One of the most telling symptoms of the failure of the modern movement in architecture and planning has been its marked inability to create satisfactory public spaces. For this reason, Modernism is likely to go down in history as an architectural philosophy dedicated to the creation of isolated monuments--in the end, an antiurban philosophy. Yet throughout history, architecture and urbanism have gone hand in hand--architects have added to and enhanced the life of towns.
The historic cities and towns of Europe provide an almost limitless source of inspiration for the architects and planners of the postmodern era (and one that constantly inspires present-day urbanists such as Leon Krier, Aldo Rossi, and Charles Moore). Two elements are constant throughout the history of urban Europe: the street and the square. With its deep-rooted classical origins, the square is the true forum of civic and social life, with a symbolic as well as a practical purpose. The Piazza della Signoria in Florence, for example, created in the second half of the thirteenth century, encapsulates the history of the city. Its very creation was the outcome of a desperate struggle for political control--the homes of the defeated Ghibelline party were leveled, and the piazza was laid out on the site to ensure that they could never be rebuilt.
Architectural Flowering
The revival of town planning in medieval Italy--the desire to make cities beautiful as well as secure--anticipated the architectural flowering of the Renaissance. The historic centers of Italian cities have proved remarkably resilient over the centuries, so that in Italy, the continuity of urban life is always brought to mind. In Lucca, one of the new squares simply followed the lines of the Roman amphitheater (the bones of which presumably survive under the later houses). But it was some miles to the south, in Siena, that medieval planning is seen to most dramatic effect.
The Campo in Siena is the hub of the city, where all roads, in the end, converge. The origins of the space are obscure, but even in the twelfth century, it was a clearly defined area, set aside amid the booming growth of the city as a market and focus for communal life. The city government protected the space from development, appointing officers to supervise activities that went on there. As early as 1297, aesthetic controls were introduced over the buildings that faced the Campo--balconies were prohibited and homeowners obliged to ornament their windows with carved columns. There was an attempt, in short, to impose some sort of architectural unity.
The intention was to provide a dignified setting for the building, then under construction, that was to give the Campo a new, symbolic role. On the site where the communal salt-store and the mint, prototype civic institutions, had once stood, the Palazzo Publico, the work of an unknown architect, was erected. The Palazzo was not effectively completed until 1348. It sits at the bottom of the shell-like basin of the square, its soaring tower (the Torre del Mangia) one of the greatest architectural achievements of the trecento in Italy. Its political symbolism is now largely lost, since the demolition of the forest of private fortified towers in which Siena, like San Gimignano, abounded. By the time of the completion of the Palazzo Publico, the square itself had been paved over in nine sections, with two-thirds of the funding provided by the commune and the remainder by
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