Reading and understanding the city: assumptions for a hermeneutic analysis of the material heritage of urban space

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to understand the theoretical assumptions underlying an urban hermeneutics. Here, we will focus on the implications of  understanding the urban infrastructure and the buildings that were bequeathed to us by generations that preceded us in an analogous way to a text.  therefore, we will seek to clarify some basic notions of Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutics. Furthermore, it will be possible to envision the advantages, in terms of
our relationship with the city, of considering the past as a “space of experience” and the future as a “horizon of expectations”, as suggested by Reinhart  Koselleck. I believe that, like written discourse, the material heritage of cities has semantic autonomy and can be interpreted today in multiple ways by its readers. In this way, we can say that the actions that unfold in the historical present see the past as an inexhaustible source of resources and possibilities.