French philosopher Bruno Latour (1947-2022) proposed an idea in his 1991 book “We Have Never Been Modern” that challenges the age-old notion of a clear distinction between Nature and culture or Man and object. According to Latour, the traditional attempts to separate the concept from its counterpart have failed. Instead, he argues that these concepts are interconnected and cannot be treated as separate entities. This principle can be applied to contemporary urban areas and the surrounding region, where the borders between the city and Nature are becoming increasingly blurred. Design plays a crucial role in conscious thinking and addressing the challenges of using natural resources, their impact on sustainability, and how we interconnect with sites and the Land.
Furthermore, the relationship between urban areas and Nature is a critical issue that demands attention. These challenges are crucial for considering cities and landscapes and addressing them through design in terms of the territory. This act of design should tend towards a more holistic and integrated vision, which aligns with contemporary trends in various areas through a shift towards city projects that are less and less disruptive to the world. The conventional view of cities and Nature as separate entities is shifting towards an integrated perspective. This text deals with the territory as an agent of syntropy, as a link between the landscape and the city. The goal is to uncover how the relationship between the body and the territory can generate synergy in the system and create symbiotic relationships between the various parts involved. To achieve this, we will examine the available literature, starting from the central idea that we have never been modern. With this objective in mind, we will highlight the common areas to revisit the concept of assemblage. As a point of comparison, it is vital to closely examine Frank Lloyd Wright’s almost century-old text, The Disappearing City from 1932, and determine which aspects of his utopian vision remain relevant today. Regarding that text, Kenneth Frampton (b. 1930) highlights gradually erasing the distinction between the countryside and the city, like the ideology of the Communist Manifesto of 1872.
Cover image: Nature - Culture, 2008, 38.836855, -7.578370, Author