Time, Space, and City

1
Time, Space, and City

• Dino Borri
• borri_at_poliba.it
• In Conversation with Students from Adelaide,
  Australia
• Polytechnic of Bari
• 6.10.2003

2
Summary

• Introduction
• Spatio-Demographic and Administrative Profiles
• Diversity and Adaptivity
• Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
  XIX to XXI century
• Conclusions
• References

3
Introduction

• Longue durée in history of cities and
  hybridization of cultures
• Intriguing conditions of successful urban
  architectures and plans
• Environmental aspects and resources as key
  features
• Evolution of urban structures and events
• Urban poverty and peripheries social
  deprivation, criminality, economic crisis

4
Spatio-Demographic and Administrative Profiles

• Bari today
• 300,000 residents
• 116 kmq
• 68 of employees in the tertiary sector, 30 in
  the secondary sector, 2 in the primary sector
• Capital of the region of Puglia (19,000 kmq 4,1
  million residents 5 provinces)
• Chief town of the province of Bari (5,000 kmq, 48
  communes, 1,6 million residents)

5
Diversity and Adaptivity

• Evolution of cultures and names from the Greek
  and Roman politheism to the Arab (IX-X century
  aC) and Cristian monotheism from aristocrats to
  merchants from the Greek Barion to the Roman
  Barium, the medieval, modern, and contemporary
  Bari

6
Diversity and Adaptivity

• From the Greeks only a coin with a child on a
  boat joking with a dolphin
• From the Romans only some ruins and some words
  from historians and poets the granite columns
  now in the gardens of the eastern part of the
  waterfront Orazio, travelling from Rome to
  Brindisi and the East, mentions the richness in
  fish of the Adriatic sea in Bari

7
Diversity and Adaptivity

• From the Arabs the mosque now laying under the
  Christian cathedral of St. Sabino, in the old
  city
• From the Byzantins the casbah, the stronghold of
  the Catapanus (the Greek-Turkish governor of the
  colonial city), now changed into the Christian
  basilica of St. Nicola, in the old city

8
Diversity and Adaptivity

• From the confusion of cultures and dominations of
  the Middle Age
• the old city of today, with its basilica and its
  cathedral, its castle, and many of its houses,
  was built in XI-XVI century aC, during the Norman
  domination (a population from the North of
  France, originally Scandinavians), the Anjou
  domination (the Earls of Provence came again from
  France), the Aragon domination coming from Spain)
  

9
Diversity and Adaptivity

• At the end of the XI century aC fishermans from
  Bari steal in Mira, Anatolia (Turkey) the body of
  Nicholas, a bishop who lived in the IV century
  aC, taking it to Bari the myth of St. Nicola,
  still alive, creates the modern Bari and
  accompanies the modernization of the local
  economy by integrating fishing and rural
  activities and commerce

10
Diversity and Adaptivity

• Merchants from Bari are among the wealthy people
  of the Mediterranean area in the Middle age
• Curious merge of tradition Greeks can declare
  themselves, in public contracts dealing with
  family affairs or commerce transactions, as
  living more longobardorum the morginkap
  regulates for long time, through different
  cultures and social and ethnic groups, the
  patrimony of the family and the patrimonial
  agreement between husband and wife

11
Diversity and Adaptivity

• Houses are small, initially isolated and
  gradually aggregated in rows, built by stone
  walls and stone (ground floor) and wood (first
  floor) floors, grouped around courts and thin
  streets
• A special customary law (Consuetudini Baresi)
  regulates the building and functioning of these
  houses, often invoked in judiciary courts when
  conflict among neighbours arise
• City structure is dense and non-Euclidean

12
Diversity and Adaptivity

• Local population is stable during centuries
  because of the recurrent pestilences which were
  activated by crowding and poverty
• At the end of the XVIII century the 40 hectares
  of urban surface inside the fortified walls host
  20,000 residents the viceroys (XVI-XVII
  centuries) and kings (XVIII-XIX) of Naples do not
  authorize urban expansions outside fortifications

13
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• Strong growth of local economy during the XVIII
  century production and commerce of olive oil and
  other agriculture and manifacture goods
• At the end of the XVIII (1790) century a plan is
  proposed for expanding the city
• In 1812 the French king of Naples (Murat, a
  general of Napoleon) authorizes the expansion
  beyond the fortified walls and charges a local
  architect (Giuseppe Gimma) with designing the plan

14
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• The Gimmas plan is based on a Euclidean grid,
  with blocks containing gardens inside, in the
  yards
• Special Statutes (Statuti Murattiani) regulate
  city building through original provisions
  expropriation of all private (and monastic) plots
  in the perimeter of the new town and allocation
  of the royal land properties to the new town
  allocation to the developers only of surface
  rights

15
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• Gimma, who was 75 years old at the design of the
  plan, introduces into the Statutes the lifelong
  position of the City Architect (Architetto del
  Borgo) and the right of the City Architect of
  taking a royalty from each sq. mt of plot for
  buildinng measured and allocated to the
  developers

16
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• In fact, the Minister of the Interior wrote to
  the Prefect of the Province who charged Gimma
  with designing the plan for the new town of Bari
  in 1812 well, we approve your decision but we
  have to inform you that Mr. Gimma is well reputed
  in Naples also for his expensive fees
• Lobbyism of Bari merchants and patricians in the
  circles of the monarchy in Naples to get the
  authorization for the new town

