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Adriana Sarro
Abstract
Sicily
and its territory, destination of the Arab travelers and later the Grand Tour
travelers between 700 and 800 and the architects of the '20s, always
interested in the knowledge of its landscape, has been crossed, in recent
years, by the students and teachers who have participated in the numerous
workshops and symposia on the knowledge of the places of the town and of the
landscape, where were able to present a project of transformation. The workshops, in fact, as we will see through
the various experiences in the places, as well as those performed in Sicily as
those in the places of Villard, are a different way of teaching through "the
travel between the places" and comparing the different Italian and
European experiences.
Sicily
and its territory, destination of the Arab travelers and later the Grand Tour
travelers between 700 and 800 and the architects of the '20s, always
interested in the knowledge of its landscape, has been crossed, in recent
years, by the students and teachers who have participated in the numerous
workshops and symposia on the knowledge of the places of the town and of the
landscape, where were able to present a project of transformation.
The
Italian landscape, and even more the Sicilian, with his identity and variety,
with big and small cities, historical and contemporary cities, together with
agricultural warehouses, remains of buildings without quality, atopic places,
urban fragments, has undergone a
rapid change of which it is necessary to note the sense, in order to recover
its settlement and aesthetic quality, through the look and its description.
The
travel, in fact, allows you to read, describe, note and search out the elements
of the visible and invisible city as Italo Calvino and Elio Vittorini describe
in their books.
The
workshops, in fact, as we will see through the various experiences in the
places, as well as those performed in Sicily as those in the places of Villard,
are a different way of teaching through "the travel between the
places" and comparing the different Italian and European experiences.
These
activities are an important experience of teaching and research, especially for
their meaning and the role that these experiences have had in Italy and
especially in Sicily in the last 30 years, in the city of Messina (1985),
Trapani (1993), Caltagirone (1994), San Giovanni Gemini (1997), Marsala
(1998-2000), Erice (1999), Favara (2003), S.Stefano di Quisquina (2003-2005),
Cinisi (2004), Menfi (2005), S. Agata di Militello (2005), Sciacca (2007),
Siracusa ( 2011-12 ), Palermo (2014).
The
choice of the cities studied is derived from the city administrator proposals
together with the proponents of the various workshops.
In
particular, the small towns were more receptive to innovations and, in this,
the Faculty of Architecture, with its didactics production in the territory,
contributed to make these occasions really singular, thanks to the presence of
Pasquale Culotta: by emphasizing the
architectural design of the importance didactic
experimentations, for the places under study.
Will
be Pasquale Culotta ,with the young architects of that time, teachers today of
the Faculty of Architecture of Palemo, to build opportunities , such as the
Architectural Design symposia in Messina (1985), Caltagirone (1994), Geraci
Siculo (1996). Activities that unlike workshops that have a limited time, are
developed in a longer period of time.
The
first International symposium of Architectural Design "L’isolato di
Messina " (1984-1985), promoted by Pasquale Culotta and Vincenzo Melluso,
was an important opportunity to reflect on the reconstruction of Messina after
the earthquake of 1908, through the system of the blocks 1 constitutive matrix of the urban system of the city.
The symposium allowed an international comparison ,
thanks to the participation a group composed
of thirty architects including eight of the most interesting in the
architectural debate of those years, such as Emilio Battisti, Joan Busquet,
Michele Cannatà, Fatima Fernandes, Livio Dimitriu, Nicole Elen -Harlè, Giuseppe
Leone, Carlo Magnani, Giuseppe Rebecchini, Francesco Venezia, who with others
formed a group of thirty architects.
The
planners have made a design for Messina city, starting from the Messina’ block,
projected in a geographic system of the city-maritime theater with the look
toward the Strait.
During
the design processing, remarkable was the contribution of Mario Botta, Vittorio
Gregotti, Eduardo Souto de Moura 2.
Taking
up the issues covered in the Symposium of the Strait city of 1985, an
"International Stage of Architectural Design" is organized in 1997,
coordinated by Prof. Vincenzo Mellusso, who worked on the rivers traces.
The
theme of the reconstruction (see theme Messina concerned with the workshop
Villard 10 in 2008) after the Belice earthquake of 14 January 1968 has been the
focus of a workshop, coordinated by Marcella Aprile Roberto Collovà, Franco
Castagnetti e Adriana Bisconti, saw architects like Bruno Minardi, Pierluigi
Nicolin , Franco Purini, Laura Thermes, Francesco Venezia, Umberto Riva, Alvaro
Siza Vieira, propose solutions for the affected cities, as response to a real
problem, that of the disaster. The result, for thirteen municipalities, was
remarkable for the proposed ideas, like those for the thirty-five cities in the
Val di Noto rebuilt after the earthquake of 1693: a form of reconstruction
through a process of modernization.
