La trama e la curva. Riflessioni su città e plasticità

To analyse the city and its inner weave means to apprehend and define the dominant correlations between sensible and semantic isotopies. This also implies the possibility of beginning the analysis from the plastic dimension of the city. Looking at the way in which colours, forms, dispositions and materials articulate meaningful contrasts and connections as well as sets of similarities and differences, the city with its costituents reveals the capacity to “stand for” something else, and even to talk about itself. To exemplify this kind of possibility, as a contribution to the research resulting from a collaboration of the universities of Rome “La Sapienza”, Rome "Tor Vergata" and PUC-São Paulo, we will place the cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Rome in correlation. As we will see, this exploration takes as its departing point a shared quality in the landscape of the three cities: a sign-figure stored in the common sense of their inhabitants – the hill (o morro in Portuguese, la collina in Italian) – and a plastic trait acting as a device that enables the recollection and production of memories, discourses and practices – the curve.