Creating meaningful cities.

Timeless Cities: An Architect's Reflections on Renaissance Italy, by David Mayernik, Boulder: Westview Press, 2003. 274 pp.

THE IDEA BEHIND David Mayernik's Timeless Cities--that the urban realm is the touchstone of human achievement and cultural memory, and that it deserves our greatest attention--is not only a wake-up call for contemporary architects, planners and engineers, but also for politicians, developers and civic activists, in fact everyone involved in city building and growth management. But why should this challenge be of any special interest today? Certainly for the majority of professional architects and planners, the idea of restoring our cities and providing a more humane and harmonious face to the natural and built environment has been a central concern for some time. And, despite the continued increase in conventional suburban development and unregulated growth ("sprawl"), many cities and towns throughout America are showing dramatic signs of growth and regeneration. Cities are in fashion again. But is that enough? Moreover, shouldn't our aspirations for contemporary culture seek to imitate if not surpass the greatest accomplishments of the past? Like Rudolf Wittkower's classic Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (1949), which sought to raise the standard of modern building by asking architects to reconsider the critical importance of Renaissance principles of design, Mayernik's book aims to remind contemporary city builders that without a profound intellectual and spiritual basis, the cities of today--and in fact tomorrow--will be nothing more than complex mechanisms for the short term advancement of predictable economic or political systems.

Timeless Cities is structured around the analysis of five Italian gems that have captured the imagination of residents, visitors and dreamers alike for the better part of two millennia--cities that continue to inspire wonder and awe in the imagination of those who visit them regularly. Not surprisingly, Rome--the urbs aeterna (eternal city)--occupies the greatest portion of the book, and deservedly so as it is the city to which western art and culture owes their greatest debt. Concluding the analysis is the small Tuscan hill town of Pienza, a medieval village that has little to do with ancient Rome, and much more with Renaissance Italy and the development of conscientious town planning. In-between, Venice, Florence and Siena vie for the distinct privilege of being Rome's successor and the paradigm of civic culture. More importantly, Mayernik considers these five cities from the point of view of their civic mythologies--the ideas that helped shape their origins and development from Antiquity through the Renaissance.

Timeless Cities, however, is far more than a historical tour of Renaissance Italy. Mayernik's interpretation of Rome, Venice, Florence, Siena, and Pienza uncovers their hidden meanings and mysterious beauties, illustrating how deeply rooted these ideas were and continue to be in the psyche of those fortunate enough to live there. The concluding chapter takes this argument one step further by asking how is it possible in our secular age to shape mythical relationships for the places we hope to build in the future. His answer lies in the bold claim that the Herculean task of making meaningful cities, towns and places "requires nothing less than reclaiming the City as a metaphor for Paradise." This suggests, as a first step, the ability to re-imagine the Idea of the City not as it is or was, or even may have been, but rather as it ought to be. To that end, the five cities discussed in the text provide living models, exemplars of how we can fulfill our most profound civic aspirations.

Rome, of course, is the model for all ages, and a palimpsest of architectural language, urban design, and cultural memory. From its legendary origins through the many transformations that it received over time, Rome, according to Mayernik, "evoked and even became the mythical home of the muses." Even during the darkest days of sack and pillage, she remained eternal. The famous passage "Roma quanta fuit ipsa ruina docet," from Francesco Albertini's Opusculum (1510), an updated version of the Mirabilia Urbis Romae (the twelfth-century medieval guidebook to Rome), suggests that however great she once was, the ruins themselves reveal.

Venice (the city of Venus), is the seat of magical beauty and wonder, and a miraculous work of human artifice. Her legendary associations with Rome (the only unconquered survivor of the Visigoth attack), and mythical marriage with Neptune (who offers her the riches of the sea), established her as the serenissima (the serene one), a complex allusion to the security and comforts of her waters. Moreover, the traditional date of her foundation, March 25 (the Feast of the Annunciation), imbues Venice with a profound city-body analogy. From the buildings that present her to the world, to their reflections in the water, Venice is the paradigm of the theatrum mundi (theater of the world), a mirror of reality, fiction and spectacle.

