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MESSINA LIES AT THE CENTER OF THE STRAIT AREA, WITHIN A POLITICAL AND REGIONAL SEPARATION THAT CONTRADICTS THE NATURAL GEOGRAPHICAL AND CULTURAL UNITY OF THE TERRITORY. SALVATORE MONDELLO DESCRIBES HOW THE CITY FUNCTIONS, WITH A GLAZE TOWARD EUROPE

Living and mobility. The port system and the water system. Identity. According to Salvatore Mondello – Councillor for Infrastructure and Public Works (with numerous delegated responsibilities) – the emergencies, urgent issues, potential, and development of Messina and the entire Strait area depend on resolving these five conditions.

Going beyond what is visible, understanding the vulnerability and complexity of a territory that was once a destination for the greatest travelers in European and world literature, and that today struggles to reclaim its place on a national and European scale: at its forth edition, Invisible Mediterranean(s) – Journey across the Strait shares this reflection with Salvatore Mondello.

The Strait of Messina is a magnet – it has always been one throughout history – a hinge of extraordinary natural beauty”, Mondello begins. “All the great travelers of the past were fascinated by the Strait. We simply need to turn the lights back on.”

What are the real strategies for “turning the lights back on” for the city?

Mondello explains that the city stretches for 32 kilometers: on one side toward the narrow strip of land along the Strait, and on the other toward the hilly landscape behind it. It lies at the center of a broader area, even though on the Calabrian Ionian side the conurbation with Reggio Calabria and Villa San Giovanni has never truly become a reality, despite the geographical configuration.

For Gesualdo Bufalino, “… Sicily has had the fate of finding itself, over the centuries, acting as a hinge between Western high culture and the temptations of the desert and the sun, between reason and magic, between the climates of sentiment and the scorching heat of passion” (from the book “Cento Sicilie”).

Mondello extends this idea from the insular scale to the urban one: Messina is a hinge of the Mediterranean both for its port system and for its geographic position. It is a territorial context (similar to that of Genoa) that encompasses and connects very different identities.

From left, Giorgio Tartaro, Salvatore Mondello and Alfonso Femia. Invisible Mediterranean(s) 2021, Journey across the Strait IV. Photo by Stefano Anzini.

And identity itself becomes a key issue in the cultural representation of the Strait, and at this moment also a matter of political urgency that reveals the city’s fragilities and contradictions. The Sicilian Region has in fact accepted the request of thirteen hamlets in the Messina area to hold an independence referendum. The aspiration is to create a new municipality, to be called Montemare, autonomous from the city of Messina. This refers to the northern portion of the territory, where the hillside villages are located.
Mondello explains that separating the administrations would make governance more complex. While fully respecting local identities – which in the past have already produced similar situations in other parts of Sicily – it is the territorial, historical, architectural, and landscape culture that expresses connections and differences, in other words identity itself, rather than the creation of separate administrations.

Heterogenity is the unnderlying framework that defines the entire city of Messina, as Nadia Terranova notes, “The uniqueness of Messina lies in its differences”.

According to Mondello, it is essential – precisely in order to “turn the lights back on” – to leverage the natural connections that already exist: Reggio Calabria and Messina are, before being Calabrian and Sicilian, cities of the Strait. The conurbation finds its meaning in the social, cultural, and economic relationships between the two territorial realities, even though common strategies have not yet been developed.

Mobility is at the center of development, and a shared strategy with Reggio Calabria is envisaged for a unified and coordinated management of the Strait, independently of the Bridge across the Strait, which is seen as a topic that is almost more European than local.
For this reason, within the PUMS, (Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan), in its most recent version drafted this past August, reference is made to a “Sea Metro” between the two shores of the Strait of Messina – Reggio Calabria and Villa San Giovanni on one side, and Messina on the other, through fast maritime transport services that allow movement between the cities. The work is oriented toward building a structural framework at both urban and extra-urban levels. The city of Messina and the Metropolitan City share a single mayor, and this contributes to the development of planning on a broader scale.

Turning off – after more than 100 years – the spotlight on the issue of the shanty towns is an unavoidable step in order to switch it back on over the city’s positive urban aspects: moving from decay to quality of living.
The 1908 earthquake in Messina devastated 90% of the city. Temporary shacks were then built, which over time became permanent makeshift housing. Today, demolitions have begun, and urban redevelopment works are underway, along with the definition of a new urban planning standard.

Water is the other major theme that will lead Messina toward the goal of becoming a European city.
Rebuilding the relationship between Messina and its port is essential. The work carried out in cooperation with the Port System Authority, which manages Messina, Reggio Calabria, Milazzo, and Villa San Giovanni, will mark an important phase of urban development for the city.
The Tremestieri port, currently being upgraded, will be able to accommodate up to seven ferries. It will expand southwards with a 320-meter breakwater jetty exposed to winds, and a 34,000-square-meter storage area.
The new port will allow ferry traffic to be removed from the Rada of San Francesco, which can then be transformed into a tourist marina. In this way, the navigability of the Strait will be ensured, and the connection between the sea and the city center will be restored through the functional redevelopment of the Rada.

Access to public water, purification, and wastewater disposal – in other words, the efficiency of the water system – is another major issue in the redemption of the Strait area.
Sicily loses 50,5% of its water through distribution networks. Water scarcity has, in the past, created even very serious problems. A process of rationalization of the overall system is now underway, including the introduction of remote monitoring systems for the water network.
The Fiumefreddo aqueduct is the main water resource available to the Messina system. Sicilian fiumare, like those in Calabria, are highly intermittent by nature due to geomorphological conditions: they appear suddenly and briefly, then disappear. Water resources, which can be collected and stored in reservoirs, are also present in the hills. The municipal administration and Amam (Azienda Meridionale Acqua Messina) are working together to develop structural interventions aimed at long-term solutions.

View of the Madonna della Lettera of Messina from the Exhibition Citadel. Photo by Stefano Anzini.

Mondello emphasizes that the city’s shift in direction depends both on housing and territorial policies and on the way the city itself is perceived – and that this latter aspect is fundamental to its transformation.
Throughout its history, Messina has experienced periods of significant development (notably in the 1970s and 1980s) as well as phases of slowdown.
Today, it is necessary to focus on quality and to plan an urban development coherent with the city’s growth, in the most appropriate way possible. This means that programming must be forward-looking, must exclude isolated “spot” interventions, and must express long-term plans that go beyond electoral cycles.
The preservation of cultural and identity heritage is certainly essential, but it is equally important to think of Messina as a European city.
“This is not a slogan,” he notes, “because if administrators and citizens, intellectuals, writers, journalists, and artists change the way they look at the city, the city itself will change”.

