Ungers, After All. Fragments of a Project for Gibellina
A few years after the 1968 earthquake, the Istituto Superiore per l’Edilizia Sociale of Rome sent the plan for the total reconstruction of Gibellina Nuova, inspired by the models of the English New Towns. After an initial phase during which mayor Ludovico Corrao invited international architects and artists to participate in the city redesign, in the late 1970s a group of professors from the University of Palermo organised a series of seminars and workshops to reflect on the reconstruction. At that moment, Oswald Mathias Ungers was called to design the central area of the settle-ment, which was still undefined.
His Civic Centre proposal reflected on the relationship between built and public space, between city, monument and history. However, little was real-ised, not really with rigour. The hotel, started on the edge of town, was soon abandoned. The artisanal district was freely adjusted to the needs of local activities. The housing along Viale Belice was built but its public walkway leads nowhere. What remains of the block of houses that was supposed to enclose a garden is a huge dry meadow and a small lake, ironically the element most faithful to the original project, in the centre of the town.
Edited by Elena Catalano, Alessandro Iannello, Tommaso Mola Melegalli, Costanza Zeni
Produced by Fondazione Studio Rizoma
Texts by Pier Vittorio Aureli, Winston Hampel
80 pp.
12 X 19 cm
ita/eng