Parole-chiave per ri(n)tracciare gli spazi della città contemporanea

Many words have been constructing the urban space, which is not only a compound of brick and a host of buildings but also a sediment of discourses. We meet these discourses everyday, as they concern our knowledge and memory of the city. Say ‘city’ and you immediately has to cope with words, as they embody spaces into narratives which pervade our imaginaries, guide our opinions and direct our lifestyles. Say ‘city’ and you are using words if not unconsciously for sure quite unquestioning. Since the very foundation of the ‘city’, that special space, designed and defined as such, has always been a field for experiment and development, and a site of narration and verbal invention. In its dynamic semantics, something has gone lost but something remains in stock, fixing essential traits that still speak the difference of cities in respect with other human spaces. To catch the flavour of the contemporary city (when the urban becomes the metropolitan) and to question spatial traits and power dynamics involved in this development, I here choose three keywords among the many: Flânerie, Thirdspace, Urban Heritage. These figures, reported in their original language and scrutinized in their historical contexts, are well known to the Urban Studies scholars and, though in different tunes and scales, are included in a collective enciclopedia that ranges from poetics to politics, from philosophy to social sciences, lurking here and there in the media. They are milestones in the city becoming modern- and for the inhabitants becoming citizens.