The humanization of public space: the urban heart as place of expression of modern society

Abstract

Urban centers have always played a crucial role in driving force behind the community life, as recognizable physical places where social confluence is intensified, although with fluctuations in mode and intensity depending on the age. Industrial development led to the dismantling of the cities due to their unbridled growth, relegating most of the population to the periphery, with the risk of losing their traditional values as society because of excessive disintegration. A gradual process that warned of the need for new models able to remake the social cohesion, even more after the situation of post-World War II reconstruction. For this reason, the “heart of the city” during the last century is selected as subject of research, in order to deepen in the different consideration that it has had in each period, from a series of precedents that put us at the dawn of the modernity, when different ideological positions were emerging to be increased and reviewed over the decades and which, selected for their relevance and compared for better analysis, cry out in favor of restoring the integration based on meeting and relationship places.