Ghosts and teeming worlds

Abstract

The article continues a trajectory of studies performed in the last few years regarding the topic of the body in discourse and urban planning design (Bianchetti. in Bodies between space and design, Jovis, Berlin, 2020, Bianchetti. in “Spazi corpi politiche” dialogue with Simona Forti and Paola Viganò, Biennale Democrazia, Turin, 25 March, Teatro Gobetti, 2023a, Bianchetti. in Le mura di Troia. Lo spazio ricompone i corpi. Donzelli, Rome, 2023b). It takes three books as its focus. The authors are: Colin Rowe and Dennis Hardy, Anthony Vidler, and Antoine Picon. I am personally very attached to these three books and believe they can help understand three different forms of the relationship between spaces and bodies. These forms of the relationship, respectively concern: the recomposition of bodies in space; the transfiguration of space that becomes projection of the neuroses and phobias of those who inhabit it; the tension between materiality and disembodiment. Recomposition, transfiguration, and disembodiment are ways in which spaces and bodies relate to each other. They speak of vulnerability, but also of the power of the body-in-space. The underlying question is: to what extent are urban planning policies and designs able to grasp the irreducibility of bodies? To what extent are they able to overcome the dedifferentiation that has created them for so long? Recomposition, transfiguration and disembodiment force us to reposition our attention beyond the ghost of a pure project, in the fallible and teeming kingdom of the relationships between bodies and spaces. The aim of the article is to highlight fragments of a critical discussion on design based on the complex relations between space, life, bodies and designs.