BROCHURE WG fronte-retro

Thinking Through Ruins, 2021

2017

In the territories of our time, the architectural project enters into a relationship with the more or less visible and intangible traces of historical identities that have stratified the reality that we live every day. The essays in this book are a multiidentitarian collection on the issue of rehabilitation of boundary areas and conflict where memories, traces and absences create remembrances telling about human stories waiting for new rebirths.

Arezzo is placed in the middle of Italy, a town in Tuscany with a rich and intense story. Even if such a thing is true for a lot of old town in Italy and abroad, in the story of Arezzo there is an ancient and complex event which has cancelled a piece of the timeline in the history of this town. There was a time when the hillock named “Pionta” was closed by walls protecting a small independent citadel, governed by bishops, with its own churches and politically aligned with the Pope and the Vatican State. This small enclave in the Tuscany territory ended being tolerated in the XVI century. In 1561 Cosimo de’ Medici ordered the destruction of this walled town, bringing to the ground all the buildings and trying to cancel the existence of this place not only from the terrain, but apparently from the historical memory. Even if the presence of this area remained at a latent state in the memory of the population, the buildings on the hill were demolished and probably their materials reused somewhere else, while only minor parts of the previous churches and chapels were reused and adapted in combination with new constructions. In 2014, a new research about this area has been started, based on the collaboration between the cultural association “Academo, Roberta Pellegrini” and the “Dipartimento di Architettura” of the Florence University. The digital survey data treatment, the reading of the architectural traces, the interpretation of the original projects -made following the logic of Architecture- and a specific investigation about the state of the knowledge about this area, have brought the basis for starting to hypothesize a map of the next possible excavations, while other common solutions to investigate the underground (like georadar survey and visual analysis of the anomalies) turned out to be not so usable, because of the strong transformation of the ground which is mixed with ruins and fragmented parts creating a very “noisy” and uniform terrain, in this way only a direct excavation, planned by clear guidelines, can give results. Because the state of ruins and the poor remains of most of the excavated areas, it was decided to proceed comparing other architectures and getting the digital survey of any elements “connected” to the original settlement and its architectures. The study and analysis of the architectural traces and indications is allowing the gradual interpretation of the original design of large part of the buildings. All the digital tools have been used focusing on the will to understand and discover traces of the original asset of this place, trying to bring back in the memory of the people the presence of their past. The research presented here will bring the status of its advances about the survey data, virtual reconstruction, methods and techniques used to enhance the knowledge about a lost architecture and urban settlement.

Athens Journal of Architecture

The aim of the stream is to bring together academics and researchers from all areas of Survey and Representation of Architecture and Environment, Drawing for the landscape, The drawings for the project: tracks-visions and pre-visions, Margins: the signs of memory and the city in progress, Visual Culture and Communication: from idea to project, The color and the environment, Perception and territorial identity, Iconographic-Cultural and Landscape Heritage: art, literature and design effects, Signs and Drawings for Design and other related disciplines. The practice of "Drawing", as a form of knowledge and expression of extrinsic and/or intrinsic data, involves all branches of research as shared language from the earliest experiences of drawing representation of reality and intentions. It is from this huge base of competences that spans the Drawing scientific disciplinary sector. Research and didactis are concentrated around complementary and interacting theoretical and applied research lines, related to Urban and Environmental Survey, Drawing Representation of analogic and digital techniques, Geomatics aimed to the Conservation and Restoration of tangible and intangible heritage and Colour Measurement Systems. Representing the environment and therefore the territory, the city, the architecture and the components that govern the relationships, is not only to graphically report the reading of environment through signs and images, but it is an act of knowledge and translation that inevitably requires a consolidated analysis of the studies and applications of drawing intended as language, means and instrument of ideogrammatic character, deepening the different historical phases of representation and perception through the study of historical treatises to the current specialist infographics techniques also apply to virtual and augmented reality The creation of a graphic language through signs and ideograms, helps to describe broken and repeated paths , understanding the spatial changes and the consequent reactions of the recipients (natural, anthropic, and relational entities) The problem of deconstructive processes that have often led to the loss of individuation of a fragmented expansion and the consequent loss of perception of the city center, creates a kind of emergency schedule, in the negative, to ever new fragmentations, in a non-linear path comparable to fractal sequence homothetic. Reading comprehension of such dispersive phenomenon, the research is linked to the old problem of urban planning responsibilities, one wonders what the agents to identify, analyze and represent in order to carry out qualitative and therefore "resilient" interventions. The design of the city is also a philological interpretation of narrative that provides new methodological approaches, not least thanks to innovative information networks and processing of sources that the digital revolution has introduced into operation the analysis of complex systems that require interdisciplinary connections. The methodology of research approach provides: Management of graphic data, the purposes of computer graphics digital systems in the representation of environment (relational reality), landscape (perceived reality) and architecture (objective reality). Territorial study: geomorphological characteristics, altitude development, hydrography, climate, exposure, study of the natural and man-made environment, communication routes and infrastructures (roads, highways, bridges, aqueducts ...). Analysis of building heritage: urban mesh, free spaces. Visibility analysis: study of cartography with observation points both from the coast and from the internal paths with the identification of the preeminent, congruent and incongruous elements. Active conservation and requalification of sites require actions aimed at integrating the goals of preserving historical and landscape testimonies with socioeconomic revitalization and improvement of existing conditions in compliance with specific norms and guidelines at European and national level The aim of the theme: DeSign Environmet Landscape City is to address in an interdisciplinary dimension the broad domain of the environment and the material and immaterial artifacts that define it, having as its focal point the design activity as a process and consequently its tools and Cognitive and operational apparatus. The innovation of the approach lies basically in the development of research topics related to the emerging needs, the new economies, the productive structures involved and the cultural context in which they are located. In this sense, the training project, integrating contributions and disciplines, aims to study and to deepen the relationship between the environment at different levels, as the social context, political and cultural values influence design choices. The main purpose is to acquire a broadly critical dimension about the issues that go through the theme of the project in its complexity, thus benefiting from transversal scientific inputs to the various disciplines involved, either through Theoretical and applied research experiences, workshops, experiences in

