Genoa - One of the biggest historical centers in Europe

[balthazar]

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[SoroushPersepolisi]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

Genova has some truly old quarters.

This last photo, though, embarrass me deeply as a fellow Italian: in 2011, there should be NO clothesline hanging from external wall altogether. Niente. It make otherwise nice city areas look like slums.

i think it looks lovely and so alive
so real and traditional, reminds you of nonna doing the laundry and the kids playing some calcio in the tight streets
dont be afraid

[Suburbanist]

Originally Posted by SoroushPersepolisi

i think it looks lovely and so alive
so real and traditional, reminds you of nonna doing the laundry and the kids playing some calcio in the tight streets
dont be afraid

Sorry, mate (I'm assuming you are from ME from your location).

My "nonna" and his beloved 60 year-married husband (my grandfather) worked up to 60 hours a day to their bones so that the family (my parents' generation) would escape poverty and all the things associated with it. No glamour on wasting your life playing calcio on streets or wasting your time doing manual laundry when machines do that for you

Traditions are usually rotten and low-class anyway. Glad to see nobody of my age care about that stuff except the nostalgic. But that is off-topic.

=====================

Parts of the old quarters of Genova have extremely narrow streets. Less than 2m wide, that is it. It makes buildings extremely uncomfortable for almost no privacy from windows and, in lower floors, no direct sunlight anytime of the day.

As a result, it is not a typical historical quarter where gentrification and retrofitting would be enough to give the place a better look. It has been dominated by poor inhabitants which don't care much about their buildings, and sometimes are hostile to projects to clean up the area.

If they succeed getting rid of the worst elements there, I'm sure that as a large-scale architectural museum or monument-esque neighborhood it will make an awesome place, if inhabitants leave for most of it.

I have an example here on Google Street View (you can navigate to areas around it). That area is just unsafe/unhealthy for modern living. They could make it a museum with controlled environments of the whole place, or demolish part of the buildings to create wider streets (I'm not even talking about making them car-accessible, just provide room for air and sunlight to get on the windows).

[balthazar]

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[1772]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

Sorry, mate (I'm assuming you are from ME from your location).

My "nonna" and his beloved 60 year-married husband (my grandfather) worked up to 60 hours a day to their bones so that the family (my parents' generation) would escape poverty and all the things associated with it. No glamour on wasting your life playing calcio on streets or wasting your time doing manual laundry when machines do that for you

Traditions are usually rotten and low-class anyway. Glad to see nobody of my age care about that stuff except the nostalgic. But that is off-topic.

WTF?
Are you a marxist or something?
Part of whats so great about Italy is the fact that they HAVEN'T lost their sense of traditions and culture despite increasing their standard of living.

I mean, sure, you can be rootless, ultra-modernistic, depressed and liberal like northwest Germany, the Netherlands or Scandinavia...
Or you can be catholic, traditional, proud of your culture and your heritage.

You seriously sound like either a marxist or an eastern block person un-sure of himself, only interested in what "modern life" has to offer.

Northern Italy and the countries around the alps are seriously the best part of Europe.
The mixture of traditionalism/catholic conservatism and work ethic, inovationalism and organizational skills is just staggering.


Sorry for ranting, but I cant stand people that are embarassed by their heritage and worship the god of modernism.

[balthazar]

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[balthazar]

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[balthazar]

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[balthazar]

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[balthazar]

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[balthazar]

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[tommolo]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

Genova has some truly old quarters.
This last photo, though, embarrass me deeply as a fellow Italian: in 2011, there should be NO clothesline hanging from external wall altogether. Niente. It make otherwise nice city areas look like slums.

What do you want an hipertechnological dryier made of tempered steel? C'mon, we're in 2012 now, we're trying to move back to nature and sustainability, and the fact of having sun drying our clothes it's a blessing. It's a pure ecological luxury. We're completely sustainable and we never felt into some modern error that occurred according XXth century dogmativism, still being very carefully in not losing anything modern technologies have to offer us. You know what being italian means? I'm middle class, I'm not rich at all, but I live in front of a XIII century castle, and I work as a journalist on the web, and I'm probably the biggest technology geek you've eer seen. And live happily with that. That aequilibrium is like a miracle, but I tell you...we did it, We're in XXI century and we still look like ourselves. Never lose your soul, mate.
Genova shows us that in a wonderful way!

[balthazar]

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[balthazar]

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[CF221]

Originally Posted by tommolo

What do you want an hipertechnological dryier made of tempered steel? C'mon, we're in 2012 now, we're trying to move back to nature and sustainability, and the fact of having sun drying our clothes it's a blessing. It's a pure ecological luxury. We're completely sustainable and we never felt into some modern error that occurred according XXth century dogmativism, still being very carefully in not losing anything modern technologies have to offer us. You know what being italian means? I'm middle class, I'm not rich at all, but I live in front of a XIII century castle, and I work as a journalist on the web, and I'm probably the biggest technology geek you've eer seen. And live happily with that. That aequilibrium is like a miracle, but I tell you...we did it, We're in XXI century and we still look like ourselves. Never lose your soul, mate.
Genova shows us that in a wonderful way!

Well said!

[balthazar]

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[El_Greco]

Suburbanist and his ideas...

[TheReconstructer]

Originally Posted by El_Greco

Suburbanist and his ideas...

If he ruled the world I think everything build was glass and steel, not that I hate New York, Brasilia and Seattle or something like those three cities but there also have to be some 'old' stuff, which remind the generations of now/future of the generations before them, how they lived and learn from the passed...

What is wrong with hanging your clothes at lines above streets, alley's et cetera? That gives in my opinion many streets an extra character. It's a natural way and it doens't give any extra problems for the ozon layer Not everything has to be modern, some traditional stuff doesn't always hurt someone.....

[tommolo]

Yeah that's the spirit! In clothing we have now widened our horizon: once there was only classic dresses, and now there is a very cheap and comfortable sporty clothing I wear all the day all the days, but when comes the occasion, I can dress elegant too, and no one tells me I'm a retrograd or a nostalgic just because I'm all dressed up classically. But in acrhitecture that simple fact is very struggled: people just proceeded with a substitution of ALL the classic with ALL modern. But that's very shortminded since every progress should be a widening of choices, not a simple substitution of them removing completely what's past. I want to have, like I have in clothes, the full freedom in architecture to choice if that day I want to go classical or go sporty!

[TheReconstructer]

Originally Posted by tommolo

Yeah that's the spirit! In clothing we have now widened our horizon: once there was only classic dresses, and now there is a very cheap and comfortable sporty clothing I wear all the day all the days, but when comes the occasion, I can dress elegant too, and no one tells me I'm a retrograd or a nostalgic just because I'm all dressed up classically. But in acrhitecture that simple fact is very struggled: people just proceeded with a substitution of ALL the classic with ALL modern. But that's very shortminded since every progress should be a widening of choices, not a simple substitution of them removing completely what's past. I want to have, like I have in clothes, the full freedom in architecture to choice if that day I want to go classical or go sporty!

great job and spirit tommolo great you want freedom so show it in real life how you see freedom