IN-PERSON: Prague – Section A

Abstract

In the digital age in which maps are rendered in moments in the palms of our hands, cities are being increasingly conceptualized as compositions of streets instead of spaces. They are understood for their capacity to usher their populations from one destination to another rather than their capacity for community or dwelling. The passeggiata emerges as a valuable case-study in examining urban behavior. It is an Italian social phenomenon of community wandering. Firstly, it defines human behavior within space rather than naming spaces that script human behavior. Secondly, it exists across scales of design, treating the city street as interior and piazza as room; architecture defines the city, not the other way around. Can architecture mold the social forces that bring people together? Interiority exists as a continuum from street, to piazza, to building. The architecture activates public space through permeable, layered edges. Rules that preserve spaces as pristine and manicured give way to the mess of opportunistic dwelling. Markets, concerts, picnics, bike races occur without warning, often without sanction. Rules of assignment that stipulate distinct zones of habitation are all but eliminated. Public activities blend as cars, pedestrians, bicycles, and pets jostle to move about within the same spatial limits. Interruptions to this flow are a critical programmatic facet of movement as they tempt the passerby to stop, patronize, dwell. This proposal explores and documents the phenomenon of the passeggiata. It examines elements of architecture that operate at the scale of the city to make urban interiority. It identifies the qualities of architecture that extend beyond the conventional limit of the building to activate public space. It defines techniques for mapping places that inform architectural responses in service to this phenomenon.