17
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• Opposing the old monarchy of Borbone and
  supporting the French of Napoleon, Bari succeeds
  in getting the political primacy in the province
  the aristocratic Trani loses its position of
  chief town in the province (1808)
• The liquidity of capitals of the Bari olive oil
  merchants (in fact, Bari has not important
  palaces, as these merchants did not invest in
  real estate) gives them economic primacy in the
  area

18
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• Houses are stereotyped and modular the typical
  casa muratiana (Murat house) is designed on a
  grid of roughly 5x5 sq mt, with height of roughly
  5 mt the three windows (which become three
  doors two shops plus the main entrance at the
  ground floor) house is the typical cell of the
  grid
• The architectural style is an austere
  neoclassicism

19
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• Urban growth is not remarkable in the first half
  of the XIX century
• Anyway, the grid will be roughly 1kmx1km and
  population will be 100,000 at the end of the
  century
• The national railway will be in Bari in 1863
  many industrial buildings (food, mechanic,
  textile ecc.) were built along the railway
  corridor together with neighbourhoods for the
  working class

20
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• The grid continues to grow during the first half
  of the XX century, filling the whole space within
  the railway perimeter peripheral suburbs grow
  along the main radial roads
• Growth and decline of Bari population 220,000 at
  1940, 250,000 at 1950, 400,000 at 1980, 300,000
  at 2000

21
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• In the 1920s and 1930s, during the fascism, the
  industrial economy of Bari declines in favour of
  a tertiary economy
• A plan for rivitalizing the old town is approved
  in 1931 this plan is still in force
• An long and well designed waterfront is created
• Many buildings for public functions (hospitals,
  barracks, offices etc.) are built
• Public housing appears along with a growing urban
  periphery

22
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• In the years following the 2nd wordl war a new
  industrial economy integrating the persistent
  dominant tertiary sector appears the master
  plan of 1954 supports increasing density and
  heights in the grid of the XIX century, bringing
  destruction of the neoclassic houses the master
  plan of 1976 (still in force) supports a huge
  suburban sprawl with heavy environmental
  consequences and agricultural land consumption

23
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• The 1976 plan has a target population of 600,000,
  erroneously calculated on the basis of previous
  demographic trends
• Low rise settlements and tall buildings appear
  everywhere, replacing olive trees and
  horticolture and invading streams (lame) and
  seacoast (see the controversial complex of Punta
  Perotti, sequestrated by the Penal Court of Rome
  in 2001)

24
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• A big industrial area appears in the 1960s and
  1970s in the Western part of the metropolitan
  area
• Big deprived suburbs mostly of public housing
  appear in the outskirts of the urban territory of
  Bari, with poor public transport links with the
  city center where most urban functions remain
  located

25
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• Increasing social decay goes along with
  increasing environmental and aesthetic decay
• New powerful families of developers appear in the
  1970s and 1980s, getting hold of economic and
  political power
• The old criminality changes itself into a new
  more dangerous and powerful criminality every
  urban district is now controlled by a criminal
  family

26
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• In 1995 the richest landlord of Bari becomes
  mayor (he is still the mayor of Bari) in the
  1990s the family of the mayor starts a new
  powerful building company

27
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• Contradictions European funds (Urban I) support
  in the 1990s revitalization of the old (medieval)
  city (Bari vecchia), promoting diffusion of
  food and entertainment activities together with
  gentrification and expulsion of marginal families
  and activities increasing water consumption from
  the new activities brings severe water shortage
  for the old residents

28
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• Partial requalification of urban landscape in the
  old town and in some other parts of the city
  coexists with abandon and decay of other parts
• Public transport (bus transport) remains marginal
• The neoclassic houses of the historical Murat
  district continue to be substituted by new
  trivial and tall buildings, completing the
  destruction of the district (architecture,
  spatial density) started in the 1950s and 1960s

29
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• Treatment of waste water is managed by the two
  plants created in the 1970s at W and E of the
  city, now with problems of capacity and quality
• New sand beaches have been created at E of the
  city, under the skyscrapers of Punta Perotti,
  with quite clean sea water but with recurrent
  organic pollution from the imperfect drainage
  system during heavy rainfalls
• Rigorous differentiated waste collection is still
  to be introduced so that wastes invade streets
  and rats invade schools and other buildings

30
Evolution of City Architecture and Plans From
XIX to XXI century

• Grassroot movements begin to appear
• Community groups fight against destruction and
  pollution of the environment (see the fight
  against filling the sea in the harbour for
  creating container parks and parkings see the
  fight against petrochemical and asbestos
  pollution (Stanic, Fibronit etc.)
• The election of the new mayor in 2004 is
  considered crucial by these social movements from
  below which want a magistrate famous for fighting
  against Mafia as next mayor of Bari

31
Conclusions

• Local history, local democracy, contexts and the
  environment essential to understand city
  evolution
• Crucial role of local stakeholders in interaction
  with regional and state powers
• Phases of good urban forms and processes in
  alternation with phases of bad u. f. p.
• Which perspective from the movements from below?

32
References

• Borri, D. (1998), Città e Piano tra Illuminismo e
  Riforma Sociale, in Tateo, F. (2000), Storia di
  Bari, Rome-Bari, Laterza
• Masella, L. and B. Salvemini (1988), Storia
  dItalia. Puglia, Turin, Einaudi
• Petrignani, M. (1980), Bari, Rome-Bari, Laterza
• Tateo, F. (1998), Storia di Bari, Rome-Bari,
  Laterza