This book contains the documents of the winning project of the International Ideas Competition for the urban renewal of the Mondello area, an important seaside resort on the northern coast of Palermo. Yet, as is often the case for ideas competitions, the projects drawn up on these occasions are not only an answer to the requests of the announcement, but turn into chances for reviewing the area, describing its transformations and, sometimes, even “rewriting” those requests which the announcement itself, for various reasons does not underline. Competitions, in other words, become a chance for exploring both issues and resources, and also for pointing out solutions. They can be considered as a workshop on the city hosting them, by bringing back to architecture an explorative potential and a knowledge content which often crosses architecture itself. The winning project started – since its first drafting - on this very hypothesis and will to investigate larger urban issues, by testing the possibilities offered by an ideas competition. The proposed scenarios move along between the description of the conditions and the possible identities of Mondello, and the verification of some working assumptions and urban programmes, achieved through the instruments and languages specific to the architectural project. Texts and projects are accompanied by Olivio Barbieri’s views, an Italian photographer among the most refined and sensitive to locations, landscapes and their transformations. Photographs, in the same way as architecture, “operate” insofar as they bring something to light. The relationship between photographers and architects becomes actually fertile when they eventually see what reality contains but does not describe yet. Therefore, they can act in an intermediate step of the experience of transformations, thus revealing the unexpected potential of places. Designs, texts, and pictures revise the iconography of Mondello by offering to its inhabitants and passersby an unusual gaze on a reality which only an artist as Barbieri could reveal. At the same time, they use its possible future modifications as a chance to interpret the themes of contemporary urban design. The voice of Alberto Ferlenga, author of the preface, joins the author’s, and sets the issues brought up by the book inside the current scientific debate on architecture, landscape, and contemporary cities – through the peculiar point of view of a member of the competition jury. An afterword by the author himself – broaching some questions regarding Landscape Urbanism, conceived as an updated paradigm on contemporary urban design – completes the book and outlines working themes and directions relevant to research and projects outside and inside Italian Architecture faculties.

Il volume pubblica i materiali originali del concorso internazionale di idee per la riqualificazione urbana di Mondello, una localita balneare della costa settentrionale di Palermo. Concorso vinto dall'autore stesso. Il libro utilizza questa occasione di riflessione a partire da una occasione concreta di trasformazione, per affrontare criticamente le questioni scientifico disciplinari legate al tema del Landscape Urbanism e alle evoluzioni contemporanee della nozione di Progetto Urbano. Il volume ripercorre i contributi critici e teorici della disciplina degli ultimi vent'anni e propone un'avanzamento critico delle teorie sul paesaggio urbano e sulle geografie della città contemporanea. Il libro affianca ai testi e ai disegni lo sguardo di Olivo Barbieri, fotografo italiano tra i più raffinati e sensibili, stabilendo un dialogo tra architettura e fotografia che si orientano vicendevolmente. Allo sguardo dell'autore si affianca quello di Alberto Ferlenga, autore della prefazione, che inquadra le questioni disciplinari contenute del libro all'interno dell'odierno dibattito scientifico sull'architettura, sul paesaggio e sulle città contemporanee.

MARSALA, G. (2012). Diluire Mondello Descrizioni per un progetto. Palermo : Edizioni Caracol.

Diluire Mondello Descrizioni per un progetto

MARSALA, Giuseppe
2012-01-01

Abstract

This book contains the documents of the winning project of the International Ideas Competition for the urban renewal of the Mondello area, an important seaside resort on the northern coast of Palermo. Yet, as is often the case for ideas competitions, the projects drawn up on these occasions are not only an answer to the requests of the announcement, but turn into chances for reviewing the area, describing its transformations and, sometimes, even “rewriting” those requests which the announcement itself, for various reasons does not underline. Competitions, in other words, become a chance for exploring both issues and resources, and also for pointing out solutions. They can be considered as a workshop on the city hosting them, by bringing back to architecture an explorative potential and a knowledge content which often crosses architecture itself. The winning project started – since its first drafting - on this very hypothesis and will to investigate larger urban issues, by testing the possibilities offered by an ideas competition. The proposed scenarios move along between the description of the conditions and the possible identities of Mondello, and the verification of some working assumptions and urban programmes, achieved through the instruments and languages specific to the architectural project. Texts and projects are accompanied by Olivio Barbieri’s views, an Italian photographer among the most refined and sensitive to locations, landscapes and their transformations. Photographs, in the same way as architecture, “operate” insofar as they bring something to light. The relationship between photographers and architects becomes actually fertile when they eventually see what reality contains but does not describe yet. Therefore, they can act in an intermediate step of the experience of transformations, thus revealing the unexpected potential of places. Designs, texts, and pictures revise the iconography of Mondello by offering to its inhabitants and passersby an unusual gaze on a reality which only an artist as Barbieri could reveal. At the same time, they use its possible future modifications as a chance to interpret the themes of contemporary urban design. The voice of Alberto Ferlenga, author of the preface, joins the author’s, and sets the issues brought up by the book inside the current scientific debate on architecture, landscape, and contemporary cities – through the peculiar point of view of a member of the competition jury. An afterword by the author himself – broaching some questions regarding Landscape Urbanism, conceived as an updated paradigm on contemporary urban design – completes the book and outlines working themes and directions relevant to research and projects outside and inside Italian Architecture faculties.
2012
Settore ICAR/14 - Composizione Architettonica E Urbana
978-88-89440-83-4
MARSALA, G. (2012). Diluire Mondello Descrizioni per un progetto. Palermo : Edizioni Caracol.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10447/81385
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