Rome forms the foundation of a basic understanding of the identity and heritage of European architecture. Its ruinous monumentality* is still more visibly present today for the city, for architecture and art than perhaps in no other metropolis in Europe. As a thematic follow-up to the symposium „monumental_public buildings at the beginning of the 21st century“ 2019 at the Baukunstarchiv NRW, the theme of „fragmental_dissolution of public space“ at the 2022 symposium at the Villa Massimo in Rome examines the ambivalent identity of a monumental and simultaneously romantic understanding of space between the built environment and its dissolution, between architecture and the reconquest of space by nature. At a time when our relationship to the unbuilt, to the „natural“ is being radically questioned and the static role of architecture is beginning to falter, concepts such as dissolution and fragmentation seem to be taking on a new identity forming role in recent architectural development. But how does the relationship between architecture and the city develop? The symposium seeks to take up the concept of the „public“ within recent positions and to critically reflect on its relation to a classical-romantic understanding of architecture.

Every animal is more or less human, every mineral is more or less plant, every plant is more or less animal. There is no sharp demarcation in nature – Denis Diderot, ‚D’Alembert’s Dream‘ [written in 1769, published in 1830]