Why is Ortica beautiful?
New European Bauhaus Festival (NEB)
Satellite Event
April 15, 2024
h 14.45–17.30
Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, Milano
“Why is Ortica Beautiful?” is an experiential walk aiming to understand the perception of urban biodiversity by city users and enhance its recognition in Ortica neighborhood in Milan. What is the shape of biodiversity in this part of the city? How much is it recognized and appreciated? How can walking practice be used to map and experience biodiversity? These and other questions will be the starting point of our walk.
The title is a quotation from a famous essay (“Why is Landscape Beautiful?) by Lucius Burckhardt, a Swiss urbanist and designer who theorized the so-called “strollology”, a science of walking in the field of aesthetics and cultural studies with the aim of becoming aware of and enhance the conditions of perception of the environment. Ortica is a peripheral neighborhood in the east of Milan characterized by a strong cultural and historical identity; its name – “nettle” – recalls the grass of its fields and vegetable gardens that used to characterize its horizon. Today, Ortica occupies a triangular piece of land bordered by the railway, sharp edges that have allowed to preserve its identity; even today, entering Ortica feels like entering a small village, rather than a residential neighborhood of a large metropolitan area.
The event will be held on Monday April 15th from 2.45 to 5.30pm and will lead a group of around 20 university students to walk along the west-east transect of the city, crossing different scenarios where biodiversity takes multiple forms within the urban environment. From piazza Leonardo da Vinci, the heart of the Città Studi neighborhood, where the largest university campuses of the city are located, we will visit two relevant biodiversity spots along this transect, the botanical garden of Città Studi and the garden of San Faustino, and finally reach the Lambretta Park and the riverbanks of Lambro, one of the most polluted rivers of Northern Italy, today subjected to large urban regeneration processes.
Promoted by:
Politecnico di Milano (DAStU) \ Luca Lazzarini, Barbara Piga, Gabriele Stancato, Francesca Zanotto.
Università degli Studi di Milano \ Marco Boffi, Natalia Fumagalli
Promoted by: DAStU/Politecnico di Milano | National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC) | Multilayered Urban Sustainability (MUSA).
Official NEB webpage: Why is Ortica beautiful?, NEB Festival 2024 (europa.eu)
For any info, please send an email to luca.lazzarini@polimi.it, francesca.zanotto@polimi.it.
Acknowledgments
National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC) project funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.4 – Call for tender No. 3138 of 16 December 2021, rectified by Decree n. 3175 of 18 December 2021 of Italian Ministry ofUniversity and Research funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.
NextGenerationEU – PNRR Innovation Ecosystem: Multilayered Urban Sustainability Action (MUSA) – Spoke 1: Urban Regeneration (Cities of the Future)” and “NextGenerationEU – PNRR – Seed4Innovation – exp-EIA_D
