journal – Page 3 – Mediterranei Invisibili

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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.

THE STRAIT BRIDGE AND THE MUSEUM OF THE SEA BY ZAHA HADID COULD TRANSFORM SOUTHERN ITALY INTO A DYNAMIC SOUTHERN EUROPE AND A DRIVING NORTHERN HUB FOR AFRICA AND THE EAST with Salvatore Vermiglio

It is not a provocation, according to Salvatore Vermiglio: the invisible reveals itself through a comprehensive strategy of emancipation from outdated and worn-out models. The South, and Calabria region in particular, are vibrant and full of energy.

The emerging – albeit slow – process of restoring architecture to its role as an urban and social driving force, as a means of strengthening communities and as an engine for collective progress, represents and extraordinary opportunity for the entire country, for our South, and for supporting, guiding, and assisting both national and local politics.
The questions and reflections awakened by the pandemic have, as an initial reaction, turned the spotlight onto Italy’s beautiful yet invisible places. To make our places truly accessible and enjoyable, architecture and politics must work together – and quickly: without roads without infrastructure, these invisible places cannot be reached.

Building the bridge across the Strait or the tunnel beneath it (interchangeable in terms of connection, though certainly not in terms of architecture, engineering, and impact) is an important choice for opening up to the world and to Italy a closed-off territory that would undoubtedly undergo profound transformation, altering geographical, environmental, and socio-economic balances. Something would be lost (a great deal, perhaps?), but much would also be gained. Our South would become a strong South, with a decisive voice on the economic and political stage – a new hub between Africa, the East, and Europe. An infrastructure network serving the hypothetical bridge would generate economic value and unlock the cultural and tourism potential of our territories. Architecture, fundamental in this process, would have the task of guiding a conurbation protected from degrading physical contamination – in terms of construction, urban planning, and infrastructure.

In summary and simplifying the issue, the point is that if the bridge is not built, the essential infrastructure will not be developed – both those within the regions and those connecting them to Rome and the rest of Italy. The urgency of the bridge, together with a coordinated and parallel project linking the bridge and infrastructure development, means transforming Sicily and Calabria into Europe. Conversely, stepping back from the commitment to build the bridge would mean remaining stagnant,. anchored to that prefabricated vision of the South, while denying its European and global potential.

Denying the bridge means remaining invisible. The invisibility of a territory is not a protection of its beauty, but rather a detriment to its enhancement and dissemination. A powerful parallel, despite its harshness and discomfort, is the contrast between expansion and contraction. The risk of contraction is extremely high and,. in a global context that tends toward expansion and integration, it increases the danger of permanent exclusion from development processes. To counter contraction, it is essential to direct investments towards schools and both physical and digital infrastructure. Cultural and physical depopulation is a serious form of contraction, and education – together with awareness of the value of the territory – is the only real possibility for reversing the course of abandonment.

How can a pragmatic and operational vision be reconciled with positions of ‘intellectual and protective hesitation’, discreet enhancement, and slow-paced development?
Ours – especially Calabria’s – is an undeserved invisibility. I believe that bringing greater attention to the territory, even through bold and powerful attractions, is a crucial step toward restoring balance between what is visible, what remains invisible yet deserves to be revealed, what can remain invisible (delicate and unique parts of the territory), and even what we may not wish to look at.
Haha Hadid’s project for the Museo del Mare could become such a powerful attraction, beyond the architectural and cultural controversies surrounding it. In this regard, as the Order of Architects, we have committed ourselves to contributing to the public debate, and we have created a synergy with the municipal administration of Reggio Calabria for the realization of the Museo del Mare.

Bringing to light the richness of Reggio Calabria and strengthening the university system so that it can serve as an attractive hub not only for the South, but for all of Europe as well – given the undeniable uniqueness of our heritage – could prove effective, just as it has for other cities, Ferrara for example, also acting as a driving force for urban renewal in the form of a university city, helping to reverse the processes of abandonment and depopulation.

In this vision, villages – no longer isolated entities defined solely by their uniqueness and beauty – could benefit from a network capable of supporting their immense potential. A village is not a consumer product. It makes no sense to speak of villages in a generic and interchangeable way, as a thought Tuscany could be swapped with Liguria, or Liguria with Calabria. In many of our villages there are not even emergency medical services, assuming one can actually reach team. Nor is there fiber-optic internet access, assuming it is even possible to buy groceries without embarking on expeditions that consume an entire day.

What is the operational path to follow?

The first step is to abandon local rivalries between Sicily and Calabria and work together to bring priorities and intervention strategies to the attention of lawmakers. Let us raise our heads again, especially now, after COVID – which, despite the harshness of loss, the severity of illness, and the economic devastation it caused, had the merit of making us aware of how strong the South truly is.
To achieve this, let us begin with architecture, assigning it a strategic coordinating role. We are no longer willing to settle.
Let us dare to make difficult choices. Let us bring architecture and infrastructure together. Let us connect the Ionian coast with the Tyrrhenian coast.
Let us think and act freely, without prejudice.
Let us accelerate.