Of
this journey through the ruins, we remember the Francesco Venezia designs for
the access to the Segesta temple and that of Siza for the ‘Rocche di Cusa’
ancient calcareous rocks quarries which the material for the construction of
Selinunte city was extracted from.
The
Symposium of Architectural Design "The public project for the Third
Millennium architecture"3 in Geraci
Siculo (1996), coordinated by Pasquale Culotta with Joseph Guerrera, Vincenzo
Melluso Marcello Panzarella, that developed the interest in public space
through the identification of 25 projects in city areas which have been
selected in order to enhance the urban and marginal landscape;
The
International Symposium of Architectural Design in San Giovanni Gemini (1997)
coordinated by Prof. Giovanni Francesco Tuzzolino that dealt strategic points
of the city and the landscape.
The workshops, unlike the Symposia, experience a
methodology different from the design practice, performed indoors the School of
Architecture, in which the project is
being prepared with reference to the teaching regulations of those years.
The
attendance of the workshops days by the young people appropriately guided by
tutors, in following the scientific managers’ directions, produces a remarkable
experience and a rich amount of planning results.
The need to produce a work in limited time, forces the
student to define their own project, through numerous drawings, that given the timing, by hand and made drawings
useful fact to describe the places and to express their design sensibility.
During
the elaboration period, the places, where the projects are processed,
continuously are crossed by visiting critics and by administrators that try to
contribute to the better solutions success through the exchange and the
comparison, a practice which is very different from the design practice that
sees the designer in his own studio or in the university environments.
The
seminar activities are accompanied by a series of conferences and exhibitions
that allow us to describe a case study of contemporary architectural project
actuality.
Through workshops opportunities, the Faculty of Architecture of Palermo triggered and
strengthened national reports, with Alberto Ferlenga, that besides having made a
significant contribution to the numerous seminars, has played a key role in the creation of the
Itinerant Seminar of Villard4 d’Honnecourt
(1999), now in its 15th edition.
The
relationship between landscape and architecture has been the basis of the
International Seminars of Design coordinated with Marcello Panzarella in Marsala
5 from 1998 to 2000, in Menfi
in 2005 and in Sciacca in 2007: the intent was to describe the relation between
city, landscape and productive activities.
In
the city of Marsala, through the three seminars has been studied, with
particular attention to the relationship between the city and the
“Stagnone", the city waterfront, the landscape from the illegal buildings
and seasonal spaces for bathing.
The
first seminar 6 explored the area of the
Marsala ‘Stagnone’ 7 as a landscape
inside the landscape; the second, the coast stretch of the city, between
archeology and city settlements and the last, the squatter settlements and the
spaces for bathing, places which have increasingly reduced and destroyed a
portion of the coastal landscape, one of the most beautiful in Sicily.
The
Menfi’s Seminar 8 has tried to
give value to the settlement fabric and to the vineyard landscape and its
architecture through the study of 15 areas of the city affecting the historic
city, the recovery of obsolete and old beams wineries, caves and disused
railway tracks.
The
Seminar in Sciacca has sought to give attention to the settlement system of the
city in its relationship with the sea: it is worked into the edge of the
historical city where 14 areas useful to describe the multiplicity and
mutability of the landscape, and reconstruct a new urban sense.
In
the numerous laboratories in different time periods, as well as young
architects in the projects execution, also took part international architects
that with their lessons have enabled a comparison extended to issues of
international value.
We
recall, in fact, the presence of Sergio Braz Antao (Porto), Michele Cannatà and
Fatima Fernandes (Porto), Giuseppina Grasso Cannizzo (Vittoria), Guillermo
Vazquez Consuegra, Vittorio De Feo, Mauro Galantino, Elías Torres Tur, Vincenzo
Melluso, Markus Scherer, Roberto Spagnolo, Yorgos Simeoforidis, Nikos Ktenas
(Mendrisio), Juan Manuel Salazar Palerm (Las Palmas), Jaume Bach Nunez
(Barcelona), Silles Perraudin (Montpellier), Ignacio Quemada Saenz-Badillos
(Madrid), Najet Hedhly (Tunis).
The Seminar of Architectural Design "Marine
Punctuations", held in Trapani (1993) and coordinated by Vito Corte, drew attention to the coastal landscape for
waterways, through the identification a system of moorings along the coast of
Trapani (salt marshes, beaches, lagoon spaces and city center places).
There
are also many International Seminars of Architectural Design conducted by
Faculty of Engineering together with the Faculty of Architecture and
coordinated by Antonino Margagliotta and Giovanni Francesco Tuzzolino, in
Sicilian cities.
