Landscape transformation between Port and City, an integrated design approach.

For centuries, the coastal cities evolved with their port weaving expansions and transformations of urban space with those of the productive space and producing identity and recognisability. Since the mid-twentieth century, however, the evolution of international maritime trade led to a jump of spatial and functional scale of the ports that altered the balance and the relationship between urban and port landscape. Today more than ever the implementation of the commercial and cruise ports of historic port cities, especially in highly stratified urban areas such as the Mediterranean, must be able to harmonize the functional needs of the contemporary port systems with those of active protection of the landscape heritage without contradictions and erasures. “Acknowledging that the landscape is an important part of the quality of life for people everywhere: in urban areas and in the countryside, in degraded areas as well as in areas of high quality, in areas recognised as being of outstanding beauty as well as everyday areas” [1]. To this revolution, the ELC adds a second one, giving the landscape an economic value. Therefore, the Port becomes “Landscape” to all effects and, from the moment it is a quality bearer, it assumes an economic value equal to its productive one. This does not limit transformations, but provides an opportunity to retrain and enhance territories with large ports. Today many ports, especially in Europe, pay attention to the issue of integration with the consolidated city. Starting from the combination of a quantitative and a qualitative approach to the theme of sustainable integration between Port and City, this short essay aims to provide operational tools to create a common language and establish design criteria to enhance landscape quality.