"From the past to the future: visions and interventions"

This text will try to show that, by referring to visions elaborated in the past and by analysing the urban environment through its history and stratifications, it is possible to collect inputs that are useful for devising a vision for future settlements and urban spaces, where l pedestrians can perform walking and all other related activities in a satisfactory way, and for proposing consequent appropriate interventions. This approach, supported by a philosophical thesis, is based on the recurrence of visions and of interventions to realize such visions, and on the observation of the persistence, notwithstanding times and places, of some characteristic aspects defined as "invariants". A ride through some meaningful historical periods, pointing out several interesting, and still valid, features of the urban structure that concern, directly or indirectly, pedestrians, deepens and illustrates the issue. From the consideration of each period stems a list of main inputs to be used for the design of a future city at pedestrian size. The closing recommendations consider some interventions that are consequent to such inputs.