Apartment

Here is a very modern word, whether we think of its birth (16th century), or even more of its large-scale affirmation (early 20th century), or whether we reflect on contemporary Western culture. It can leave the mental exercise of imagining what it would be like to live in houses that are not apartments baffled: it works especially for city dwellers, since the apartment right here has established itself as the standard. The format we know was developed in America: there is also the bathroom inside, apartment within the apartment. It was not taken for granted, especially in Northern Europe, due to building regulations that prescribed buildings with shared toilet rooms on the mezzanine floors. It was successful thanks to the promise of new standard living comforts, and a great separation from the outside world. Rightly, the need to ensure sufficient sound insulation from noisy streets and neighbors could not be missing. Today there is nostalgia for housing types that many grandparents had abandoned, such as railing houses; and above all there is the need to find a balance, looking for solutions to balance spaces for private life and spaces for common life. There is so much to invent, probably also to rediscover.


Fabio Arduini
NP December 2021