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THE SOUTH LIES AT THE EDGE OF EUROPE: IT STRUGGLES MORE TO MAKE ITS VOICE HEARD BUT, IN THE PAST, IT MADE A GREAT CONTRIBUTION TO THE COUNTRY’S HISTORY. AND NOW IT IS PREPARING TO START AGAIN FROM AGRI-CULTURE with Pietro Taccone

Pietro Taccone and his family could be the protagonists of a film: a melting pot of cultures, where the cool Anglo-Saxon spirit intertwines with passionate Neapolitan roots, followed by a long period in Milan and then a return to Southern Italy – bringing with them the energy, expertise, and discipline needed to transform Calabria into a truly European region.

Pietro begins speaking about the South, recalling its glorious past: not as a learned historical synopsis, but as a premise for the potential re-emergence of the territory.

200920_Mediterranei-Invisibili_©Stefano-Anzini_IMG_6291 From left to right: Giorgio Tartaro, Pietro Taccone, and Alfonso Femia during Invisible Mediterranean(s) – Journey across the Strait III, talk session on 20 September 2020. Photo by Stefano Anzini.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Naples and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies were leading European powers, with remarkably progressive governments. In 1839, the first double-track railway link in Italy was built to connect Naples and Portici. Shipyards, metalworking, texitle, food-processing, and sulfur-extraction industries, along with agriculture, wow highly developed and firmly established. with commercial relations extending throughout Europe. Then, in the post-unification period, a dark era followed, and people began speaking of the “Southern Question”. The South became simpy “the South”. Our farm is what remains of an estate that originated earlier, in the 1700s, and that generated employment and prosperity throughout Calabria. It was a 40,000-hectares in the Plain of Gioia Tauro where olive cultivation is predominant. We have centuries-old olive trees dating back to the late 18th century. We work continuously to innovate the production process and refine a product with outstanding qualities. We have preserved most of the ancient olive trees, while mechanizing fruit harvesting as early as the 1980s through the use of shaker machines. Before this innovation, olives from centuries-old trees were used to produce “lampante” oil, so called because throughout the 19th century and the early 20th century it was used for lighting and exported to Russia. Other oil was exported to France and England for soap production, including the famous Marseille soap. The centuries-old trees, reaching heights of up to 20 meters, did not allow for the early harvesting of the olives. Harvesting occurred only after natural falling once the fruit had fully ripened, resulting in a degraded product with excessively high acidity levels. The olives could not be used to produce extra virgin oil. To achieve a leap in quality, it was enough to anticipate the harvest. Managing these trees is complex because of their size, but shaker machines have enabled us to harvest olives before full ripening, obtaining fruit with excellent organoleptic characteristics in both aroma and flavor. In this way, we entered a high-end niche market. Calabria was actually the first region to import shakers from California, whose mechanical action is carefully calibrated so as not to damage the trees. However, harvesting olives from centuries-old trees still requires a large workforce because of the “sesto ducale” layout – that is, the wide spacing between one tree and another. For this reason, we decided to plant part of the land with younger, smaller trees spaced six meters apart. This allows for more efficient management of cultivation, both from a phytosanitary perspective and in terms of harvesting, using umbrella shakers that require only two workers per tree instead of the six to eight needed for the ancient trees. Replacing old trees is costly and, rightly so, subject to landscape preservation regulations. Managing these olive groves is by no means simple, and many olive growers rely on state subsidies whenever they are available. On our farm, 50% of the old olive groves have been preserved, with careful attention paid to maintaining the same native varieties – Ottobratica and Sinopolese – in order to preserve the unique character of the territory. Our olive oil is distributed throughout Europe and the United States. Olive growing as once a flourishing and prosperous economy, and today it seeks to regain the splendor of the past and assume a significant role within an international context. Supporting agricultural development is part of a broader process of economic transformation in our region, one that can truly stand alongside the country’s industry, tertiary sector, and services, making it competitive and a meaningful player within the European and globalized landscape. Our company employs 50 people engaged in overseeing the entire supply chain, from cultivation to bottling. We live in a small village established in the 1700s in the Plain of Gioia Tauro: the village of Cannavá, which has been redeveloped with a focus on hospitality, tourism, and cultural activities. The heart of the village is Masseria Santa Teresa dating back to the 1830s and composed of a series of buildings arranged around a quadrangular square. It is a system centered on agriculture as its core identity, one that also sustains itself through the added functions of hospitality and cultural engagement.

Olive harvest, October 2020, at the Acton farm in Leporano. Photo by Salvatore Greco.

Is the revival of Calabria through the land and olive trees too romantic a vision? Perhaps things are a little more complex in Calabria, but mano agricultural businesses are adapting to contemporary challenges, embracing technology and emerging as important realities in terms of employment and economic impact. There is remarkable dynamism: many have successfully renewed themselves by following European directives, investing in biogas systems for livestock farming and renewable energy through the use of pruning residues that can be transformed into wood chips. All of Calabria is engaged in this transformation: in the Lamezia area through citrus cultivation; in the Crotone area through wine production, which is gaining significant recognition nationally and internationally; and in the Reggio Calabria area through bergamot production for the French and international perfume industry. Along the Reggio Calabria coast, Calabrian mangoes are also cultivated. This demonstrates that starting again from the land and from agri-culture is neither merely an idea or simpley a project, but a reality that already exists.

Do infrastructure gaps, including those within the region itself, penalize you? Are they a determining factor in development prospects? The issue of missing roads must be evaluated and weighed in the proper terms. Calabria is a mountainous region: Sila, Pollino, and Aspromonte are our mountains, and mountains are difficult to manage everywhere. What would be extremely important is the rigorous maintenance of the existing neytwrk, wihich currently suffers from major deficiencies in this regard. We are actually in a better position than some other territories. The Salerno-Reggio Calabria motorway functions, even though the thirty-year reconstruction process caused enormous inconvenience and disruption. The Tyrrhenian coast is well connected to the rest of the country, and there are also two major high ways leaiding to the Ionian coast. The need to develop infrastructure must take into account the geomorphological structure of the territory. One cannot simply exploit the issue of missing roads without carefully assessing the benefits in relation to the investments required and the environmental and territorial risks involved. Our disadvantage lies in being geographically “at the end” of the peninsula: regardless of the means of transport, we still have to travel 1,200 kilometers to reach Italy’s gateways to Europe, the major distribution centers, and the main logistics hubs. What could have been our greatest strengths has been completely undermined by its function and by the lack of railway connections. The Port of Gioia Tauro is a missed opportunity. To build it, an extraordinary environmental landscape was sacrificed, and yet it provides no real service to its own region. It is an international transshipment port, a closed and highly specialized system. Our natural shortcut to Europe and other countries – the sea – is effectively reserved for another exclusive function.

