The Horizontal Metropolis. A radical Project

“The Horizontal Metropolis. A radical Project” is an oxymoron to conjugate the traditional idea of metropolis (the center of a vast territory, hierarchically organized, dense, vertical, produced by polarization) with horizontality (the idea of a more diffuse, isotropic urban condition, where center and periphery blur).

The Ville-territoire connecting Geneva to St. Gall, the Città diffusa of Northern Italy, the Desakota in China, Japan, Thailand or Vietnam or the Zwischenstadt in Germany are just some of the figures able to effectively describe the emergence, in very different contexts, of a completely new urban condition. Closely interlinked, co-penetrating rural/urban realms, communication, transport and economic systems characterize these complex territorial constructions where agriculture and non-agricultural economic activities create an original mix.

In contrast with main trends that see figures of urban dispersion mainly as a phenomenon to be contrasted or a problem to be solved, the Horizontal Metropolis concept consider them beyond the theme of “peri-urban” and “sub-urban” and thus as an asset, not a limit, for the construction of a sustainable and innovative urban and territorial project. In these territories horizontality of infrastructure, urbanity and relations, mixed use and diffuse accessibility can generate specific habitable and ecologically efficient spaces. In this frame of thinking, the Horizontal Metropolis works as natural and spatial capital and as an agent of transformation, it is a support and place of potentiality. The exhibition investigates the Horizontal Metropolis, its space, its traditions and its inhabitants, its relevance today as an energetic, ecological and social design issue, it explores scenarios and design strategies for the re-cycling and upgrading of cities-territory in a radical project.

Exhibitors: LAB-U EPFL: Paola Viganò, Elena Cogato Lanza, Farzaneh Bahrami, Martina Barcelloni Corte, Simon Berger, Chiara Cavalieri, Marine Durand, Matthew Skjonsberg, Roberto Sega, Tommaso Pietropolli, Antoine Vialle, Quiyi Zhang (visiting) Option Studio Territorialism II, fall 2013 GSD; Superstudio Horizontal Metropolis, fall 2014 EPFL; BA5-6 2015 Alps. Prototypes of the alpine city-territory, 2014-2015 EPFL; Tommaso Pietropolli, Se questa è una città, Master Thesis 2015, Università IUAV, Venice; Qinyi Zhang, Elements of Desakota in Yangtze River Delta, PhD Thesis, 2015, Università IUAV, Venice Anne-Charlotte Astrup, Ahmed Al-Atwi, Pedro Bermudez, Félix Chase, Alice Chenais, Ana Victoria Chiari, Hugo Colon, Florent Devaux, Christian Frankhauser, Cecilia Furlan, Adrian Gramunt, Fabio Guggisberg, Claire Khawam, Carole Lesigne, Ivan Lopes Ferreira, Yvan Mattenberger, Florine Mercier, Alvise Pagnacco, Bérénice Pinon, Mélissa Rissel, Mélanie Rouge, Clara Rubin, Marie Sagnières, Alexandre Saint-Amour, Catherine Seiler, Sevan Spiess, Paul-Antoine Terrier, Myriam Treiber, Marion Vuachet, Phoebe White, James Whitten, Simon Willet VisualWorking (Paolo Brianzoni, Eugenio Somaini, Alessandro Zanoli), GoodDrones (Mehdi Salehi), Hangzhou, Hangzhou Yuanlai Cultural and Creative Media, Katherine Harrison, Matthew Goodman, Yiming Yan.