The
seminars "Environment / Nature / Architecture" (2003),
"Architectures for the reception” (2005) and "City spaces, nature
spaces"(2006) held at S. Stefano di Quisquina (Ag) have studied the
mixture of the urban and natural environments; differently, the seminar
"Architectures and Infrastructures" (2005) investigates the coastal
territory starting from the presence of the railway route.
The
establishment of other Faculties of Architecture as that of Syracuse (1996),
directed by the Dean of that time Ugo Cantone resulted in the organization of
other seminars which saw as the manager Prof. Bruno Messina and have addressed
the themes of landscape and archeology.
The
first of these "The landmark project, new urban landscapes, Syracuse, the
Talete’s promenade" (2001), coordinated by Gianfranco Grianfriddo, with
Emanuele Fidone, Vincenzo Latina, Bruno Messina, Louis Pellegrino, had the
participation as tutors of Francesco Cellini, Francesco and Manuel Aries Mateus
and Luigi Snozzi who have studied an area used for a parking lot along the
historic center of Ortigia.
The
International Seminar of Architectural Design "The archeology landscape:
three opportunities to make the city" in (Siracusa 2012) coordinated by
Bruno Messina has developed the theme of landscape and archeology and saw as
visiting João Carrilho De Garcia, Elias Torres and Jean Pierre Crousse.
In
Cinisi the International Seminar on Architectural Design "Airports and
surroundings" coordinated by Prof. Giuseppe Marsala with the collaboration
of the teachers of the seminar Villard, dealt with the issue of the airport
infrastructure in relationship with the landscape: 14 projects that answer to
the transformation of a territory full of natural systems ‘atropizzati’, in
which the presence of airport infrastructure that interrupted the relationship
between the coast and the city.
Palermo
was present in many workshops. First in "The city and the water"
(1997) coordinated by prof. Roberto Collovà, and then in the international
workshop "Wohnexperimente Kassel" (2010), coordinated by prof.
Gaetano Licata and in the seminar "Palermo: urbanize the sack. The
building of the north expansion of the 70s in Palermo" (2011) coordinated
by Profs. Collovà and Licata attended by students from Kassel and Dessau.
Recently,
also, was held an International Seminar of Architectural Design "PCA
Palermo Coast Actions" (2014) coordinated by the architects Floriana
Marotta, Oriol Capdevilla and João Gomes da Silva: on this occasion we have
studied the old fishing villages of the north coast of city of Palermo.
Even
Villard has turned his attention to Palermo, in the Itinerant Seminars of
Architectural Design.
The
travel through the cities 9, in fact, is
the fundamental principle of the Itinerant Seminar Villard d'Honnecourt with a
year-long journey through the Italian cities (Palermo, Lecce, Roma, Venezia,
Genova, Ancona, Verona, Benevento, Bologna, Cagliari, Vittorio Veneto and
Montefeltro.
The
experience started in 1998/99 in Palermo , born from the idea to bring together
teachers and students from several universities, then from eight Faculties (
Venezia, Torino, Genova, Ascoli Piceno, Pescara, Roma 3, Napoli, Palermo) with
different teaching experiences to elaborate a joint project developed in the
different stages10, with meetings
with various tutors.
The
topics were varied and included different landscapes present in the cities
investigated: the coastline, the ports, the airports, quarries, suburbs,
abandoned spaces, open spaces, places of historical stratifications, up to the
places of the battlefields of the wars which in recent years it is working on.
The
first Villard takes place in Palermo along the south-east coast outside the
historical city, where along this line has been made by the participants a site
inspection by boat to allow the view of the coast from the sea, as described by
the many historic views of the city between the '700 and '800 and by the
beautiful photos of Nunzio Battaglia, wich has been reference material for the
project.
Even in the Villard 2012, workshop edited by Adriana
Sarro e Luigi Pintacuda, Palermo is object of attention with the seminar "
Urban Mutations: a project for the city of Palermo"11 although with different themes than those of 1999
working on disused spaces of the city (Mediterranean Exhibition, Fruit and
Vegetable Market), opportunity to
reconstruct the latent characters of the urban landscape (Bourbonic
Arsenal and the eighteenth-century villas) along with
the productive structures.
Villard,
as mentioned, is a remarkable experience for having crossed the Italian
landscape consisting of historicized places and atopic places. Remarkably
different are the themes dealt in the last Villard in the city of Vittorio
Veneto and today in the Villard 15 in the new city of Montefeltro, where the
projects try to get interpreters of
places full of history and memory.