Is our provocation – placing the South at the center of the process of revitalizing both Italy and Europe as a whole – a realistic prospect? I am convinced that it is possible, by using agriculture as a driver for generating sustainable local economies. Calabria does not possess the territorial or environmental conditions necessary to develop large-scale industrial sectors. Attempts at industrialization have produced only the remains of unfinished factories and abandoned industrial blights. The only industry that truly makes sense to develop is a rural one, capable of creating stable local employment with a strong international outlook. To achieve this, local politics must support these projects by following European directives and making proper use of European funding opportunities. It must also recognize that agricultural planning, by its very nature, does not follow the five-year cycle of political elections, but instead requires a much longer-term vision. Mistimed decisions, a poor understanding of real needs, and a lack of specific expertise have led to misguided choices, effectively leaving agricultural entrepreneurs alone to pursue – and at times even fulfill – the dream of establishing their territory on the world stage.

The opening photo is by Stefano Anzini.

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BETTING ON YOUNG PEOPLE AND CULTURE: IT’S NOT A SLOGAN, BUT THE ONLY OPPORTUNITY TO FREE SICILY FROM PERCEPTUAL DISTORTIONS with Pietro Briguglio

Pietro Briguglio, the mayor of Nizza di Sicilia, speaks about a Sicily that wants to go beyond its borders – both physically and by building bridges between the memory of the past, the “outside” world, and the future.

Pietro Briguglio, Mayor of Nizza di Sicilia during Invisible Mediterranean(s)-Journey across the Strait, 17 September 2020. Photo by Stefano Anzini.

Sicily is not mafia and crime. If that remains, in the background, a persistent perception shaped by an outdated reading of the territory, it is equally true that today the reality is completely different. An example? Savoca is the village of the 17 mummies, one of the most beautiful villages in Italy. It dates back to 1134, but it became famous in 1972 because Francis Ford Coppola, the director of The Godfather, shot some scenes of the film there.
And this is not the only perceptual distortion weighing on and slowing down the island’s development.
For example, Sicily is not only Taormina, nor is just seasonal seaside tourism.
And history and culture are not found only in Palermo and Noto.

Sicily is a land that goes beyond the distances and physical limits of being an island.
Of course, there are real limitations, but they have become so worn down over time that they have almost lost their intensity and urgency: the lack of internal infrastructure, the exodus of the younger population, the bridge that was never built, and the patchy spread of the digital network.
There are also other, less visible limits, yet equally restrictive: from a “human” perspective, we are not sufficiently equipped in terms of professional skills and capabilities to move with agility through a highly complex bureaucratic landscape – both at the regional and national level and, above all, in accessing and making use of the economic opportunities offered by Europe. Developing projects, reporting results, and meeting deadlines all require an organic and well-structured operational approach in terms of procedures.

How important is tourism for the revival of this part of Sicily?
The strenght of seaside tourism also represents, to some extent, a limitation: we neglect the inland’s landscape and cultural treasures. Even the coastline outside the reference hub of Taormina is an underused heritage asset with enormous potential to make tourism less seasonal. An example closely connected to my own territory is the Nisi Valley, on the Ionian side of Messina, made up of small seaside towns and ancient hilltop villages. The valley has prehistoric origins and developed around one of the most important mountains in the Peloritani Mountains range, Monte Scuderi. The direct contact between sea and mountain makes these places fascinating and intense, and it is from here that the “Ring of the Nisi” was born, including Alì Terme, Alì, Fiumedinisi, and Nizza di Sicilia.
A great work that cannot be enjoyed by the community, locked away in a private room, represents an unjust way of relating art to society. Much of Sicily is an extraordinary work of art that remains undervalued and largely unknown.
The spread of culture – and the tourism that can grow from it – is the true instrument for revitalizing the territory.
Un’affermazione forte e autonoma in A strong and independent affirmation in this direction would generate the interest of central government and accelerate the construction of infrastructure. It could trigger a virtuous cycle capable of breaking down all these barriers.
Culture begins with an intense program of education and training that creates a sense of belonging to the territory, reverses the processe of youth migration, and generates jobs for culture, through culture.
Mental barriers can only be dismantled through culture. For Sicily, this is therefore a fundamental issue. What will redeem our land from distorted perceptions is the commitment of a younger generation encouraged – through education and culture – to believe in and invest in Sicily.

Borders and limitations must be transformed into horizons, aspiring to new models that constantly encourage the search for visions without boundaries.
Sicily can be imagined as a kind of beneficial, energizing, healing IV drip – a slow – release infusion of culture, history, and traditions to be administrated to the whole of Italy.
In Egypt and in other countries that have marked the course of human evolution, excavations continue endlessly, even after the essential has already been revealed.
We, too, have an immense cultural heritage to uncover and share, yet there is little interest in “digging” into our land. Not investigating our history means remaining one step behind.
Returning to the town of Savoca, Francis Ford Coppola’s choice and the success of The Godfather acted as a sounding board for the entire area. Today, the power of the internet spreads awareness of territories, curiosity, and the desire to visit them – and this, too, can work in combination with the development of the island’s internal physical infrastructure.
We are also moving forward on this front. Last September, the Government Commissioner and the CEO of Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, Maurizio Gentile, signed the approval of the final project for the doubling of the railway tracks between Giampilieri and Fiumefreddo di Sicilia, for an investment of €2.3 billion, already fully funded. The ordinance marks another decisive step forward in the realization of the Messina-Catania-Palermo railway axis, coming just days after the conclusion of the service conference held last August. With the approval now granted, the publication of tenders for the two functional sections – Fiumefreddo di Sicilia–Taormina/Letojanni and Taormina/Letojanni–Catania – can proceed in the coming weeks. The project completes the doubling of the railway line between Messina and Catania and includes the construction of 42 kilometers of which will run underground. This will increase the line’s capacity for both passenger and freight traffic and reduce travel times between Messina and Catania by approximately 30 minutes, enabling the development of a metropolitan-style rail service from Catania to Taormina/Letojanni.

Is the Bridge across the Strait of Messina a decisive factor within this framework of development?
The bridge is a primary infrastructure project, connecting Sicily to the mainland, both for the transport of goods and for the movement of people. The benefits would be undeniable, even though, after postponing its construction for nearly a century, the urban complexity of the departure and arrival areas has grown enormously. Today, compensation measures are necessary to address the disruption that the project would inevitably bring.
Beyond the debates, reflections, and the technological, institutional, economic, and environmental issues involved, the only indisputable reality is that building this bridge is both urgent and appropriate: it is not only in the interest of Sicily and Calabria, but of the whole Italy.

The opening photo is by Stefano Anzini.

A SOUTHERN MODEL CAPABLE OF DRIVING THE COUNTRY FORWARD IS BUILT UPON HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE, WITHOUT INDULGING IN NOSTALGIA FOR THE PAST, BY ADAPTING CENTURIES-OLD WISDOM TO THE PRESENT with Serena Bonura

Serena Bonura works and conducts research in the field of ecology and sustainability applied to education and communication. From her perspective, it is not possible to speak of a “South rising again”, because the South is already wonderful. However, quality of life depends on functioning schools and hospitals, not only on landscapes, the sea, and sunshine. In Sicily, there are still many things that need to be improved.

Serena Bonura during the talk of Invisible Mediterranean(s) – Journey Across the Strait III on 18 September 2020. Photo by Stefano Anzini.

