The City Built in Elementary Parts: An Alternative to Delirium of Post-metropolis

Starting from Italy and from the book Manifesto del Nuovo Realismo (2012) by the philosopher Maurizio Ferraris, a new paradigm was created: a critical return to “strong thought” opposite to the previous post-modern paradigm. What about Architecture? The paper studies the reflection developed through a series of conferences and exhibitions, held over last three years, inviting architects and philosophers – Italian and foreign – to think over “Architecture and Realism”. Starting from an initial assessment of these initiatives, the need to improve tie of our discipline – Architecture – with reality emerged; a reality that we have to properly understand with the aim – remembering Lukács – of building «a real and adequate space, able to visually evoke adequacy» and, in this way, counteracting the senselessness of contemporary architecture as ‘reductio ad imaginem’ and the amorphous growth of globalized post-metropolis. As the authors believe that circularity between Theory and Practice exists in Architecture, some projects at the urban scale are given to clarify theoretical affirmations in the text.

Keywords: new realism; architecture of the city; architecture and philosophy; contemporary city