The relevance of the street: An urban integration proposal

Abstract

Following an analysis of the public spaces and their performative depth, the urban figure of the street emerges as an important urban figure in the city of Skopje. Although, the street, as a figure, has undergone through different interpretations throughout time: In the city’s Old Bazaar, the street becomes a place for meeting and the most vibrant public space in the city; in the pre-earthquake city, patent in its center, the street become a place of display an thus, exclusive, and following the 1963 earthquake the modern city completely detached from its streets. In her thesis ‘The street as a project’ (2014), Maria Giudici defines the street as ‘not a mere functional element, but rather the stage where the public sphere mediates the conflict between private interests (…) The street becomes a place of negotiation, but also a tool for the construction of subjectivity handled through the way in which the space is organized and choreographed’. With this understanding of the value of the streets to the construction of public places (rather than public spaces), an urban integration of the isolated Ss. Cyril and Methodius University Campus is proposed. The integration of the isolated university campus would help to break its univocal nature and help to the construction of a stronger and broader academic and social community that would lead to new ways of knowledge making.Methods and Analysis Graduation studioArchitecture, Urbanism and Building Science