Serena lived in Bologna for a period of time, and this experience changed her way of seeing the world (and the South). For her, ecology and sustainability–particularly in relation to food–are both an economic resource and, at the same time, a way to avoid impoverishing and degrading her homeland.

The “new economy” and “circular economy” – emerging outcomes of a more conscious view of the environment–are already quickly turning into slogans. Yet, in reality, work has barely begun in this direction. It is as if anticipating the concept, without having fully experienced it, has already worn it out and made it feel outdated.
For the South, and for Sicily in particular, this is not just an abstract representation: it is one of the viable paths to building an economy in places where, fundamentally, economic structures are still weak. This means making use of the full range of local resources and activities, especially in connection with the agri-food sector.
In Sicily, a new economy can truly be activated starting from tradition. However, Serena emphasizes that speaking of tradition does not mean returning to outdated or obsolete ways of doing things–or worse, ways of thinking.
Awareness of the present, she explains, comes from a layering of positive experiences and mistakes. Nothing should be forgotten; memory is the best key to change. This is why she speaks of “retro-innovation”: taking with is valuable from the past and reinterpreting it through contemporary tools. It is not a concept limited to food and agriculture; it can be applied to every context, everywhere. However, the Sicilian model of retro-innovation is shaped by the specific geographical, cultural, and historical identity of the South in a way that is unique–neither transferable nor directly replicable elsewhere. Just as unique as the South itself.

Circular economy generates contemporary models of consumption, without diminishing or uncritically glorifying the past. It is also an “economy of relationships”, an expression that is almost a contradiction in terms, because it activates a process that evokes forms of exchange rooted in ancient memory. A sort of modern-day “pre-monetary” system.
To explain better, we work in co-production with aggregated consumers from the other areas of Italy, the Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale, who agree to share the production risks inherent in agriculture (especially climate-related variables), paying farmers in advance. In this way, the producer does not “run alone” with the risk of not making it, thanks to the pre-financing provided by consumers.
It is a model that is also spreading to other European countries. For example, some Sicilian consortia have signed agreements of this kind with French consumer groups.
Here, then, still in an embryonic form, is the answer to the provocation of “Invisible Mediterranean(s)”: restarting Italy and Europe from the South.
Another example: in Catania, a startup called Orange Fiber was founded by Adriana Santanocita and Enrica Rena. By recovering citrus waste, they created an exclusive, high-quality textile. Last year, Orange Fiber began a collaboration with the Swedish brand H&M, which chose the Sicilian company to produce part of its Conscious Exclusive 2019 premium collection.
Also from Catania comes another hight-tech startup, Kanèsis, which developed a system to produce the first eco-sustainable plastic. It is an innovative material derived from industrial plant waste, including hemp, designed by young engineering student Giovanni Milazzo and his team. It is a thermoplastic composite with properties similar to conventional petrochemical plastics, but with improved resistance and lightness. Recently, Kanèsis signed an agreement with Lati, an internationally established firm. Here again, we see Sicily projecting itself toward Europe and beyond. France, Sweden…we set no limits.

It is a very rigorous narrative, and it conveys the idea of a “great South”. But to what extent does the less luminous and less enterprising side suppress and hinder the emergence of this “great South”?
The South is beautiful.
The South is intelligent.
The South is enterprising.
But the reality we experience must contend with serious inefficiencies that not only slow down development, but also deteriorate the quality of life: hospitals and schools that do not function – or function poorly– are defining feature of our island. We often take refuge behind the excuse of lacking infrastructure, almost as a mantra, but the problems lie elsewhere.

The issue of infrastructure is one of the most painful and recurring themes in the current debate on the South, even more so in the Strait area. Your position may sound counter-current.
It is true that there is a lack of connections, including important ones– I do not intend to deny the obvious. But this is not a recent discovery; it is a problem that dates back to the post-war period, the 1960s, and even earlier. And it has never truly been resolved, except in small stretches. Much of the territory is at serious hydrogeological risk, and when building large-scale infrastructure – such as a motorway section or a viaduct– any uncertainty or design indeterminacy must be eliminated beforehand. In Sicily, there are many “ruins”: remnants of reckless infrastructural dreams, abandoned due to procurement issues, geological risks, conflicts between responsible authorities, or lack of funding.
The railway doubling project between Giampilieri and Fiumefreddo di Sicilia – currently in the news–would run through an area known to be prone to landslides, and of the planned 42 kilometers, 38 would be in tunnels.
Up to now, train stations have actually served nearby communities; after the works, they will be moved outside urban centers, making it necessary to create additional connection networks and invent new models. In Sicily, the key is proximity, not mega-infrastructure. Not least, organized crime infiltration has historically taken root in large public works. Here again, memory is essential because it reveals mistakes–preferably ones not to be repeated. To better understand the infrastructure issue in the South, we can use a parallel: we continue to talk about illness, whereas we should reverse the perspective and begin to consider health as the model.

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THE DESIRE FOR CULTURE, NOT JUST SEA AND NOT JUST TOURISM. THE LOCAL POPULATION AS THE KEY TO REVITALIZING THE TERRITORY. EVERYTHING THE SOUTH CAN OFFER with Caterina Limardo

Caterina Limardo is one of the driving forces behind Zabut International Animated Short-film Festival, an international animated short film festival that, over the course of just a few editions, has become an important point of reference for professionals, enthustiasts, and general audiences alike. Caterina speaks about a Sicily where beauty reveals itself through film culture, people’s participation, and the places themselves.

Caterina Limardo during the talk of Invisible Mediterranean(s)-Journey Across the Strait III on 18 September 2020. Photo by Stefano Anzini

The South and beauty: a widely pairing, just like the South and the sea, or the South and food. Therefore, by syllogism, the beauty of Southern Italy could become the driving force behind its revival.
It sounds simple, but labels can be dangerous.
And they are dangerous for the local population. Sea, food, landscape… the charm of this “touristic beauty” certainly does not lose its visual appeal when visitors fade away and the beach season ends, but what disappears is the energy and intensity of the people who truly bring these places to life.
Those of us who live in the South in November just as we do in August often feel trapped in a cul-de-sac: we consume all our possibilities at the entrance of summer, only to find ourselves, season after season, facing the same wall. We turn back and begin again. Even beneath the sun and in front of the magnificent Sicilian sea, one can experience alienation. In the South, the same opportunities for life that exist in Milan or any other Italian city can–and must–emerge.
The opportunities are there; it is a matter of searching for them with care and determination. They are not always immediately visible. And yes…it is harder work.
The Zabut project is a work in progress born from the shared interests and passion of a group of friends. But it is much more than that. It is connected to the desire to be present as individuals and as people deeply tied to their places, with the dual ambition of personal growth and the growth of the territory itself. Because if a place, a town, becomes beautiful for those who live there all year round, it will become even more attractive to tourists. This is kind of a beauty that does not live off scenic landscapes, architecture, or monuments alone, but off personal commitment, culture, and innovation in content.

