The city cannot freeze in time and space, present or future, it is constantly moving, vibrating, folding back, transforming. We are also moving along, using as a prime deciphering tool Aldo Rossi’s crucial thought. We are perceiving, as he did, the city as a “fabbrica”. ‘Fabbrica’ means structure, which is durable in time and at the same time constantly under construction. Taking this into consideration, we are also approaching the word “fabbrica” literally. Consequently, for us the city is itself the space, where life is unfolding and reproducing in the context of a capitalist production. There, the factory –‘spiritual’ or conventional- is its symbolic imprint.

The route we are following is not a linear one, it is tangled in ramifications and concepts. On our way to analyze the structures and procedures in the social context, as they are revealed in our cities. Concepts which reveal a relevant autonomy, interacting with each other and connected to the city. They are met, though, in a crisis context, as future is at stake. In these circumstances, we are attempting to formulate a kind of syntax, to be equipped with new weapons, against the existing situation, looking upon radical changes of the terms and limits of our lives.

The concept of ‘the arcades’ is a notional introduction to the direction of the unification of manipulations and initiatives, attempting to reopen the discussion about the city on behalf of its immediate producers. This borderline is trying to activate a self-reflection procedure, beyond an egoistic universe, in the city and the commons. This research, as it is turned into a written text, is confronted with contradictions and tergiversations of daily life, as we are trying to transform it into theory. In that way, it is characterized as an experiment, it resembles a city ‘under construction’. That is the reason why we have chosen to call it “notes”.