Rethinking the Mediterranean identity - The ‘new’ advanced rural-coast landscape

In the early ‘900 Louis Sullivan, arguing the architectural principles of modern society, he said «Form ever follows function»1, but some decades after Philip Johnson turned it into «Form follows form, not function» and then again with Richard Rogers this statement was changed in «Form follows profit, is the aesthetic principle of our times»2, but it was clear to James Timberlake that this consideration needed some additions to be true in the contemporary world «[…] many other things now come into play: environment, costs, time, qualitative aspects of the building’s materiality. This is a very different alchemy than form following function». In the construction of a building, the elements to consider are varied, different and changing over time, the same principle extends to the planning and development of the city, with the substantial difference that in the architectural design is possible to govern, in a more or less defined way, all elements that make it up, but when it comes to draw possible guidelines for the development of a city, the process is not easy or predictable. Therefore this brief reflection does not pretend to explain these complex dynamics, but rather to focus on current and revolutionary phenomena that the progress of technology in contemporary society and the close connection with the development of primary activities are shaping new perspectives in the evolution of rural suburbs that are emerging nowadays.