El papel de la gran propiedad en el proceso de construcción de la ciudad europea durante el último tercio del Siglo XX. Las propiedades militares como referente. /The role of great property in the european city-making process in the last third ot the 20th Century. Military property as reference.

Abstract

The thesis concerns a work of urban history intended not to describe the city but rather to interpret it. By doing so, I have interpreted the city by means of the role played by the so-called ‘great property’ in the European city-making process during the last three decades of the 20th century, specifically focused on the concrete case of military properties in Italy. I have also considered the role played by other kinds of great properties, i.e. industries and railway, which previously acted in the production of the built environment in a different way respect to the military one. As all of them have as common denominator the fact of being ‘capital in land’, I analysed great industrial and railway properties in order to extrapolate a methodology which helped me to interpret the relationship between military properties and city-making process in Europe in the late 20th century. I have analysed the relationship between the capital in land and the city-making process on the ground of the understanding the interrelation between the great property, the urban development, and the agents involved in the urban and territorial planning. Here I have showed that urban planning is not the decisive factor influencing the city-making process, but instead the power held by the capital in land. I have found that is the great property the trigger of the creation of new ‘areas of centrality’ intended as large areas for consumerism. As far as the role played by great property is concerned, I have also discovered that it has evolved over time. Originally, industrial and railway properties have been regenerated into a wide range of new profit-driven spaces; successively, I have found out that most of the regeneration of military premises aimed to materialise areas of centrality. The way of interpreting this factor has been based on focusing my attention on the military premises in Italy: I have classified their typology when they have been built and, most importantly, when they have been regenerated into new areas of centrality.