The Re-Époque

After a short examination of the most diffused "RE-words" in the scientific debate of the last years – and of their respective hints of meaning – the paper discusses an interpretation of the present time as a "RE-époque" (with an implicit assonance to the "Belle-époque" period). The intepretation is captivating, since it establishes a parallel with one of the most optimistic periods of the modern history, when the concurrence, in a relatively short time, of many technological innovations, joined to a quite stable international politic condition, caused a rapid change of paradigm in the urban imagination. To argue the position, the essay examines two of the most renowned case studies of the last years, showing how recycling practices could be profitably extended to the territorial scale, and to disused infrastructures.