respect to the form and content of public exhibitions, communications and gatherings. In principle any political, social, economic, moral, cultural or technological question can be brought forward for public exposition and reflection within the domain of contemporary art. The raving popularity of the events initiated within the Contemporary Art Centre so far, manifests the latent need and craving for the injection of such new urban incubators within the texture of the eternal city.
End.