Aesthetics in urban space: architecture and art for sustainable cities

Addressing the problem of aesthetics in urban space nowadays implies dealing with new models of cities, in which sustainable development, regeneration, requalification and urban reuse become indispensable. The reuse of the city, in regions concerned with a dramatic declining in the population, might prove an opportunity for inventing new ways aimed at creating new urban public spaces and new shared meanings (2010). Results, these last, obtainable by the construction of appropriate decision-making inclusive processes (Musco 2009) capable of working as strategy of modification of the metropolitan area (Mazzoleni 2009) towards a line of greater sustainability. In the prospect of a social construction of space, these urban models become achievable by resorting to an economic and social, as well as urban, landscape. The image of the urban space is at the same time the image of power (Gans 2002, Zukin 2002, Chandra Mukerji 1997, Verdi 2004), but also that of a public space in which new practices of art and architecture can generate renewed places. Thanks to the spread of new artistic practices, cities may achieve enhancements by the recovering of community spaces, as by promoting dialog, social cohesion, and resilience. The understanding between artists and citizens can breed good practices and new models of connection with the environment and the aesthetics of the city. A responsible and involved citizenship is able to generate requalified relations with the social and physical surrounding environment. The theory of ‘Difendible Space’ by Oscar Newman (1972) argues the existence of a correlation between the adoption and application of security measures in the subdivision and use of urban space, the improvement in the conditions of urban life, and a drastic reduction of the crime rate in certain urban areas. Also Alice Coleman’s research (1985) examines the relationship between design and deviant behaviors. Even the so-called theory of the ‘broken windows’ (1982), by G. L. Kelling and J. Q. Wilson, associates urban decay and insecurity, affirming that the disorder (broken glass) propagates itself in a virtuous circle, expanding to a oil stain. Instead, artistic practices can foster huge cultural changes into the public spaces, contributing to revitalize our sense of place. Shared and active interventions between citizens and artists are able to generate new forms of resistance to globalistic logic and patterns.