Urban regeneration: the VITRUVIO 4.0 book presented which recounts the Mitsubishi Electric roadshow

In this millennium, the architecture of the city is asked to find solutions to new problems, which translate into new declinations of the Vitruvian parameters: Solidity, Utility, Beauty.

This roadshow was a singular journey to discover the evolution of the Vitruvian “utilitas”., in the inevitable intertwining with emerging social paradigms: industry 4.0 imposes increasingly different projects for new families and “tribes”, who are looking for a new way of being in cities. There urban regeneration it is a particularly relevant topic in urban planning practice, but it must be understood in all respects as a policy for the development of cities from a green, 360-degree perspective. Recovering spaces abandoned by production processes and restoring new territorial, economic and social quality to degraded neighborhoods responds perfectly to the concept of the sustainable city, reducing the environmental impacts inherent in buildings.

And so it was born Vitruvius 4.0 which from 2019 to 2023, with the interruption of Covid, placed forty-seven experts, journalists, sociologists, intellectuals, artists, entrepreneurs, politicians at the 13 discussion tables to try to prefigure the future of man’s most complex and important invention, the city; very free comparisons and discussions, always trying to focus the discussion on the Italian reality and, above all, on the feelings of those who live there, in Milan, Rome, Naples and Florence. The authors comment:

“In 2019, at the beginning of the experience, we warned the public that we would discuss how the paradigms of urban regeneration had changed in the new millennium; to the post-Covid recovery and as the evenings continued we realized that new changes and interpretations had already changed in light of the pandemic, the energy crisis, the wars. So in this book we have made the effort not only to summarize and reorder the contents of the Vitruvius 4.0 evenings, but also to align them with today’s reality. Today the discussion on possible solutions is open and, thanks to Mitsubishi Electric, we hope to have made a small but important contribution.” – commented Leopold Freyrie.

“The text you will read is a work that tries to restore the spirit of those evenings. First we transcribed the recordings, and then selected the salient parts, avoiding redundancies, always with the idea of ​​producing an agile, easy-to-consult book and not a mere summary, unnecessarily voluminous. Finally, we decided to avoid having the chapters follow the chronological order of the various stages but to group them by typology, in the desire to create a thread of reasoning that is more in line with the proposed themes. To these words we wanted to add images full of suggestions, those created by an artist, Marialuisa Montanari, capable of inventing “new cities” making them appear truer than life. Photomontages of well-known, iconic buildings and landscapes that make up new architecture, a visual response to that different gaze that must accompany us, capable of not forgetting what already exists, trying if anything to put it back into play in an innovative way. The result of this work is the book you hold in your hands. Certainly not a point of arrival, if anything a starting point.” – explains Gianni Biondillo.

Concludes Fabrizio Maja, Mitsubishi Electric Branch Vice President: “In a historical moment marked by a constantly evolving context – between pandemic, energy crisis and wars – thanks to the thirteen meetings held over four years, we discussed and learned a lot, trying to better understand the future of our cities. These events made up of comparisons, doubts and proposals that are truly not academic and truly of great interest have had the contribution of the intelligence of over fifty people, coming from different professional and cultural fields but all passionate about that extraordinary “invention” of man which is the city. We moved from Milan to Rome, from Florence to Naples, each time with the presence of a selected and faithful audience who followed us in our discussions, often intervening; real urban dialogues that Gianni Biondillo and Leopoldo Freyrie have summarized in this book, Mitsubishi Electric’s contribution to the open questions of living in the century of climate change and the constantly changing city.”

The following discussed it, together with Leopoldo Freyrie and Gianni Biondillo: Giancarlo Tancredi, Councilor for Urban Regeneration of the Municipality of Milan; Tommaso Dal Bosco – President at AUDIS – Disused Urban Areas; Federico Parolotto – CEO of MIC-HUB; Silvia Botti – Architect and journalist, Director of One Works Foundation; Sergio Luciano, Director of Economy.