Zabut was founded in 2016 in the historic center of Savoca, one of “The Most Beautiful Villages in Italy”. In 2019, the festival moved to the municipality of Santa Teresa di Riva, which was held the “Blue Flag” designation since 2017. Above all, Zabut is an event that, during the days of the festival, creates a connection between a place and a community, between people and locations, becoming a space for cultural participation with a fascinating and welcoming atmosphere.
On the Ionian coast, we are constantly searching for new inspiration, and Zabut is the result of our desire to create and take action.
Today, the project is ready for a further leap in quality that would allow it to stand alongside the most important international festivals, although the difficulties caused by the pandemic throughout 2020 have made this path more complicated.
In that unusual August marked by a temporary respite from coronavirus, yet also by an anxious uncertainty about the future, 150 people attended the screenings each evening of the festival. This number cannot compare with attendance in previous years (450 per evening in 2019), but it demonstrates even more convincingly the public’s desire to listen, their curiosity, and their longing for beauty – in our case, through cinema.
The short films – 450 in total – arrived from 62 different countries, a sign that, in an era when distances are shrinking, international reach is already, to some extent, an achieved goal.
We are ambitious about growing further: first throughout neighboring territories, then across Italy, and eventually throughout Europe and the world. It is an ambition we can fulfil, beginning with the willingness of the local population to participate.
The festival is supported by the Municipality of Santa Teresa di Riva, by a group of private sponsors, and is patronized, among others, by the University of Catania, the University of Messina, and the Academy of Fine Arts of Palermo.
Beyond the many challenges we face – one above all being that access to most public funding calls requires advance payment of expenses, in addition to the paralysis caused by the spread of COVID-19 – we still have many ideas.
We would like Zabut to grow while remaining deeply connected to Sicily and without losing its identity, and we hope to attract institutional interest at a national level.
We are aware that bringing people to Santa Teresa di Riva is more difficult. But then again, bringing people to Taormina was – and still is – difficult as well.
We would like to overcome this “territorial limit” and be able to invite guests and jurors from outside Italy. At present, this limitation is due not only to inadequate infrastructure, but above all to the difficulty of securing greater financial resources.

We would also like to fight, through Zabut, against that stereotypical idea of Sicily still associated with the mafia and organized crime. In some ways, we ourselves still indulge in our past, even in its negative historical memory: in the souvenir shops of Savoca, for example – the village where several scenes from The Godfather were filmed – shops sell gun-shaped mugs as souvenirs…
Sicily has, for the most part, freed itself from that reality, but I do not believe that other Italian regions, including those in the North, are untouched by infiltration from the ‘Ndrangheta and the mafia.
The theme of the mafia has become a kind of folklore that feeds itself through the approval of mass tourism. Yet this carries a negative weight, limiting and undermining trust in these territories. As a result, those who come from elsewhere continue to judge these places through the filter of mafia-related memories and stereotypes.

What is the way to free the South from the South itself?
First of all, by distancing ourselves from stereotypes.
And then by becoming aware that our place of life is slower than that of Nourthern Italy. This is not necessarily a negative thing. But we must not lose ourselves in it or leave things unfinished. Otherwise, we will never truly move beyond the “South”.

The opening photo is by Stefano Anzini.

IN THIS 2020, THE MEANING OF THINGS HAS CHANGED. THE SOUTH IS OUR BEST OPPORTUNITY

Alfonso Femia opens the third edition of Invisible Mediterranean(s) – Journey across the Strait.

“We can no longer just talk; for politics and architecture, it is time to act.”

It was not supposed to be a four-day event, nor was it meant to take place in September.
The idea was for it to last a full week, in June, during which field research on the territory would be combined with an organic re-examination of the themes and situations we had previously explored separately in the two earlier editions. I am referring to Invisible Mediterranean(s) – Journey Across the Strait III,, which despite the pandemic, we chose to undertake also – or rather especially – in 2020, albeit with reduced time and programming, in order to affirm the need and the will to state that the South can no longer be read, interpreted, and experienced as it has been up to now.

It is precisely 2020 that marks the first demonstration of how strong the South can be, and how this strength can sustain the country as a whole.
I believe that what Invisible Mediterranean(s) has revealed – and will continue to reveal – is important for the country. As we will read in the interviews with representatives of local public administrations, presidents of professional orders, and Sicilian and Calabrian architects, the meaning of words and actions can change when the perspective and gaze are different, and above all when dialogue and confrontation take place on site.
“Infrastructure”, “school”, “village”, “territory” carry different meanings and nuances in places such as Messina compared to places like Siena or elsewhere, and the evidence of this diversity must be strengthened and made more widely known.

There is no romanticism in the gaze of Invisible Mediterranean(s). Each investigation brings to light problems that can no longer be confined within an isolated identity, but must instead be expressed and resolved through connection with other identities. Citiens exist within territories, just as villages do, just as landscapes, coastlines, and mountains do. And Journey across the Strait reveals these connections and the overall system of relationship that binds them together.

Citing Cyprian Broodbank, author of “Il Mediterraneo” (Einaudi, 2015), perhaps the most interesting and brilliant narrative on the subject in the last decade, the characteristics of the Mediterranean are often taken as given facts. Yet the Mediterranean system is made up of closely interconnected centers, whose surprising economic and cultural development has become a model for the entire world. As Broodbank writes: “The Mediterranean of prehistory, a microcosm where everything has come to a standstill, is the perfect model for helping us investigate the globalized world in which we live”.

For example, in the past, highly original civilizations such as Cyprus and Malta, which reached peaks of development, were later reabsorbed into the dominant trend – and this represents, in Broodbank’s view, “the dark side of globalization. A warning message for all of us”.

And is the contemporary Mediterranean a sea of relations?
“Absolutely. If in the past it experienced both moments of confrontation and conflict, the prevailing message that emerges is that of a place of encounter – a place where stereotypes are constantly challenged and dismantled”, says Cyprian Broodbank. We strongly believe that, starting from the second half of 2020, national and European policies must invest in the Southern Mediterranean of Italy. Not as an act of compassion, but as a new center of energy for the entire Old Continent.

Journey across the Strait. Photo by Stefano Anzini.

The exploration Invisible Mediterranean(s), with the third Journey across the Strait, resumes together with Marco Predari (500×100) and Giorgio Tartaro, journalist who followed the previous editions, capturing the invisibility not only of the Mediterraneans, but also of journeys themselves.

