Abstract

The making of fictional realities supporting official interpretations of events is an old practice in history. What happens when these realities are meant to substitute politics and democratic struggles? This question is addressed, in this paper, by discussing the relations between facts and norms working in urban plans, as the assertiveness of norms is transferred on descriptions. Fictional descriptions may work as depoliticized discourse: the real city ends up coinciding with the fictional one, and the map collapses over the real territory weakening the tension between reality and description. Urban planning of rendering means a descriptive practice which has absorbed commercial formats, more familiar with marketing logics than democratic process. The seductiveness of images that planners use in their plans has been favored by technologies and software for computer design. This attitude shows a peculiar relation with the world, to be critically engaged since it fosters, through virtual reality, standardization and homologation of public discourse.