MOTORWAY ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE
Retrospectives and Perspectives between Critique and Design
Milano, 1 marzo 2024, Politecnico di Milano
Since 1924, when the Milano-Laghi motorway was opened to traffic, to nowadays, the construction of motorway networks have gone through three non-linear phases: pioneering, expansive and consolidative. The latter, characterised by the need to ensure adequate safety and technological efficiency parameters for motorways on a global scale, has highlighted two competing phenomena. Firstly, the progressive weakening of the design impulses that characterised the pioneering and expansive phase. Secondly the accumulation of an increasingly large heritage of architectural and engineering works as well as motorway landscapes, deserving to be enhanced through preservation and not only maintenance. The milestone of the first one hundred years of motorway history, therefore corresponds to a shift in the design paradigms of these complex territorial architectures. Contemporary design cultures must, therefore, adopt a different posture from the one assumed during the XX century to face the numerous challenges engendered by energy and ecological transitions: from the decarbonisation of transport to the regulation of the imbalances induced by routes in the crossed territories. The conference aims to explore motorways both in retrospective and perspective terms. Looking towards the past, motorways appear as emblems of modernity, able to characterize territories and landscapes and, with alternating fortunes, to face the shocks produced by recurring economic, political and social crises. At the same time, looking towards the future, motorways emerge as a frontier place where it is possible to test new design strategies, both to counter the effects of climate change and to seize the opportunities offered by the expansion of new digital technologies in integrated systems for the mobility of people and goods.
Convenors: DAStU – Dipartimento di Architettura e Studi Urbani, Politecnico di Milano Andrea Gritti Elena Fontanella Claudia Zanda with Autostrada del Brennero SpA Diego Cattoni, Chief Executive Officer Carlo Costa, General Technical Director