I portici di Bologna. Una prospettiva di morfologia estetica e sociale

Without wishing to fall into the demiurgical fallacy of attributing architecture a sovereign power over the construction of forms of life, privileging instead the reciprocal relationship established between the two spheres, the following text aims to define the terms of a reading marked by aesthetic and social morphology . It will attempt to carry out such a such a task, in the form of an outline for a research to come, starting from the description and insights expressed in a filmed synthesis of the nature and history of the porticoes, Guide to Walking in the Shade (1954), and then subjecting some of its salient aspects to the reagent of four texts key in the analysis of space and the perceptual and social relations that it makes possible: Bridge and Door by Georg Simmel, The Underpass by Siegfried Kracauer, Naples by Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis, Other Spaces by Michel Foucault, and finally close by echoing some archetypal cues that the portico recalls.