ORDER AND DISORDER IN THE CONTEMPORARY CITY

Starting from the topics of order/disorder in urban planning, focused by the Berlin «Daidalos» review as a possible answer to postmodern pluralism, the advantages and limits of order are considered as the principle of city construction. In relation to planned interventions of the European city and their reflection in the practice of contemporary architects, are here considered which elements of history are persisting in the design process. The resumption of concepts such as strategies of order, resistance, continuity, permanence, seems to indicate a common effort to resist the ongoing dissolution of city and architecture. Where this effort for the common good must agree not only on the idea of city to follow, but confront itself with the real city, which is always an implicit compromise between different urban ideas. The analysis of recent urban experiences related to the model of the historic city becomes reference for a design exercise of a new residential district in Milan.