Aspetti sociali spazi verdi

Aspetti sociali spazi verdi

Social aspects of public green spaces and cultural spaces. Urban parks, gardens, museums and libraries. On 25 January 2006, at 2:30 PM, in the Benvenuto Hall of the Faculty of Architecture, the concluding day of the semester-long course in Urban, Environmental and Territorial Sociology was held, taught by Professor Antida Gazzola with the collaboration of architects Daniela Rimondi – who organised and set up the students' work – and Matteo Venturini. As every year, the course included a theoretical part and an applied part, consisting of sociological 'field' surveys, whose theme, in the academic year 2005–2006, was Social aspects of public green spaces and cultural spaces. Urban parks, gardens, museums and libraries. At the beginning of the course, the relevant municipal councillors Borzani, Dallorto, Gabrielli and Morgano had been invited, as well as some technical officials or collaborators from various institutions (Pier Giorgio Baroni, Giorgio Costa, Guido Rossi, Paola Spagnolli, Patrizia Trucco, Gigliola Vicenzo) to present to the students situations and problems related to the topic under examination. The event is to be considered significant because meetings between representatives of the Public Administration (in its political, administrative and managerial parts) and students in a university classroom are not very frequent and, moreover, in this case, their presence was simultaneous. The students gathered, as they believed and knew how, the inputs offered and worked on many urban areas characterised by the coexistence of gardens, parks, libraries and museums – all elements of great social, cultural and relational importance – conducting sociological surveys, consulting users, operators and visitors. The works were exhibited and presented by the students themselves after a brief introduction by Professor Gazzola. Present to discuss the outcomes of the initiative were professors Giandomenico Amendola, full professor of Urban Sociology at the University of Florence, and Alberico B. Belgiojoso, full professor of Design at the Politecnico di Milano, together with councillors Luca Dall'orto and Bruno Gabrielli, who also agreed to participate in this phase of the activity. It seems important to emphasise that the purpose of the course is essentially educational, that the concrete results are to be considered as the fruit of a learning process and are not comparable to professional surveys, but that, nevertheless, they are believed to offer interesting points for analysis and further study. Beyond the technical results, there remains the social value of the willingness of politicians and administrators to enter a university classroom, together and in a collaborative spirit, and, on the other hand, the willingness of the University to open itself to comparisons and 'didactic grafts' that anticipate, for future young professionals, situations and interactions that they will certainly have to face later. If it is true that, in our post-industrial society, a dignified survival is largely linked to subjective social capital, that is, to the set of relationships of solidarity, alliance, mutual support, mutual recognition, approval and availability, to which, from some points of view, one can add an urban social capital, that is, the set of identity, cultural and aggregative offerings of the city, grasped by individuals, it seems that the time has come to activate or to bring to light a civic capital which, like social capital, has to do with the problem of trust and security or insecurity (one trusts more and feels safer with those whom one knows personally) but which is placed at the institutional level (one trusts more and invests more in and on the institutions that one understands, with which one communicates and in whose activity one participates). It is possible to download the works of those who dealt with the Parchi di Nervi.

Authorisation of the Faculty of Architecture, Polis Department, University of Genoa.

Gallery

Aspetti sociali spazi verdi — sociologia

Documents