What role do the places of the Muslim past have in the contemporary heritage projects of the Arab Middle East? Starting with the controversy surrounding the Prophet’s birthplace in Mecca and the position of the Saudi state towards the topographical heritage of the holy city, this talk will analyze an emerging discourse on the role of the past as a site of argumentation within the Islamic tradition. Drawing on further examples from Egypt we will examine how heritage practices have become a key marker for the contemporary cultivation of cosmopolitanism within certain classes of Muslim society. As these practices have increasingly focused on the sites and places of Islamic periods they have exposed tensions in how the past becomes articulated with the workings of transnational capital, international aid, and the aesthetics of the new global elite. This has played out in the differential preservation of cities like Cairo where certain material pasts receive far more attention and funding than others. Existing heritage practices within Muslim societies have been reordered through the logics of a modernist discourse that attempts to separate the past from its place within the arguments of the Islamic tradition. While this reordering has its roots in the post-colonial nationalist movements of the Middle East, the argument developed here is that the nationalist agenda which has so dominated heritage practice no longer holds hegemony over the material past. What has emerged, instead, is a polarization of the Islamic past such that it is either so innocuous as to be easily acculturated into the workings of global cosmopolitanism or so dangerous that it requires active destruction or dislocation lest it lead believers astray.

2021

The purpose of the research is to present guidelines and recommendations that can contribute to the post-war recovery of urban cultural heritage by a proposed methodology, based on other experiences in the reconstruction and preservation field of historical areas after wars, with the possibility of applying them, as an attempt to regain the features of the old part of the city. We also suggest those suggestions and guidance on three different levels. These guidelines are applicable at three levels: the historic core of the city, neighbourhood level, and individual quarters level. Each level had a specific theme for reconstruction planning that can maintain the city’s particular character during the current circumstances. Many cities have been heavily damaged as a result of the armed conflict in Syria, destroying most of the city’s neighbourhoods, including the historic district. Hence, we present a study of the consequences of this destruction on the historic fabric of the city, and...

Ex Novo Journal of Archaeology, 2017

Peer Reviewer comment: "This is a solid piece of scholarship. It is well-researched and shows an indepth knowledge of the subject. It has a detailed and extensive list of reference, which will be of interest to international researchers." The reconstruction of central Beirut after the Lebanese civil war by Solidere is not generally considered a success. It has resulted in a soulless, expensive and exclusive area aimed at tourists and wealthy overseas business people who have generally failed to materialise; local people tend to go elsewhere, except when protesting (Ilyés 2015). Despite the fact that Beirut was known to be an ancient city with occupation stretching back to prehistoric times, the initial post-war plans were for a modern city centre built on a tabula rasa. Little thought was given to any cultural heritage. Subsequent protest at this planned destruction ensured changes to the original redevelopment plans to incorporate historic building conservation and some archaeological investigation but it was far from ideal, and often became tangled in the ongoing politico-religious conflicts (Sandes 2010). Aleppo is another such city; occupation can be traced back to the 10th century BCE, and its old city has World Heritage status. The ongoing Syrian war has caused dreadful destruction of the city and its peoples, but in the rebuilding how important will this cultural heritage be considered? This paper examines the role of the built heritage, particularly archaeology, in the (post-)conflict urban reconstruction process and with reference to Beirut, examines what archaeology has the potential to offer to the rebuilding and rehabilitation of Aleppo and its communities.

icaud.epoka.edu.al

In the proposed contribution, this issue is examined through the experience gained by the authors on the socalled Naumachie, one of the greatest archaeological remains in the historical center of Taormina (Italy). The original plant of this building dates back to the Greek, but it is mainly a massive Roman building 120 meters long and 7 high, which has taken over time the value of urban lot on which an incessant building activity has developed until today. The ancient structure, probably used as a cistern for water supply during the Roman period, actually acts as the foundations for more recent high-rise buildings. This has caused deep degradation processes of materials and, actually, partially denies the use, causing management problems between public and private sectors. The intervention on Naumachie, for these reasons, requires design choices aimed not only to preserve the artifact, but also looking for a new balance with the urban context. The conservation planning may act as a first step in a broader process, within which to recover archaeological meanings from a perspective of urban regeneration.

What still remains, nothing remains! The landscapes in post-war reconstruction, 2018

While the peace prospects in syria alternate between near-achievement and disappearance, a group of academic researchers from italian and Middle eastern universities have initiated a discussion on future themes of the prospective reconstruction of one of the richer countries, both in historical-monumental heritage and the value of its landscape and urban system. the discussion aimed to focus on the methodological perspectives gained from the previous reconstruction experiences in italy with a consciousness of the specific nature of Mediterranean culture.