Building Public Space. A Utopian Task

An unexpected bond links utopia and public space together. The paper highlights it to foster a bet-ter understanding of both utopia and public space. In the first part, I qualify utopia by reconsider-ing its specific features and distinguishing utopian intentionality from the many utopian narratives. In the second part, I argue that utopian thinking should take seriously the dimension of human “placeness” and I focus in a specific way on public space. By understanding it as the sphere where “equal and free third party” are all included, it reveals its utopian feature: it is always to-come. I close with a reflection on the practices for building public space as always utopian place: this is a relentless task.