TOWARDS NEW TRADITIONAL URBAN FABRICS Learning from London

Abstract

Today’s towns, as often represented on the web and media, seem almost the same, flattened out on the American model. But European towns still preserve their individuality: if we look at aerial views, for instance, we can see that just little sections are enough to make it impossible to confuse them. And it is not because of some single building or monument. Each of these towns has its own character due to the very nature of its urban fabric. Furthermore, every town is made of several different urban fabrics, each one with its own specific character, which distinguishes it from the others: nevertheless all of them appear as different aspects of the same reality. Which are the common features connecting such apparently different realities? And how can we learn from the past in order to obtain a more liveable built environment, in coherence with the traditional town and without interrupting but even promoting its further development?