La città del Moderno: un progetto incompiuto

Starting from the pioneering experience of Rem Koolhaas for the Bijlmermeer in Amsterdam, it seems possible, today, to recognize a series of more and more numerous projects, followed in an articulated and heterogeneous way, that propose a way of building the contemporary city through the redevelopment of those social housing districts built in the second half of XX century, which constitute still today one of the most problematic aspects of its crisis. These experiences begin to outline a real point of view, certainly not unitary in its techniques but rather in its objectives, because beyond their specific characters, they seem to have interpreted the redevelopment of social housing as an authentic resource for reconnecting the plots of a research on unfinished Modernity, rereading it critically and wondering about its problematic issues as for its actual and inexhaustible possibilities. It seems to be common to these experiences an attitude oriented to the urban renewal of these social housing districts through a 'second project', that seems to recognize, as a problematic core located in depth, the question of their 'spatiality'. In opposition of shapeless and inarticulate spaces, perhaps one of the most acute problems of these districts, these projects seem to be oriented to the rethinking of the spatial relationships between the elements - towers, slabs, unité d'habitation -, with the aim of defining formal structures and articulating hierarchies of spaces, looking at the wealth and spatial complexity of the city of the European tradition, but taking on the fundamental paradigm changes that Modernity proposed.