Studio Associato Bernardo Secchi Paola Viganò

Architecture | Urbanism | Landscape

studio

the new structure plan study for the city of Antwerp; a strategic and pioneer plan for urban planning tradition of Flanders. The city of Antwerp lived splendid ages, not only in the 19th century, but also more recently in the 20’s and 30’s until the 60’s. Since then a substantial part of its population has abandoned the city and moved to the countryside. A huge part of the city centre was occupied by new population with very different origins. All that and the lack of politics for integration has provoked a social tension that caused a visible, even though ambiguous, decline of the city in the last 2 decades. «Comment vivre ensemble» “How to live together” becomes the principal theme of the plan. This goal cannot find its solution in a urban plan only, even though it is conceived with a strong commitment in social and economic issues. But it can help if it's able to find the strategies and the priority interventions and study their feasibility on site and through time. The plan is conceived through two ideal means: on one side the 'images', on the other side the 'scenarios'. The 'images', based on both the city history and more recent interesting reflections (like the ecological ones) are the guidelines for future action and in particular for the construction of a 'vision'; the 'scenarios', are a “what could happen if ….” Analysis system: they allow to push further the project through a collective involvement of city actors and users getting over traditional exclusively data based previsions. In this framework the plan adopts a strategy of renovatio urbis: in a general structure of urban space strategic projects are developed