GIORGIO TARTARO’S NEUROIMAGING FOR INVISIBLE MEDITERRANEAN(S)

Let’s play a game.
A videogame.
Or rather, a game of images.
To make the invisible Mediterranean visible – even in its plural form – we can imagine the bounce of a ball. A basketball, perhaps. And imagine its sound in an empty gym.
As a bearer – hopefully a healthy one – of internal Invisible Mediterranean(s), as a lake dweller who loves the sea, I imagine this ball bouncing from Greek and Latin epics to the recent image of a Mediterranean rotated ninety degrees: unrecognizable, yet fascinating, like a future highway.
From Phoenician and Roman splendours to the Maritime Republics, from the fragmented history of a richly biodiverse “boot-shaped” country to the troubled process of Italian unification, from times of excessive government to times of no government at all… It is astonishing to think that, apart from devastations and agricultural, artisanal, and industrial revolutions, many – very many – things have fortunately endured.
For instance, the desire for discovery: just as in coastal landscapes, so too in inland, pre-Alpine and mountainous ones, it reveals exemplary moments of recognition. Tradition, the will to recover, effort, commitment, attachment, people, identity.
The encyclopaedists work on these dynamics and return splendours. The fact is that Invisible Mediterranean(s) bounces very high. It elects a “Virgil 4.0” and surgically identifies heterodox contemporary heroes – those who fight against the common opinion of the obvious, who research, design, study, involve, and connect… in short, as my children would say, they really go all in.
No, it is not just cool or picturesque: it is an ethical and luminous way of being in time, this telling of Invisible Mediterranean(s).
Those that some know and hide. Those that many long for and cannot find. Those that, sometimes, by sheer luck, we happen to encounter.
And then it becomes a kind of drama. Because they are like beautiful songs, refrains, synthetic dependencies you can’t quite escape.
Travel is about seeing with new eyes…new sounds, scents, energies, sensations, friends, anecdotes…in short: human beings. Women and men who, outside the uniform of formality, rejoice in telling, collecting, giving.
For me, Invisible Mediterranean(s) are everything that escapes the individual, egoism, the idea of status and social position.
Once Muhammad Al began a speech in public. He apparently didn’t quite know what to say. At some point, he said: “Me, we”.
He then reportedly reworked the “Me, We” pronounced at Harvard in 1965 into “Me, Whee” a joyful “me!”, or rather “I? Hooray!” Perhaps suggested by his team or by circumstance.
Personally, I prefer the first version. Which is also my point of view on the Invisible Mediterranean(s), seen from the kaleidoscopic position of the Inner Mediterraneans: it is, fully and legitimately, an “I,we”. A-Sea Our Sea.

YOU CAN START AGAIN FROM THE SOUTH, BY MARCO PREDARI

Invisible Mediterranean(s) is part of the broader project of Marco Predari, 500×100, which was launched five years ago with the aim of investigating, through dialogue, paths of built and conceptual architecture. It has progressively strengthened and expanded, moving from its first Milan-based experience at the Salone del Mobile to other national contexts, including Venice, Rome, Pisa, and the South.

It represents an important commitment for a company such as Universal Selecta, a leading organization that this year won the Compasso d’Oro in the “Office Furniture and Accessories” category. The company supports the process of growth in Southern regions through the encounter and alignment between politics and architecture, also through the 500×100 platform.

As a company, we share initiatives rich in content in Puglia, Sicily, and Campania, and we believe that the entire South can be transformed from an area of development into a territory for validating effective experiences.

CALABRIA IS IN CONSTANT MOTION, BUT SOMETIMES ITS COURSE IS THE WRONG ONE. LET US ABANDON OLD PROCESS MODELS AND FACE OUR “ARCHAIC FUTURE” with Salvatore Greco

Salvatore Greco, architect and council member of the Order of the Architects of Reggio Calabria, overturns the preconceived narrative of a poor Calabria. Its supposed poverty exists only in the eyes of the those who are unable to see.

“Calabria is wealth”
Salvatore Greco opens with this stement, immediately and decisivly removing one of the many stereotypes surrounding Calabria as a “poor region”. It is a beautiful narrative by Greco one that does not indulge in sentimentality but instead develops a rigorous analysis grounded in observation and the memory of places. An alternating vision – close-up and from a distance – that returns the most honest and passionate portrait of the South.

Calabria is rich in perceptions. Its highly distinctive morphology is itself a form of wealth.
It is a mountainous region, made of mountains that face each other across the seas (the Ionian and the Tyrrhenian), and the physical space between the coasts and the Aspromonte is filled with countless stories.
Eight hundred kilometers of coastline, pastoral culture and cuisine…other narratives and forms of wealth.
Another form of wealth is the Calabrian “unfinished”: the rebar of pillars emerging from slabs, awkward volumes rising up, unfulfilled promises of houses – behind every house there is a social story, and this is wealth. Further wealth is the suspended sense of time, as if it stops and then resumes.
A sad form of wealth, but still wealth, is that of lands abandoned due to economic necessity, hydrogeological instability, earthquakes, and floods.
There is also the wealth of ghost towns, where only the past exists, while present and future are merely illusory intentions: the village of Amendolea and its river, the Cretto di Burri in Gibellina, which tells not what once existed, but its disappearance, the aftermath of the earthquake. The linguistic richness of the Grecanic area (certainly not a “minority” – a word that feels wrong and contradicts its enchantment and fascination).

Again, suspended time. All of this is wealth.

Then we move into the question of how to use and invest this extraordinary value.
A first reflection is that some of these situations have been preserved precisely because they have remained inaccessible.
And while invisibility and inaccessibility can certainly have negative connotations, I believe it is preferable to maintain an extreme form of protection rather than resorting to misguided interventions or restoration approaches that turn villages into something resembling and “Indian reservation”.
That would mean losing wealth rather than gaining it – making room for a form of consumption that empties places out, a throwaway use of territories.
Change, “progress”, even in its most aggressive forms, has reached Calabria filtered through its environmental character and geography – sometimes hostile – and this has caused less damage than in other regions.
We must encourage a delicate form of tourism, one that is not offensive or arrogant.
Landscapes transformed into postcard panoramas end up aligning with an undifferentiated mass of postcard-like landscapes.
The danger is that the richness of values is reduced to a merely transitory purchasing power – and the lost forever.

Can the authenticity of the Calabrian territory be reconciled within a European framework? The provocation we are putting forward with Invisible Mediterranean(s) is that of restarting the country (and Europe as well) from the southern Mediterranean.
These are not separate positions, but shared objectives grounded in respect for identity.
In Calabria there is no strong opposition between countryside and city; our wealth comes from the rural world and can be interpreted and strengthened within a European perspective. We are cities, villages, and communities: we must relaunch the vision of the world within and through communities.
For this reason, I believe a surgical level of attention is needed in how tourism is directed. And we must do this ourselves, as Calabrians.
Many things have been “dropped from above” onto us – for example investments in the steel industry, despite its crisis (with Taranto already struggling as a competitor). The Port of Gioia Tauro later managed to transform itself into a transshipment hub, but generating little local spin-off. The port is in fact a ZES–Special Economic Zone–which means that production and processing take place and exchange happens within the port itself. However, the lack of adequate rail infrastructure and railway terminals hinders the development of a potential local economic ecosystem.

