Il progetto nella pluralizzazione dei diritti

Abstract

This paper looks at the relationship between project and rights. At first, it discusses the redefinition of housing rights in the space of the city, by observing a workers’ district of Geneva, the neighborhood of Les Grottes, that was the object of struggles and occupations in the eighties. Today it is an eco-neighborhood like many in Europe, where the right to housing, forcefully demanded during the past urban struggles, has broken down into an ensemble of superimposed fragments.

Pluralization of the right to housing refers to two different perspectives. The first originates from the influence of social analysis, according to which our current condition is an expression of neo-liberal policies. In this perspective, the broken down of rights is the other side of rights retraction of its modern form. The second refers to pragmatism and its democratic individualism. Here the multiplication of subjective rights, no longer hierarchical or competitive, is an expression of what each individual considers a right way of living. The project needs to be prepared to manage any gaps arising between these dimensions.