Sensual City Studio

THE COAST AS LANDSCAPE

Here, like elsewhere, unchecked urban developments over the past thirty years have profoundly altered the landscape. However, the motley chaos of infrastructure and buildings has not eclipsed the powerful leitmotif of the coastal horizon and the enduring presence of the landscape: the Mediterranean Arc can be understood without nostalgia as a sensory conurbation strewn with omnipresent fragments of landscape.

CULTURE AND LEISURE

Culture and leisure have become major elements in the perceived appeal of cities and a determining factor in the competition to attract a dynamic population, companies and investments. For the Mediterranean Arc, music and performance venues, cinemas, museums and libraries, but also the ever-growing variety of leisure activities, should not be exclusively linked to “town centres” but should be spread over the entire urban area, stretching along the coast. Specialist sports infrastructure, from stadiums to golf courses, sailing, trekking, and more, are also key. It also seems vital to us to include shopping centres, retail parks and other infrastructure linked to consumption in development plans. The boundaries between leisure, consumption and culture are becoming increasingly blurred in urban environments. Consumption – at once a pleasurable and stressful activity – has become so generic that, more than ever, it needs to include other offers aimed at meeting consumer demands or differentiating a product from a marketing perspective. Commerce, leisure, and culture (now condemned to emerge from its Ivory tower) have everything to win by integrating the coastal landscape in a synergetic and global vision.

TOWARDS A SENSORY METROPOLIS

Everyone has his or her own image of a Mediterranean city. Above all, it is a series of sensations: the intense blue sky, the sparkling sea, the pine trees swaying in the breeze, the laundry hanging from the corners of apartment windows, the particular sound of the wind, the clacking of petanque balls, the too-noisy motorbikes, the conversations that float through the air until late at night, the smells that waft amidst the streets. Impressions such as these do not easily find a place in manuals of urbanism. They are, however, what makes Mediterranean cities so unique and beautiful. Well beyond their territorial and administrative divisions, cities in the Mediterranean arc share similar cultural and experiential features. From Genova to Barcelona, through Nice, Marseille and Montpellier, the ten million inhabitants of the area each embrace the same landscape—that is, one that faces the sea, and is most often flanked by the pronounced reliefs of the hinterland. They bask in the same climate that creates similarities in their rhythms and their daily preoccupations.