Both
the results of the workshops and symposia in Sicily that those of the seminars
Villard are notable as it is documented in the many publications that collect
projects, lessons, conferences and exhibitions held in different locations of
which we recall that set in Messina for
the ten years of Villard , " Ten" that
set in Messina for the ten years of Villard curated by Marco D'
Annuntiis.
The
exhibition, in fact, expresses the sense of the students' work as well as the
book of Villard 10 titled "Messina 08-08 reconstructions" treated
with great sensitivity by Rita Simone with the theme of Messina who returns
still very topical.
Must
be attributed due merit to these results for the huge participation of teachers
and students who, at his own expense, and only for the desire to know and to
confront allowed to donate to the city administration, important results.
As
a natural continuation of the establishment of the Doctorate of Architecture
VDH, within the doctoral school of Venezia, has enabled the training of new
generations who for various reasons have been able to elaborate on the topic of
European identity.
The
material produced, taken as a whole, result of numerous travels, constitutes a
sort of project reconnaissance in the contemporary city, through places and
themes that, despite the diversity of approaches, can be used to make some
reflections on the construction of successive travels that, I hope, can always
take more account of human needs.
Adriana Sarro is an Associate Professor of Architectural Design at the Polytechnic School of the University of Palermo, and conducts research at the Department of Architecture, d’Arch
Captions:
1 - "And this is obviously a myth, because the
nineteenth-century city is instead the city where born the contradictions of
the modern, where born the conflicts , it is the city in which great
homogenizations of the building fabric are realized , accepted just with the
nineteenth-century structure of the city. It is above all a city that destroys
the ancient city."
Gregotti,V. (1986). Introduction. In AA.VV; The block
of Messina. Cefalù: Medina, 22.
2 - "My first impression is that Messina has a
clear plan because it was drawn over the sign of the disaster."
Souto de Moura, E. (1986). Introduction. In AA.VV; The
block of Messina. Cefalù: Medina, 31.
3 - "Right the architecture and the beginning of
the third millennium them we think
synergistically as factors of a new Renaissance of the Italian city,
strong of the deep roots that they have in the vast Italian heritage of
"extremely hig" experiences."
Culotta, P. (1996). The public project for the
architecture of the third millennium. In Atlas of the new architecture of Geraci Siculo (curated by. Guerrera G.) Cefalù: Medina, 11.
4
- "what Villard?
Villard
is a traveling seminar design, on an annual basis, which involves 14 faculty
Italian and foreign companies, and some prestigious cultural institutions: The
Faculty of Architecture of Alghero, Ancona, Ascoli Piceno, Ljubljana, Milan,
Naples, Palermo, Paris Malaquais, Patras, Pescara, Reggio Calabria, Rome,
Venice and the Order of Architects of drills. The seminar is open to about 10
students in each faculty participant enrolled in the last years of the courses.
The program involves the development of a project on a topic, usually proposed
by the municipal administration. The theme of the seminar is presented at the
beginning and developed during the year. The journey is the backbone of the
seminar as a means of knowledge of the city "
5 - "Seminar after seminar , in Trapani, Geraci,
Messina, Marsala, the projects carefully followed by the tutors and always more
expert students show that the freedom and personal skills can coexist with the
forming of a common attitude facing the problems ... "
Ferlenga, A. (1999). Quality hidden. In The sea
and the city, projects and architectures for the Stagnone of Marsala (curated by Panzarella, M., Sarro, A.) Marsala: Centro Stampa Rubino,
127.
6
- " I like to think my intervention as an interview with the designers..On
the understanding that every intelligible opportunity is useful for our
experience, it seems to me that through the ways of the interview, I could
better highlight a character of the our design which to me is more and more
evident, that is to say a particular sensitivity in the to read but also in the
to modify, in the to confirm but also in
the to introduce in a place some new situations. "
Culotta, P. (1999). An interview with the designers.
In The sea
and the city, projects and architectures for the Stagnone of Marsala (curated by Panzarella, M., Sarro, A.) Marsala: Centro Stampa Rubino,
125.
7 - "This kind of work , which has seen many
architects here concentrates more or less young , has created a working
atmosphere of generous interest , which are gained from the design assumptions
clearly confortable and which often give convincing answers”.
Cappiello, V. (1999). The places and the measure. In The sea
and the city, projects and architectures for the Stagnone of Marsala (curated by Panzarella, M., Sarro, A.) Marsala: Centro Stampa Rubino,
128.
8
- "If the wine economy can be an important opportunity to revive areas
where the traditional economy and the physical appearance of the city and
countryside have suffered , over time, a process of degradation , it should not
run out in the proposals of theme parks but constitute the starting point
for a territorial restoration
work..."
