Continuing to make Rome

Nicola Di Battista goes back to last month’s editorial theme because “we are obliged to continue to make Rome”.

This article has been originally published on Domus 1008, December 2016.

It has happened before that we paused to reflect on the phenomenon of globalisation and its effects. We have deplored the fact that it refuses to come to an end, leading to a delay in the advent of a sorely needed cultural change.

Yet in view of what is happening today in our now global world, it is worthwhile to devote still more thought to the matter, from an architectural point of view. Compared to the past, our contemporary society is the first to be completely globalised. Whether we like it or not, this is today’s main condition of us being on this Earth. We are global because everything by now is within reach. But we are coming to realise at our own expense is that the extent of this condition does not belong to us as individuals, as living beings. As a person, a human being is indissolubly linked to his physical and intellectual capacities, which are very limited compared to the immensity of the world. Indeed, we know that the world belongs to us only as a cognitive fact, and we also know that we live on an earth inhabited by over 7 billion human beings, each one absolutely different from the next, forming an interminable chain of uniquely dissimilar individuals. Faced with this evidence, we cannot but feel a profound sense of bewilderment caused by the fact that during our lifetime, we will have contact with, get to know, work and live with only a few hundred, at most with a few thousand of these persons – almost none compared to all the others that we will never meet.

In recent years, advanced technological innovations have considerably widened our capacities, to the point of giving us the feeling that everything was within reach, and above all, possible. Now we know that things are not like that. We know, too, that globalisation is a condition, not a value. This is why the real change lies in giving value to this new condition, in the awareness that us being global is subordinate to us being tout simplement. From this point of view, we cannot but recognise that our condition as human beings allows us to be individuals only in a place, in a context, in a community large or small, and not in an improbable global village. Only this belongingness will be able to transform the uniqueness of each of us into something collective, just like the thought of an individual will be able to become collective thought – once established, it will no longer belong only to the person who expressed it, but to the many people who shared it and made it possible. This condition regained will enable us to imagine, elaborate and express new lifestyles, new ways of being that are better suited to our times and to the needs expressed by them. Only when all this has been achieved can it be proposed to other individuals, other communities, and other peoples wanting to share it.

A shared point of view is the requirement for architecture to be able to exist

How can we not be reminded here of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who defines architecture as the visible expression of a point of view that others will naturally want to share. On closer inspection, we could reverse this condition today by saying that precisely this shared point of view is the requirement for architecture to be able to exist; and at the same time it is what architects need if they are to do their work well, in order to have the kind of collective content that can be transfigured into magnificent and necessary architectural forms, which at that point no longer represent only the architect who generated them, but an entire collectivity. Recent decades have deprived architects of these precious and necessary materials, making their work much more difficult. Mainly our cities, territories, landscapes have suffered as a result, and with them the innumerable people who inhabit these places. Faced by the many events that are shaking the world, some of which are unfortunately tragic – and seeing how the end of globalisation as a totalising ideology and as the only condition of our contemporary living is not yet in sight – the profound and multifarious debate on the incredible urbanisation currently underway, and on the many metropolises old and new that have created and encouraged it, seems to be lagging behind the demand that our times are now loudly clamouring for in an increasingly pressing way, namely a change in our way of living.

It is so important today to return to a dimension compliant with people’s lives and their primary needs

Now that we live in a climate better disposed to listening, and now that the change seems imminent, now that it is once again vitally important to know well “what to do”, we can firmly state that only the various communities with their unique physiognomies have the opportunity to respond with awareness to this question. We can therefore say that generic answers that are supposed to be valid for everybody no longer make any sense whatsoever. If we want to address the world we must be thoroughly ourselves and propose with strength and clarity our point of view on the issues of habitation today. We must understand that it is not up to the architect to decide “what to do”. The content of that action is too important to be left in the hands of one single social category, one single association of professionals, or any other part of society. It is the task of the whole of civilised society to define and produce the content to be delivered to architects so that they can use it as material to be transfigured into architectural forms. That is why it is so important today to return to a dimension compliant with people’s lives and their primary needs. That is why it is so vital to invent new ways of participation that can reveal the new spirit of places, unite communities and enable them to express needs, hopes and wishes for life and progress.

