The Horizontal Metropolis - Prophecies and Clues: Introduction

The first part of the book evokes the Horizontal Metropolis’ long-term tradition of thought, the emergence of which can be identified in the early “prophecies” of very different but equally visionary authors. A small selection of fragments of an alternative thought are put forward in chronological sequence to highlight the gradual but inexorable emergence of a radically new way of imagining the city and the territory, a new way of conceiving urban life. The projective imagination of this small group of minds, capable to sensing the emergence of a new territorial order, is so lucid as to be able to predict dynamics that over the decades will fully characterize entire countries around the world.