Ferlenga, A. (2005). In the wine lands. In Wine
Architectures (curated by Sarro, A.)
Palermo: Grafill, Palermo, 8.
9
- "The Travel. It is in the travel that the various components that form
"the Villard project", find their recomposition, or, rather, in the
various travel that usually intertwine, during the academic year, in which the
experience develops.
Ferlenga, A. (2006). The spirit of Villard. In Villard
7 Verona - Stratifications and connections (curated by
Palazzolo, C., Basso M., Diodato, M.) Verona: ed. CIERRE, 17.
10 - "Villard in recent years has therefore made
a complex trip through issues and places, trying to recompose the ungraspable
image of the Italian landscape in constant evolution and to represent beauty
and misery through the project tools"
Cirri, P. (2006). Seven stations for a landscape. In Villard
Verona 7 – Stratification and connections (curated by
Palazzolo, C., Basso M., Diodato, M.) Verona: ed. CIERRE, 13.
11 - The result of Villard 12, published in the book
"Urban
Mutations. Villard 12 a project for the city of Palermo" ( curated by Pintacuda, L., Sarro. A,) was presented by M.
Panzarella during the Degrees LM4 of the Faculty of Architecture of Palermo
(2013), where he clearly points the role played by Villard starting by the
numerous projects.
The outcomes of the workshops are published in :
Cagnardi, A. (1981) Belice 1980, Places, problems, projects. Twelve years
after the earthquake, Venezia: collection Polis / Marsilio.
Croset, P.A., The
block of Messina, in Casabella N.523, April 1986 , p.16 -27.
The block of Messina (curated by Guerrera G.) Cefalù:
Medina, 1986.
Atlas of new architecture of Geraci Siculo (curated by
Guerrera G.) Cefalù: Medina, 1996.
The sea and the city, architecture projects for the
Stagnone of Marsala, (curated by Panzarella, M., Sarro, A.) Marsala: Centro
Stampa Rubino, 1999.
The sea and the city, maritime landscape and urban
archeology, houses and suburban landscapes (curated by Panzarella, M., Sarro,
A) Palermo: Priulla, 2002.
The landmark project, new urban landscapes. Siracusa:
the Talete’s promenade (curated by Guardo, A.) Cannitello (RC): ed. Library of
Cenide, 2002
Villard 3 Itinerant Seminar of design, attached to
Casabella N.705, November 2002.
Villard 4 Small Airports, (curated by Tchou, D.M.),
Roma: Edilstampa, 2004.
Villard 5 Genova between city and port, (curated by
Dall'Olio, L, Tchou, D.M.), Roma Edilstampa, 2005.
Villard 6/6 The projects of the Faculty of Pescara in
the seminar Villard (curated by.
Cicchitti, M.), Pescara: Publish, 2005.
Villard 6
Urban Scenarios, projects for Ancona (curated by Ciorra P. with Coppari
R., Ferrara, C.M., Marco Tullio, E.,
Valeri M.), Roma: Edilstampa, 2006.
Villard 7
Verona - Stratifications and connections (curated by Palazzolo, C. Basso, M.
Diodato, M.),Verona: ed.CIERRE, 2006.
Margagliotta,
A., Tuzzolino, G.F., City spaces ,nature spaces (curated by Saitta, I.),
Palermo: Abadir, 2007.
Airports and surroundings, infrastructure, landscape,
architecture (curated by Marsala, G.), Palermo: Caracol, 2007.
Wine architectures, a design for the agricultural land
(curated by Sarro, A.), Palermo: Grafill, 2008.
Villard 8 Benevento Collimation, (curated by Pagano,
L., Serino, R., Galante, P., Facone, D.), Benevento: Graphic Mellusi, 2009.
Metropolitan agents, projects for Bologna, (curated by
Coppari, R., Perugini, A., Prospero, A.), Bologna: Editrice Compositori, 2009.
Margagliotta,
A., Tuzzolino, G.F., Architectures for the reception, ed. Regional
Department of State Forests Authority, supplement to the territorial magazine
"Sicily Forests", Palermo, 2009.
The city of the thermae and the sea, On board projects
for Sciacca (curated by Sarro, A.), Palermo: ed.Caracol,
2010.
Urban mutations, Villard 12, a project for the city of
Palermo (curated by Pintacuda, L.,
Sarro, A.) Palermo: Ila Palma, 2012.
Houses + Villard 11 (curated by Burrascano, M., L.
dall'Olio, L., Tchou, D. M.), Roma: Edilstampa, 2012.
Messina 08-08 Reconstructions (curated by R. Simone),
Roma: ed. Aracne, 2012.