area 100 | changing cities

The “Velasca tower”, a building that symbolizes a thought that is impenitently pursued by its author, has in the Twentieth century marked a virtual break with the dogmas of Modernism and its supposedly anti-historical character, reconnecting the evolutionary chain of the city and the urban elements and reasserting their value in terms of memory. Memory and invention are inseparable aspects of any architecture and consequently of any city, an opportunity for living without yielding to either oblivion or nostalgia; together they represent both an overcoming of modernist theories and postmodern historicist aims. The city cannot forget itself to reach for the future, nor can it go on forever mirroring itself in the mummified image of its own past; this is the crucial issue today.