Florence and Siena compete with one another as the bearers of earthly paradise, their respective walls and skylines providing the image of the ideal city. Though Florence is quartered all'antica (in the manner of the ancients), and Siena defined by the protective embrace of the Virgin's cloak, both are greatly indebted to Rome's legendary origins. Romulus's Roma quadrata, the grid street layout with the classic north-south cardo and east-west decumanus dividing the city into four quarters, never took root on the sacred precinct that is today called the Palatine Hill. But in the Arno Valley, at the foot of the Tuscan uplands, the quartered city flourished--Florentia (flowering) being the Latin name given to her. Renaissance Florence, of course, was the birth-place of the "flowering of the arts" and the seat of fifteenth-century artistic patronage in Italy. More than any other city, Florence set the standard for placing her native artists under appropriate benefaction, resulting in an urban culture that is graced by self-control and effortlessness.

Siena, on the other hand, descended directly from Remus's twin sons who fled their uncle's wrath, even adopting as its symbol the she-wolf with suckling twins. Spread out on the ridge of a curved hill, the town wraps around its famous fan-shaped piazza. At the foot of the piazza stands the Palazzo Pubblico whose counsel chambers are dignified by Ambrogio Lorenzetti's allegorical fresco of the Effects of Good and Bad Government (1338-39). Early Renaissance architects and writers on architecture believed that it was possible to change people's behavior, as well as the larger community structure, by organizing public space--the allegory of good governance--and Siena more so than any other city put this ideal into practice. Both Florence and Siena speak of the Rome that never was yet always could have been--their distinct topographies and skylines providing Renaissance alternatives to the urbs aeterna.

As a model of Humanist patronage, Pienza survives as the most cogent example of integrating visionary urban planning with land stewardship. The small village of Corsignano (birthplace of the Piccolomini Pope, Pius II) was transformed into modern day Pienza between 1459 and 1464, signaling the birth of conscientious town planning in Renaissance Italy. Pius's aim, carried out by his architect Bernardo Rossellino, was to transform the medieval village into a noble, city-state. Among the buildings constructed or renovated were an impressive papal palace, a new cathedral, government offices, and homes for the officials and members of the papal court and family, and even a row of low-income housing. The town's center reflects the humanist ideals of Leon Battista Alberti, who consulted Pius II on his building ambitions. In his treatise De re aedificatoria (1485), Alberti suggested that a city should seek a balance between public and private as well as sacred and secular. He also provided the most profound analogy for doing so, claiming that a city should be conceived like a large house and conversely that a house should be like a small city. The central square in Pienza is remarkable for its clear combination of sacred and secular architecture, making it one of the most memorable urban rooms in all of Italy, and a model for public space.

As Mayernik suggests, the timeless cities of Renaissance Italy are the most profound and beautiful creations of human artifice, built by "hands not so different from our own." The moral, economic, and environmental benefits of these cities were greatly influenced by certain physical and organizational characteristics that continue to exert their influence today--qualities that remain recognizable to visitors and scholars alike. But more importantly, the five cities provide a complex labyrinth of mythical, cultural, political, artistic, and religious forces that forever bind them together as "timeless," reminding the reader that the Idea of the City is actually a metaphor for the Earthly Paradise. From this perspective, one can imagine that profound city building is not beyond our reach or even inconceivable by contemporary standards--it is simply the antithesis of modern development.

Timeless Cities raises a number of compelling questions for contemporary city builders that will inevitably need answering. For instance, where are today's patrons and what guiding principles do they have available to them other than the great exemplars of the past? What is all the fuss about founding "myths"--surely, a far cry from the usual talk about zoning, set-back requirements, and street widths--and how do we even begin to incorporate them into the business plan? Is it sufficient to produce realizable towns, neighborhoods, and places, or should we always be striving to meet our highest aspirations? Are there any recent examples that we can look to for guidance and inspiration? All of this may seem rather arcane to most people, let alone those who are already knee-deep in the muck of working with municipal governments and planning authorities. Yet, if the future fabric of our cities and towns is to achieve the distinction of greatness that "timeless cities" possess, we will have to elevate our aspirations, raising the standards of urban planning, development practice, and building design. The symbolic rituals associated with town-founding and the projection of civic mythology are two aspects that will need to be rediscovered if we hope to create meaningful cities, towns and neighborhoods as places which make their residents proud. The lessons derived from Rome, Venice, Florence, Siena, Pienza and to a great extent the larger tradition of ideal city planning in Renaissance Italy, could very well be the only vehicle available to us for achieving that goal. Fortunately, there is a glimmer of hope, insofar as these are the things with which all architects should be equipped.

VICTOR DEUPI is Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame.