From the high-rise hou sing block to the megastructure in the air. A critical reflection on the contemporary vertical city

Abstract

The reflection on the contemporary vertical city seems to lack theoretical support that is capable of dealing with density, verticality and complexity following a model that puts the inhabitant in the center. Urban developments, mainly in Asian cities, are driven by a rising real estate market that builds to speculate and not to inhabit. On the other hand, the planners, surpassed by the urgencies to which they are subjected, project environments that follow the principles of an Athens Charter, published almost eighty years ago. It is time to ask about an alternative that is capable of addressing the city as an organism of multiple layers and dimensions, which proposes to organize the city in height more freely, richer and more spon taneously. This essay aims to rescue the experiments of the avant-garde of the sixties to find more human growth strategies in height. Otherwise, concepts such as community, social cohesion and urban fabric will disappear from our cities, losing the greatest value we have as a society: the collective.