Now if we look at our own country, it is easy to deduce that the fact that in recent decades it has no longer been a protagonist in the contemporary debate, apparently aloof from what was happening in the rest of the world concerning urbanisation, probably depends on the specifics of our architectural culture. It is a culture confronted with a question that is no longer the expression of true collectivities. On the contrary, it expresses only presumed global urgencies made up of slogans, facile ideologies and momentary illusions. As a result, our culture has been unable to respond to the urgencies and requests of contemporaneity. For all these reasons, starting all over again from our cities and landscapes gives us a sense of rediscovery that allows us to relate to the forms that over time, in large quantities and in very diversified ways we have succeeded in creating for good human habitation. Many of our cities still tell of the extraordinary human adventure that each of them, one by one, was able to build, each with its own specificities and uniqueness, its own diversity. But on closer inspection, among these cities, one alone seems to contain all the others. For in it everything said above finds its maximum possible representation, superlatively expressed.

That city is Rome, and for this reason it is worthwhile to continue talking about it. Precisely the history of this city shows how local thought can become universal, how Rome succeeded over time in representing the quintessence of all the other cities put together, growing into the only one capable today of enclosing them all – firstly those of Italy, but also many others. For this reason today we are obliged, compelled, and profoundly interested in continuing to make Rome. We do not want to interrupt all this, because it does not belong to the past; it is not archaeology. On the contrary, it belongs to the present; it is living history and it holds the answer to the question so close to our hearts, the question of “what to do”. That’s why we need for Rome to go back being Rome again: to tell humanity where their skills can lead, what lofty goals they may accomplish and to what excellent results they should aspire. We need it to show us how a local community can successfully build something universal and truly global, comprehensible and good for all. There is an urgent need for Rome to go back to being itself, for the good of its citizens, but also for the benefit of the entire country and beyond. For Rome to resume its proper role within the international panorama of our contemporaneity, there is no need for miracles or single individuals in command. Rather there is a need to create at least two conditions, starting from the one we already possess.

People visiting and living in Rome must take care of it

The first and most important for the people visiting and living in Rome is that everyone, singly, must take care of it above all by redefining themselves as citizens, citizens who aspire to inhabit not only their own dwelling but also their immediate surroundings, their neighbourhood, the space of their community. Who knows, maybe in this way the city and its citizens might regain the kind of pride and dignity that good habitation can bring, the kind that today seems remote and out of reach, unlike the great quantities of them that Rome proves to have had not so long ago. The city of Rome requests and deserves all this. It needs to be cared for on a daily basis, even with minor actions within everybody’s reach, in the awareness that together those actions can gradually develop into a trickle, a stream, a river, an unstoppable tidal surge that is indispensable to better habitation. Of course all this is not enough, but it is certainly indispensable to let the public institutions and politicians understand which way the winds of change are blowing, and that from now on it will be complicated to disregard the expectations that the citizens will be making clear from down below. Without adequate answers to their requests, the shirked responsibility of the establishment will be immediately clear and evident to all.

But as we were saying, this condition alone is not enough. To take care of the city, one by one, no-one excluded, is a necessary but not sufficient condition. For a rebirth of the city, for what the city has been, for what it represents in the world and could still be today in our contemporaneity, at least one other condition needs to be fulfilled, namely that Rome can, and must, continue to be Rome. Rome cannot afford to be interrupted, and anybody responsible for causing that to happen would pay the consequences. They would be liable for having broken off the age-old construction of this city, its true vocation, its true raison d’être for all humanity. Rome must absolutely be continued; it cannot afford not to. It is not possible to halt this incredible and immense history, unless our contemporary epoch wishes to bear the shame of such a crime and to become for posterity the epoch that killed Rome by its failure to continue it. To continue to make Rome is not an issue of interest solely to Romans or to Italians; it is a question of interest to all. Not taking care of it might one day be recognised as a crime against humanity.

Continuing to make Rome is not a technical or practical issue, but chiefly one of civilisation and culture. In illustration of this, we shall conclude these notes by quoting Thomas Bernard: “Rome is of all cities the most congenial to the mind: it was the ideal city for the ancient mind, and it’s the ideal city for the modern mind – precisely for the modern mind, given the chaotic political conditions that prevail here today. No other city, not even New York, is ideal for the mind, but Rome quite definitely is, beyond all doubt.” [1] To continue to make Rome is our urgency.

1 Thomas Bernhard, Extinction: A Novel, Random House, New York 1995. Originally published in Germany as Auslöschung by Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1986

Continuing to make Rome

Nicola Di Battista goes back to last month’s editorial theme because “we are obliged to continue to make Rome”.

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