The future of historic exchange areas

The paper shows the results of research work aimed at investigating the essence of the landscapes of the exchange and especially, of the exchange places considered as structural elements of urban organisation, in order to evaluate planning proposals intended to preserve their vitality and their role which contribute to the re-invention of the identity of Mediterranean cities. The cities selected as case studies belong to five cultural macro-areas: Maghreb (Marrakech, Tangier, Fez, Alger, Tunis, Tripoli); Near-East and Ottoman territories (Cairo, Jerusalem, Saint John of Acre, Damask, Aleppo, Bursa, Istanbul); Adriatic region and Aegean cultural area (Athens, Dubrovnik, Spit, Trieste, Venice, Ancon, Bari); Latin Europe cultural area (Naples, Livorno, Genoa, Marseille, Barcelona, Valencia, Granada, Seville, Lisbon); and the Insular Mediterranean is represented by the cities of Ajaccio, Cagliari, Palermo, Syracuse, Catania, La Valletta, Heraklion. They all represent extremely original outcomes of numerous and contrasting cultures which combine with traditional resistance of geographic isolation, which tends to turn its back on the sea but at the same time, to open up to every novelty. The present work falls within this ambit of reflection and, through an interpretative reading of the cities selected as case studies, offers an extensive treatment organised in passages that aim at clarifying specific interpretative and fact-finding aspects. An early interest highlights an understanding of the relationships between the trade spaces and the whole urban body, also through the reading of the shape and performances of those structures connected and complementary to trade, such as dockyards, basins, cabotage areas, and customs. Inside the study of urban tissue transformations, carried out also in relation to "urban" trade places - whole blocks, routes, squares, clearings/widenings, sestieres, crossroads, spaces used to hold fairs and weekly markets - particular attention is paid to foreign presence structured in specific settlements. The core of the research is on the architectonic expressions of trade and on the study of their characteristics: Maghrebine and Near-East souks, bazaars and Turkish-Ottoman çarş i, Marseille domaines, Andalusian Spainish zocos and alcaycerìas. It focuses also on the organised system of temporary allocations for goods and merchants, that is the Mediterranean net of territorial caravanserais integrated with the urban network, that finds its expression in the different tasks and wide variability of denominations as wakala, han, fonduq, fanadiq, alhondiga, and fondaco. Finally, the passage studies the complex architectonic typologies which find their highest expression into the kapaliçarş is - indoor markets - and which are constituted by recurrent and identifiable basic elements: vaults, aphothecas, warehouses, ceil, tavern up to the tiny dolap. Today we are aware of the need to recover capacity planning and organisational forms of traditional, secular trade, respecting the historical significance and tradition, to offer a future to the landscapes of business weekly, the squares "herbs", the lodges and beautiful architecture covered markets, galleries, covered walkways that, with more or less significance, every city possesses.