Infrastrutture e mobilità: la città in rete

Streets, railways harbours and airport, but also the “invisible” network of water, electrical, waste and sewage systems are the urban infrastructures that organise and shape the cities. Normally, we are never aware of the water, sewage, waste or electrical system, while other realities like the road of the underground system appear at least party visible, but never in their systemic entirety. As the invisible background of modern society, the smooth functioning of infrastructure has literally naturalized the contemporary processes of urbanization where less than a century ago, a basic level of collective, essential services barely existed. Rarely, do we stop to interrogate the functioning, let alone the meaning of this urban superstructure (Belanger, 2010). Discussing the most important aspects of urban and landscape infrastructure in a diachronical, typological and comparative perspective highlights not only how urban infrastructures function in the landscapes and cities, but actually how they design the ecological environment and interact with existing elements.