TY - JOUR AU - Garau, Pietro PY - 2016/10/16 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Measuring the Magic of Public Space. Le Piazze di Roma JF - The Journal of Public Space JA - jps VL - 1 IS - 1 SE - Overview DO - 10.5204/jps.v1i1.6 UR - https://www.journalpublicspace.org/index.php/jps/article/view/229 SP - 17-24 AB - <p>The concept of public space, and particularly of civic public space, is certainly a constitutive element of Italy’s urban culture. The design and spatial configuration of public spaces have always been a synthesis between deeply rooted models and political functions (the <em>piazza, </em>the <em>palazzo, </em>the church, the civic buildings), and of local circumstances and design inspiration. Hence the fascination of the <em>piazza: </em>while all <em>piazze </em>perform similar functions, they take very different spatial and architectural characteristics, thus adding to the variety and the “magic”, as it were, of public space experience.<br />The main purpose of this article is to celebrate the piazza as the core symbol of public space magic. In doing so, I set a modest linguistic goal: to discourage non-Italian speaking piazza fans from using the plural “piazzas” and to impose the Italian “piazze”.  As to the success of this endeavour, only future will tell.</p> ER -