TERRITORIALITÀ

Paolo Galuzzi, Director of the Urbanistica Journal

In volume 171 of the journal Urbanistica, one can discern a subtle common thread that, in different ways, runs through the entire issue. The contributions featured here, from very diverse perspectives, seem to highlight a condition of public policy in which—amid the increasing difficulties faced by spatial planning—there is a growing dominance of logics that appear to disregard the material and physical reality of the world we inhabit. This reflects the decline of practices and projects of “territoriality” and “territorialization” which, despite a not particularly fortunate past phase, had attempted to construct references, visions, forms, and geographies to guide projects woven between space and society. In particular, the section dedicated to Luigi Mazza, which retraces through the voices of several students and colleagues the fabric of a dense and complex body of thought focused on key and constitutive aspects of urban planning practice, brings back the recently deceased author’s interest in the concept of “territoriality.”

In Mazza’s thinking, urban planning is defined as a form of institutional territoriality rooted in the governance of physical space. As clearly explained by the contributors to this section, it represents a way to renew the authority of urban planning and institutions without constraining the idea of active citizenship; a way to express the values and aims of proper territorial governance, grounded in a reformist will and a conscious strategy.

The discussion thus offers an opportunity to explore the dimensions of “territoriality” that are most relevant to urban planning, retracing the influence of Luigi Mazza’s thought and bringing the generative power of his research into the present.

PROGRAM