Il treno, oggetto e soggetto della modernità

Abstract

The train, an object and a subject of modernity.  Among the objects that play a fundamental role in our life experience the train stands out, having played a fundamental role in the human experience since the second half of the 19th century. The railway was a big player in the industrial development of western society and of some of the biggest transformations in daily life. It has profoundly entered into the experience of everyone, given its enormous influence in modernity. The train was the protagonist of the transformation of medieval cities into modern metropolises, of the reconfiguration of the social perception of time and space and of the development of industrial design. Most of all, the train has a very strong symbolic power and a central role in the social imaginery, having been the catalyst for the myth of speed. It is our intention to question the development of the railway with the eyes of phenomenological sociology, bringing out its role as a subject, as well as a fundamental object, of the human experience of modernity.