UNVEILING THE INVISIBLE IS AN EXERCISE THAT OFTEN DEPENDS ON ACCESS TO PLACES: A RIGHT DENIED IN SOUTHERN ITALY with Francesco Miceli

Francesco Miceli, President of the Order of Architects of Palermo, tells us how architecture, historic villages, the territory, and all enhancement projects clash with the harsh reality of inadequate infrastructure. This is not (just) a problem, but a denied right to access and enjoyment

Let us start from a basic assumption: Southern Italy is a resource, thanks to the quality of its territory and the extraordinary richness of its historical and cultural heritage (all Souther regions have a high density of cultural assets, as recorded by ISTAT according to their size). Unfortunately, despite this immense heritage, no effective policy is being implemented to properly protect and enhance it, confirming Italy as one of the least generous countries in Europe in terms of cultural funding. There is no real strategy for promotion or preservation, nor any effort to build a network capable of connecting these scattered small-scale realities and strengthening their interaction and visibility toward the outside world.
Isolated communities live out their fate either as centers of excellence (in some cases) or, more often, of abandonment and decay. They fail to recognize the affinities shaped by history – from their Greek roots to Arab and Norman influences – because there is no physical relationship, no real connection linking them together.
The cultural heritage of Southern Italy, like that of any other place, cannot simply be reduced to a list of sites: it must be integrated into a broader territorial policy strategy that uses culture also (and not only) as a driver for intelligent tourism. Therefore, beyond actions focused on individual sites, it is necessary to intervene at the territorial level in order to guarantee accessibility to these cultural assets.
Accessibility to cultural heritage, as well as to public spaces, is closely tied to the issue of citizens’ rights. Developing infrastructure across the territory means enabling every individual citizen to access it. The lack of accessibility represents a denial of the right to enjoy historical and cultural heritage.

If we begin from the issue of rights – the right to experience the city, its historical heritage, and access its services – we open up an entire range of further questions, because this broadens the reflection on what cities, smaller towns, and villages are today.
Cities emerged and developed throughout the twentieth century primarily as places of consumption. The logic of the modern city is not centered on the citizen, but rather on a concentration of people often coming from other contexts, sometimes rural ones.
Economic forces concentrate people where opportunities to “consume” are created.
The spread of COVID-19 is prompting a reinterpretation (though not necessarily a transformation) of the city, which can instead become a place of cultural innovation and the exercise of rights.
A process of reconfiguration in this sense – interpreting the city as an element of civilization rather than merely a place of consumption – would mean rewriting and adapting the prevailing models adopted up to now, starting with architecture itself and restoring to it a strategic and political role.

Over the past ten years, three adjectives have progressively been associated with the city, almost with a cathartic function: smart, resilient, and sustainable. The so-called “smart city” is, in reality, a rather aseptic expression aimed at governing the logic of consumption in a different way; “resilient” and “sustainable” complete this semantic triad.
We must ask ourselves whether the purification of the city truly passes through these three meanings, or whether they are simply linguistic expedients used to disguise an identity that has, in fact, remained unchanged. The reflection is broader: the rethinking of the urban center involves a new form of urban physiliogy, particularly in Southern Italy, where environmental sustainability has always compensated for unsustainable building practices, and resilience is part of the South’s very DNA, given its ability to recover from earthquakes, structural decay, and floods over time.
Certainly, today a new awareness is emerging, and digitalization has become a key element in the organization of the city. Within this transformation, architecture must confront its own time, attempting to provide answers.

Unveiling the invisibility of the places in our Mediterranean is one of the possible responses.
Invisible Mediterranean(s) is an important initiative because it tells the story of an unseen South – not an easy one, but one with extraordinary cultural, tourist, and landscape potential.
It is an exploration that starts from the ground up, investigating territorially marginal realities that are nonetheless rich in content and in unusual, almost forgotten models, giving value to what can no longer be found elsewhere.
Sicily, in particular, holds strong potential to translate these models into a working hypothesis.
The three “catartic” words in the South become everyday acts of survival.
An exceptionally powerful testimony of this was given by Pier Paolo Pasolini in “La lunga strada di sabbia”, the diary of a journey in 1959 along the Italian coasts from Ventimiglia to Palmi, where, upon reaching the South, he describes expectation and joy at their highest intensity. The route toward Vallo Lucano leads him to write: “Here beauty directly produces wealth. People live in a kind of quiet ease, letting beauty work for them”.

However, the most authentic bond with the territory is increasingly difficult to maintain for smaller towns: the relationship between urbanity and rurality becomes ever more complex, to the point of being torn apart and distorted. Palermo is a paradigmatic example of this condition. The interweaving of agricultural fragments within the outskirts of the consolidated city can become a major resource. These too are invisible places – but a different kind of invisibility from that which characterizes hidden villages. They are invisible because there is no willingness to look at them, yet they are strategic for rethinking the city: not to be transformed into new building developments, but to build a connective identity and enhance their value. This means not denying environmental sustainability, the intelligence of place, or its resilience, but rather reinforcing and bringing them to light.

In the South of the Mediterranean, identity also exists in the outskirts: this is a fact that must be recognized and emphasized in order to redeem their degradation and underuse, and to extend the right to public and urban space.
Urban space is both a concept and an expanded right – an important design dimension for defining any model. It is not an independent variable, but something that deeply influences the everyday life of the individual.
In his talk on “Architettura e Salute”, delivered to the Consiglio Nazionale degli Architetti, Paesaggisti e Conservatori in July 2018, the psychiatrist Vittorio Andreoli explained with scientific rigor how human behavior is influenced by three factors: biology (the physical being, “flesh”), personality, and environment – both natural/geographical and relational – and how, for this reason, it is necessary that the natural environment and the relational environment be coeherent with one another.

All of this is architecture – architecture in Southern Italy.

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