Research and Projects for the Recovery of the “Tifeo” Power Station in Augusta, Sicily

The buildings of the Tifeo Augusta Power Station (SR) significantly tell us, even today, the history of the Sicilian industrial dream at the end of the Fifties. However, with the passing of time, it revealed the underlying contradictions still present today in Augusta together with polluting and oppressive petrochemical plants built during those times. Regardless of any recovery theory about the Augusta Power Station, it is clear that an open and multidisciplinary look cannot be ignored, locating the power station in the actual and future setting of the vastest territory in which it is sited. The past, the present and, of course, the future of the Augusta area are tightly connected to the sea and the particular geographical condition of these places, which could be strategic even today in the new system of global fluxes of goods and services related to it, as well as in a perspective of conversion of the energy production ways, to be rethought starting from renewable energy sources. The Department of Architecture of the University of Palermo, and the PhD in Architecture/Architectural Design, along with Enel (the Italian Energy Supply Company) has started a partnership aimed for a base research for a feasibility study about the recovery of Tifeo Power Station, shooting for some possible sceneries to be suitable to operate in, even through more specific architectural projects.