'Walling and the city: the effects of walls and walling within the city space'

This paper focuses on the effects of walls and walling within the city’s history. It aims to contribute to the knowledge of the underlying dynamics of public space within the city, whereby the visible physicality of walls contains and sometimes belies the invisible logic of their effects. The argument opens up by taking the analysis of city walls from Mumford’s 'City in History' into the framework of contemporary theory about space as the extension of power. The essay proceeds by investigating these ideas within the legacy of Alberti’s treatise on architecture in respect to walls, walling and the city. The focus is on the effects of the displacement of defensive city walls in the gradual process of ‘crystallisation’ of urban space from the fifteenth century. The paper concludes with the analysis of the consequences in relation to Modernism and the metaphysics of walls and walling. The essay is a theoretical piece that refers to historical examples in order to contribute to our understanding of the deployment of walls, their lasting effects and related play of simulacra.