The City and the House: Going Back to the Future

«The house is a small city. The city is a big house». This Leon Battista Alberti’s thesis (1452), delineates a central role of the house in the construction of the city. An idea that has been true for centuries. Until 1867, when Ildefonso Cerdà said: «Independence of the individual in the housing, independence of the housing in the city». This sentence marks the abandonment of the relationship between the part (the house) and the whole (the city). Definitely. For a variety of reasons. Three main ones: etymological, metaphoric and the transition of the city from circumscribed dimensions to a «node of universal viability». Mobility prevails over any urban theme. Historically, it is very important coming back to reflect on this period to look at the future, of the house and the city, in the field of the climate change policy.