Favignana Quarry Island. Mediterranean landscapes between description and transformation

The essay takes a critical look at part of the extensive research on the Mediterranean landscape conducted by the authors, particularly on the architecture of the quarry landscape in Sicily. The case study investigated concerns the island of Favignana and the complex relationship that the quarry landscape has represented in the relations between this island of the Egadi archipelago and the Mediterranean basin. The essay adopts five keywords that represent many access tools for an anthropogeographical understanding of the island. The essay interprets Favignana as an island of wind and water through geography. But it extends its dimension to architecture, looking at its landscape as a single constructed geography, of which the quarries constitute the physical identity. Subtraction investigates the action of digging and filling in the quarried material as a founding process that has shaped the island's soil and architecture in a physiognomic way. Metamorphosis is the key paradigm for interpreting the relationship between nature and artifice narrated by the island of Favignana. An osmotic, not just dichotomous, relationship configures "indistinti confini" between these notions, generating a landscape of extraordinary interest. The quarries, therefore, are interpreted by the research as the island's genome; and their extensive geographical layout is viewed as a single architecture. And finally, Next is the keyword for looking at the future scenarios of these landscapes. A future that looks to the awareness of the limitedness of our resources and the planet's sustainability as a horizon for their regeneration, in keeping with the spirit of MedWays research. These scenarios are investigated through the guidelines of some of the United Nations 2030 agenda goals.