Introduction, par Andrea Borsari et Manola Antonioli

On the occasion of the centenary of the death of the great philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel, a group of philosophers and social science researchers working on the aesthetics and philosophy of architecture within the various institutions involved decided to question the relationship between Simmel's thought and phenomena related to the city, to forms of sociability and urban life and to the analysis of artificial objects that populate our everyday life. This introduction discusses the state of the art on the subject and refers the main results of today’s debate.