La nuova trama territoriale : morfogenesi e logiche aggregative : Il caso di Barcellona (settore della Regione Metropolitana tra Sant Martì e Matarò)
Authors:   , Gagliardi Maria 
Published: October 2023

In questa tesi si esplora la possibilità di una lettura morfologica della città contemporanea che ne spieghi specificamente il processo di formazione in continuità con la città tradizionale. Nella tesi si propone l’ipotesi che questa nuova configurazione che qui sarà denominata Città-Territorio possa leggersi come salto di scala della città e che per tanto possa essere legittimo un tipo di lettura processuale e storico simile a quello proposto dalle scuole di morfologia degli anni ’70 ed ’80 per la città tradizionale. L’idea di un salto di scala legittima inoltre l’ipotesi dell’esistenza di logiche interscalari e auto-similari tra le due configurazioni, offrendo una nuova chiave di lettura rispetto alle regole di localizzazione e aggregazione all’interno della trama territoriale.
La ricerca ha come risultato l’elaborazione di una Tassonomia che sarà utilizzata come strumento di lettura per l’analisi morfologica del settore appartenente alla Regione Metropolitana di Barcellona che va dal distretto di Sant Martì (città di Barcellona) a Matarò. Questa lettura serve a ricucire la storia della trasformazione della città capitale e della sua corona urbana in un filo unico, dove la scala locale e quella territoriale appaiono integrate nel formare l’immagine di un’unica trama a grande scala.

The crisis of the traditional city, with its morphological characteristics, has been largely debated. The new urban phenomenon has almost always been described as antithetical. By contrary this Thesis interrogates the possibility of reading a continuity between the traditional and the contemporary city.
The first part of the research brings forth the concept that the territory can be described as an urban phenomenon, and offers the definition of the contemporary city as a Città-Territorio (City-Territory). This also serves to outline an analytical approach introduced in the 70's by the morphological school of thinkers. The thesis once again proposes this term, in continuity with this school and taking advantage of its learnings, to compare the traditional city, already studied in depth, with the contemporary city. The research also introduces the hypothesis that the Città-Territorio can be interpreted as a change of scale of the traditional city, and that it is in fact possible to identify inter-scalar auto-similarity properties.
Starting from the historical roots of this phenomenon, one of the key concepts of this research is introduced: Trama-Territoriale (Territorial Mesh). The Thesis offer a synthesis of two possible interpretations of this concept: an abstract view, where the Trama is considered a network of connections and nodes; and a physical view, where the Trama is considered a traditional material of the historical stratification process related to anthropic occupation; in particular the research developes the second point of view.
In the second part of this research the relevance of a morphological approach in the study of the contemporary city is discussed through an excursus of the main European schools¿ contributions, with a particular thematization due to geographical areas. From the synthesis of these references a basis for the definition of a Taxonomy emerges. The taxonomy is organised around the tre main elements that constitute the Trama: Tracciati-Percorsi (Layout-Route), Tessuto costruito (Built Fabric), Emergenze specialistiche (Special Emergencies), then articulated into four categories that represent the inter-scalar aggregation invariables that describe the compositional process of the Trama-Territoriale.
In the third part, the reasons for the choice of Barcelona as a case study are illustrated, as well as the experimentation area, consisting in the the coastal sector of the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona, going from the NE periphery of the capital to Matarò.
With respect to the Taxonomical experimentation, a first theoretical-descriptive phase that analyses the invariant processes was developed, contextualising these in the case study in a trans-scalar and procedural manner.
The second phase of Taxonomical experimentation is of a graphical-descriptive character, articulated around a series of diachronic graphics is 1:25000 scale.
The base cartographies elaborated represent the tre Taxonomical marco-categories and their evolution from the 50's to today. These base cartographies, in turn, have been used to build five other drawings that isolate the innovative elements in each temporal frame, each themed with respect to the Taxonomical categories.
The experimental contribution is of particular relevance towards the interpretation of the dynamics that have characterised the morphology of the current urban phenomenon, describing its aggregation logics and decomposing the historical-procedural continuum. Moreover, the experimentation on the case study demonstrates the validity of the theoretical findings and the value that the research has given to the concept of Città-Territorio e in relation to the necessity to outline these in the change of scale from the traditional city. This further confirms the theoretical potential intrinsic to the identification of auto-similarity aggregation logics and the formation invariant processes in the Trama-Territoria.