Building and urban space: the capability of this symbiosis or dialogue to keep the ‘Spirit’ of a place alive

The theoretical reflection will be on one-to-one link between a building and the urban space where it stands and, more specifically, on the capability of this symbiosis or dialogue to identify and keep alive the ‘spirit’ of a place in recurrence of reuse and adaptions. The later involve both building (structure, plan, distribution, use, architectural qualities, etc.) and it setting or location (relationship with a road, square, surroundings, etc.). Some important Italian examples, geographically and historically diverse, identify the importance of that ‘reciprocity’: paradigms to compare with the cases of Genk and Liège, object of debate in this workshop.