Monsieur X and temporariness as a realizable utopia Flavia De Girolamo Assegnista di Ricerca, Dipartimento PDTA
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Key words Space, temporary uses, time
Abstract This paper examines the role of Utopia in shaping contemporary city. Despite being an ancient neologism, the actual etymology of the term Utopia still raises doubts and uncertainties, as it seems to merge two opposing meanings, according to the antithetical prefixes the term is composed of. Indeed Utopia entails aspects of unreality and reality and it attempts at both recognizing possible discontents and proposing possible solutions to overcome such dissatisfaction through vibrant and innovative ideas of change. Nevertheless Utopia does not correspond to the Freudian illusion of wishful thinking as Utopia aims at concretely realizing its ideal assumptions by actually reckoning them. In this sense, the project itself actualizes utopia, which in turn comes to be identified with action. It cannot be a mere coincidence that over centuries utopia has been frequently associated with architecture and urban planning and it is nowadays apparent that the visionary legacy of Utopia in our discipline is more than actual. A renewed interest and attitude toward utopia has begun to flourish since 2011 and it seems to be increasingly fuelled by some successes that Occupy Movement, Indignados and ‘99%’ have achieved while opposing and confronting with dramatically growing social and economic inequalities. Can these movements be then considered as new utopian thinkers? As such, they indeed recognize the reality as unsatisfactory (according to Mumford's concept of utopia) and do try to envision new opportunities and projects in order to transform the poor conditions they live through into more favorable spaces. Precarious working conditions, massive social inequalities, endemic uncertainties about the future, environmental issues among others represent the core of the interests these movements focus on in order to operationalize their projects in an incessant attempt to make and remake the reality in more sustainable terms. In this context, the focus shifts back and forth from global to local and it may be read as symptomatic of activists’ sensibility toward those critical issues that being displaced at global level are experienced locally. Accordingly we can affirm that these New Utopian Thinkers look at these global issues through the lens of the local dimension; indeed urban sprawl, wastefulness, industrial dismissing, abandonment of buildings and spaces, are all perceived and experienced as locally crucial, though they are reckoned of global interests. Let’s then assume that utopia concretizes its strength by improving an unsatisfactory reality and equally let’s say that utopia is the realization of an idea by means of actions, who can we consider as the new Monsieur X? Who can we reckon as Friedman’s Utopian thinker? How can we get over such issue while thinking locally of any here and now? Consequently this paper attempts at identifying a possible new Monsieur X and his potential role in contemporary city. By exploring the role “the new utopian thinker” has taken on during the XXI century, this paper analyzes the phenomenon of temporariness as it is enacted by temporary users. By temporary users, we refer to those who not only image and plan a new future for abandoned places (building or open space), but envision an impermanent use in a vacant place. This contribution wishes to highlight how temporary users can be both an opportunity and a risk for urban planning.