We simply need to return to being what we once where, without anachronistic positions, within a framework of real change.
Calabria is in constant motion, but too often the course it takes is the wrong one.
We can speak a great deal about conservation– about architecture, landscape, and places. But places and landscapes exist through their transformation. To trivialize concepts and apply labels – first “sustainability”, now “resilience” – while pretending not to understand what real mutation means, overlaying inadequate models onto communities, is precisely to take the wrong direction.

In Calabria there are two dawns and two sunsets: the sun rises over the Ionian Sea and over the Tyrrhenian Sea, and the water is made of two seas and of the fiumare. Geography is what shapes history. And it is from here that we must begin.
Politics – which is a fundamental component in triggering architectural processes – must detach itself from models that do not work and embrace the regenerative capacity inherent in territories.
Nik Spatari, an internationally renowned artist and recently deceased, founder of Musaba, the art park in Mammola, spoke of the “archaic future” of Calabria – an idea that is less visionary and more deeply rooted in reality.
“I wish greater fortune to this my, and our, ultramediterranean Calabria”.
With Nik Spatari.

A GIANT LOOKING OUT TOWARD THE SEA AND THE PLAIN BEHIND IT: GIOIA TAURO, A UNIQUE PLACE DIVIDED IN TWO, EEMBODYING AND REFLECTING THE DESTINY OF A SOUTH SHAPED BY ILLOGICAL SEPARATIONS. A CONDITION THAT ARCHITECTURE CAN TRANSFORM with Giovanni Multari

Giovanni Multari, architect and professor at University of Naples Federico II, believes that regeneration should be a program implemented through small steps, relying on alternative solutions: if the Bridge is not built, let’s immediately redevelop Villa San Giovanni. If industry is not working, let’s invest everything in agri-“culture”.

Invisible Mediterranean(s) is dialogue, comparison, and investigation. It is a journey and a revelation of the invisible dimensions of Sicily and Calabria. It is all of this, but above all it is a way to recognize and reaffirm the strong identity of shy places seeking a sustainable synchronicity with contemporary time.
The Mediterranean is a vast theme belonging to many cultures, marked by different geographies and united by ‘invisible’ aspects, contradictions, and harmonies. The Mediterranean of the Strait is a hidden and reserved place, despite still being a major crossroads and a transnational hub.
At the heart of this Mediterranean, of the South, Rosarno, the plain, and the port of Gioia Tauro form an extraordinary aggregation of masterful visual and olfactory euphonies, together with striking dissonances and urban distress.
Gioia Tauro is a geometric center, but also a generator of economic and political meanings. A place of failed strategies and missed opportunities.
The Port of Gioia Tauro is a giant facing only toward the sea, turning its back on the land because it generates little local impact, is self-sufficient in its function and organization, and is more inclined to look toward the Suez Canal or Strait of Gibraltar than toward its own plain.
Expanding the gaze outward, the richness of extraordinary places immediately emerges – places that have always nourished Calabria. A predominantly agricultural world, whose Calabrian environmental context makes it fertile ground for an evolution that can positively intertwine with architecture.

In Calabria and throughout the South, architecture takes on the meaning of care for the land and for communities; it becomes agri-culture.
We must invest in the traditions we have, enhance them, and make them known: recent pandemic events have confirmed Calabria’s capacity to be an extraordinary reservoir of energy and have highlighted that the region can be self-sufficient.
Infrastructure difficulties still exist, but we are working on them step by step: for example, our mountains are no longer inaccessible. The Club Alpino Italiano has mapped most of the trails and opened the way to a form of tourism that is passionate and respectful of places.
In these mountains lie areas only partially shaped by human activity, revealing an authentic heritage of culture and traditions. It is a unique monumental reality, that of the Sila mountain range, which contrasts with the coastline – a threshold element of the Mediterranean – where design is directed toward the essential themes of ecology and the environment.
In this unusual summer, the first phase of coexistence with coronavirus, Calabria experienced a moment of great redemption, lived across its entire territory, visited by tourists from all over Italy and even by some European visitors. A sign of attention, appreciation, a first step toward taking – by right – a place within a European geography, also through tourism.

Where do we go after tourism?
Urban regeneration processes are not only made of large-scale transformations. Alongside major works – complex and difficult to implement – there is a small, continuous effort that also reaches the less visible territorial fringes and opens up unknown cultural and physical channels of communication.
We already have an infrastructure system in place that works, and it must be integrated with what is still missing.
The Ionian backbone suffers more, while the Tyrrhenian one is very dynamic, and from these different speeds of places emerges an unusual beauty, the awareness of a diachronic condition that generates positive evolutions out of contradiction: Paola, Crotone, Lamezia Terme, Catanzaro, Reggio Calabria.
There are territorial conditions that can be improved without major transformations, regenerating from the ground up and involving communities and citizens.

Let’s take a step back: how do the different “souls” of the same territory coexist?
Sometimes they are separate, sometimes they intersect. The Port of Gioia Tauro should be better connected with the plain. And if the best industry in Calabria is agriculture, then the agricultural system must be highlighted and enhanced, from cultivation to forestry, considering that it generates a significant economic impact, with exports across Europe.
But above all, precisely in order to reconcile these different identities, we must never stop and proceed in small steps: if the Strait Bridge is not built, let’s redevelop Villa San Giovanni, equipping it as a place of transit, imagining a large marina, and replicating the same program in Messina, to improve the efficiency of the two gateways.
Before thinking about new projects, we should survey what already exists: abandoned places and unfinished construction sites.
Let’s create a table of people who live in the communities; we do not need prefabricated solutions imposed from above.
Let’s involve a network of local businesses, breaking away from a system governed by patronage politics that has damaged Italy as a whole and especially the South.

THE INFRASTRUCTURAL GAP GENERATES A CULTURAL GAP. THE DESIGN NARRATIVE STOPS, THE PERSPECTIVE CLOSES. CONNECTION – BETWEEN CLABRIA AND SICILY, BETWEEN THE IONIAN COAST AND THE TYRRHENIAN COAST – IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO BEYOND THE LIMIT with Francesco Messina

Francesco Messina, architect and contract lecturer at the University of Ferrara, addresses the concept of “limit”: the limits of cultural policy, of environmental policy, and of an attitude of self-imitation that prevents major transformation in the extraordinary space between Sicily and Calabria.

