Architecture and City. Learning from European Capital of Culture

Thomas Bisiani is an architect and researcher in Architectural and Urban Design at the University of Trieste. He deals with project tools and methods and with the transformations of large architectural complexes within the broader context of urban culture.

Sonia Prestamburgo is full professor of Elements of Economics and Valuation at the University of Trieste, where she teaches Environmental Valuation and Landscape Management. From a research perspective, she deals with sustainability in the use of territorial resources, study of the processes of use and enhancement of urban space and landscape, analysis and application of models and tools for economic assessment and control of impacts at different scales.

Adriano Venudo is an architect and associate professor in Architectural and Urban Design at the University of Trieste. He deals with architecture and the city, with a focus on reuse, green infrastructures and contemporary urban landscapes, exploring integrated and operational design approaches.

All the authors have been dealing for years, in an interdisciplinary way through teaching and research, with urban culture and the relationship between architecture, city and politics. Their work develops in the wake of Pierre George’s thought on the urban milieu, a concept introduced in French geography already in the 1950s to describe, in a geographical-environmental key, the structural relationship between society, man and the urban environment.

What happens when culture becomes a tool to rethink the city? How can architecture, urban design and cultural policies converge to transform the city? This volume explores forty years of the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) Programme as a critical lens through which to read, design and imagine the contemporary city. Beyond celebratory narratives, the volume analyses ECoCs as complex devices of cultural diplomacy, civic imagination, participation and morpho-functional regeneration of urban space. Through the investigation of 40 case studies, thematic essays and comparative mappings, the thesis of the “city as a cultural project” explores the possible combinations between architecture, temporary and ephemeral events and short, medium and long-term urban strategies, as a vector of new city paradigms. From Athens 1985 to Nova Gorica/Gorizia 2025, the book traces the evolution of the European Capitals of Culture from symbolic events to political and structural projects for the city. The volume is the result of the study and design activity carried out within the RRR Lab - Integrated Design Studio of Architecture and Building in the academic years 2023-24 and 2024-25, thanks to the work of the student Collectives COLGO! and VAGO, the teachers of the Laboratory and the partners who in these two years have accompanied and supported the teaching and research activities carried out. Written by architects, scholars and designers involved in these paths, between local and global, the book proposes an interdisciplinary approach, which claims the city as a space of collective authorship, as a field of experimentation for the future of Europe and its communities.