Rear Window quarantine

"You, unknown neighbor,

every day up to the roof

with your children

and made me smile,

despite the heavy, leaden mood

that surrounded us."

In Milan, during Covid-19 lockdown time, balconies, terraces and roofs have become the only useful places to get our yard time… we climbed the roofs and turned them into gyms, solariums, libraries. Balconies and windows were the escape route, the vacation, the break from a monitor-like job, the only way to see our fellow and their fragmented identities.

One of the consequences of the pandemic will be to rethink the design of houses, especially with regards to common areas, in order to make cities more resilient. In Italy the debate, involving architects, doctors and sociologists, has already begun.

Milano, 2020