Invisible Mediterranean(s) is a narrative that makes it possible to discover territories that would otherwise remain in the background. Above all, it is a form of ‘proof of existence’., because without knowledge, storytelling, and representation, places and landscapes would not exist beyond their physical boundaries. The Journeys Across the Strait have the merit of going beyond the limit of invisibility.
The limit is the most serious problem of our territories: the Strait of Messina has a geographical and political specificity, a point of tension between the island and mainland dimensions of Italy, a large water space where the distance between the two shores is ‘dialectically’ variable. The journey becomes a syncrasis between these cultures – Sicilian and Calabrian – which find in the Strait a unique form of synthesis and propulsive energy, something that concerns the entire Italian South.
Landscapes are revealed, places are identified, and their knowledge is amplified, extending it to the entire local community and to Italy, in a global expansion where, finally, the limit is broken down.
Invisibility is a limit linked to the difficulty of physical connections between places, a condition that feeds and perpetuates itself through the constraints imposed by a culture of conservation which, in a distorted cognitive process, overlaps with certain environmental policies.
Thus, a geographical limit is transformed into a major political limit that discourages development projects and encourages the abandonment of territories sorrounded by increasingly high mental walls.
All levels of infrastructure are missing, starting from the physical one – and I am not referring only to exceptional engineering works such as bridges and viaducts, but also to basic roads.
In Sicily there is greater sensitivity; in Calabria, the two coasts – Ionian and Tyrrhenian – do not communicate with each other.
The revival of Calabria depends on these connection nodes between east and west, and between the interior, the mountains, and the coasts.
Architecture must intersect with infrastructure projects, acting on the territory to bring out its value and transform it into a driver for tourism flows.

Tourism is a key element for places with unique environmental characteristics. But architecture has the responsibility to look toward the everyday life of a territory …
A country’s strategy can coordinated through architecture, which brings together, within an overall vision, the regeneration of places without allowing certain functions to prevail at the expense of others, and without creating single “vocations”.
Calabria region, in particular, must restart from architecture because it is dense with contradictions; it has been scarred by illegal construction that has continued, unpunished, for years. Architecture recognizes beauty everywhere, even where the “ordinary” eye sees only ugliness, and design is the best tool for redemption.
Redemption and regeneration feed one another, creating places for social life, public and accessible spaces. And precisely the lack of places where people can gather, engage, and find orientation is another serious limitation for communities. On the part of central government, there is a total lack of attention to real needs, and even local politics struggles to understand the true priorities.

Do decision-making and operational processes seem slower in Southern Italy than elsewhere? Is there a different sense of time in Calabria and Sicily?
Contrary to this common perception, I distance myself from the cliché of the “slow time” of the South: time is the same in both the North and the South. The difference is that in the South, Time expands in order to settle, to be absorbed, and metabolized. In the unique space between Sicily and Calabria, there is no such thing as “disposable” time – a consumable kind of time that leaves no trace of reflection or growth. In the South, Time always leaves something behind.

VILLAGES AND LANDSCAPES SPEAK OF CALABRIA. BUT IT IS IMMATERIALITY AND SUSPENSION THAT CONSTITUTE ITS PERFECT NARRATIVE EPIPHANY with Michelangelo Pugliese

Unexpected are the reflections of Michelangelo Pugliese, architect and landscape designer, professor at the University of Naples Federico II: mutation as a stable element of the landscape, and the search for beauty everywhere – even in what is ‘ugly’

Is the South a territory?
Michelangelo Pugliese is not particularly fond of the world ‘territory’, arguing that it evokes a ‘1970s flavor’ and an overly technical, urban-planning dimension. He prefers to use the term ‘landscape’. Why?

Because, in his view, ‘territory’ tends to frame space as something primarily administered, measured, and governed through planning categories – roads, zoning, infrastructure, administrative boundaries. It carries a bureaucratic and functionalist imprint that became especially strong in post-1960s and 1970s planning culture. ‘Landscape’, instead, shifts the focus. It is not just a container of functions, but a lived and perceived space: a synthesis of natural forms, built environments, memory, perception, and everyday practices. It allows for ambiguity, change, and even contradiction – including abandonment, transformation, and informal uses – without reducing everything to a planning problem to be solved. In that sense, speaking of ‘landscape’ rather territory is also a way of resisting a purely technical or top-down gaze. It opens the possibility of reading the South not only as something to be organized, but as something already meaningful, already narrated, and constantly evolving – even in its fragilities.

The relationship between these three elements is in continuous evolution, and this immediately highlights how the expression ‘landscape restoration’ is, in itself, a contradiction in terms.
Mutation is the primary characteristic of landscape.
Calabria is a landscape that cannot be trivialized through opportunistic interpretations tied to villages, coastal areas, or mountains. Starting with villages, we are not dealing with idyllic situations, as the term itself often seems to suggest regardless of context.
In Calabria there is no widespread desire to ‘return to the villages’; this is more a media distortion or an exercise in balancing architecture and marketing narratives.
Often, villages are not only abandoned places, but also damaged by an unforgiving and often ugly form of construction – acts of architectural violence that have unfortunately sedimented over time.
The complexity of reinterpreting them also involves the theme of dwelling, which contemporary society has profoundly transformed.
As well taught in Spanish schools of architecture, the design theme is not singular but must be declared and adapted according to places and situations.
Thus, today, living in a village is different from living in a small town. The actions required must be appropriate and coherent with the historical dimension, the recent past, and future perspectives.
Certainly, the only thing that cannot be done is simply ‘returning’ as if going back to the village had, in itself, a healing or redemptive value.
If ways of living have changed, and this transformation must be supported through design actions, then with equal care we must avoid trivializing the process of updating, or turning interventions into mere salone exercises. A propositive example of a well-conceived project is Farm Cultural Park, near Agrigento, which has enhanced a degraded and abandoned place through cultural regeneration.

The example of Favara is remarkable, but its starting point already had some advantages: the Moorish-styly courtyards in Favara’s historic centre, and its proximity to Agrigento …

Villages to be restored do not all start from the same conditions of fascinating abandonment and decay wrapped in brambles that conceal extraordinary beauty.
However, the intensity of a suspended soul exist in all centres that were once inhabited: a hidden soul, sometimes deeply concealed by ‘uglyness’. I also believe it is an advantage to work on places where beauty is more hidden. In such cases, research can free itself from the constraints of the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio, but above all from certain cultural approaches that do not allow for the new, or take into account the unpredictability of a design thinking shaped by landscape and communities.

Our project, Invisible Mediterranean(s), has the unique merit of revealing the beauty behind ugliness, without fearing to engage with visions closer to a scenario of desolation that to the enchanted forest of Sleeping Beauty.
All of this is the authentic contemporary South: a South that coexists with ugliness and, in turn, coexists with magnificent landscapes, tongues of sea and light. It is a reality that must be valued and cannot be ignored, because it is within it that communities live – memory of the past and energy for the future, the true strength of the South.
It is the immaterial dimension that filters the beauty of landscapes and villages, making everything clear and more legible, beyond the stereotype of the postcard image.
The architect’s work thus becomes more difficult, as it requires the reconstruction of the immaterial dimension of territories, often suffocated by labels and narratives that have distorted their soul.

In this balance between needs and desires, time plays an essential role.
The time of South is different, but it is not slower, as is often said. It is a non-linear time, made of compressions and dilations: at times it condenses rapidly, at others it settles. Actions combine according to this temporal balance, from which design action emerges.
More than ever today, architecture must step down from the pedestal, be courageous, take risks, and accept even the possibility of error.

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