CORBELLINI
a progressive theory of
architecture (9). Despite the
huge success of audience,
both of locals and vacationers,
and the limited involvement
of architects (as everywhere
in Italy, engineers, surveyors
and other professionals sign
the vast majority of projects),
it is hard to recognize here
the character of spontaneous
building, bearer of some
“truth” able to revolutionize
tired academic manners. More
likely to distinguish the echo
of deteriorated approaches
and theories developed
within our discipline: we
were sadly the ones who built
the ideological framework
and provide the rhetorical
tools which now produce
such results. Well before the
postmodern reaction, our
country was the laboratory
for multiple theory and
design approaches intended
to reconnect themselves
with the languages of the
past, from Neorealism to
the “environmental preexistences”, to the affirmation
of the typomorphological
paradigm as the foundation of
the teaching of architecture,
its practice and the discourses
at the base of its legitimacy.
This latter has proposed a
literal reversal of the design
process, transformed from an
inductive procedure which
organizes the internal logic
of the building in relation to
12 paesaggio urbano 3.2013
needs and local opportunities,
into a deductive system
based upon the control of
conformity, from the entire
urban landscape to the single
architectural solution.
The idea that the architecture
of the city was to prevail on
the individual architectures
which constitute it has been
transformed into a system of
policing unable to provide true
continuity with the past, even
where it has been reinforced
by the supervision of the
heritage authorities, and to
give to high-quality projects
the possibility to emerge,
since they are embroiled in
an increasingly dense grid
of aesthetic constraints
totally divorced from the
reasons why they had been
produced. The example
of Sappada demonstrates
how the application of the
typomorphological paradigm
requires particularly refined
sensitivities, not always
available in our national
design market and especially
in the mountains. The growing
demand of a tightening of
protection represents the
most easy and widespread
answer, but the outcomes
so far produced suggest we
experiment different ways, able
to produce a more dignified
and sincere building “without
architects” and permit, when
possible, the appearance of
some significant architecture.
Notes
1_Treppo Carnico, 2 June-25
September 2005. The
exhibition was then displayed
in Florence, Zagreb, Spittal,
Venice, Mantua and Sassari.
See the catalogue, edited by
Carlini E., Architettura in
montagna. Architecture in
the Mountains. Gino Valle in
Carnia, Navado Press, Trieste
2005.
2_See www.isolelinguistiche.
it/plodnSappada.page.
3_Many traditions considered
ancient have been in fact
invented in recent times,
especially in order to build
national identities, as pointed
out by Eric Hobsbawm
and Terence Ranger (eds.),
The Invention of Tradition,
Cambridge University Press,
1983.
4_“Be true!”, warned a
hundred years ago Adolf Loos
concluding his “Rules for
Building in the Mountains”,
1913. See Loos A., On
Architecture, Ariadne Press,
2002, p. 123. Though it is
reasonable being wary of
those who advocate absolute
truths, the search for a
contingent sincerity, tied
to necessary and sufficient
solutions, here and now,
remains one of the few tools
to give narrative substance
and quality to architecture.
Especially in the mountains.
5_“From the 60s to the 80s,
with a special intensity in
the 70s, the rapid conversion
of Sappada’s economy in
a tourism economy took
on a character that might
jeopardize the identity and
historical memory of the
local culture. In those years
some initiatives arose, first
of all, the establishment of
the Ethnographic Museum,
promoted by the initiative of
Giuseppe Fontana in order
to confront in some way the
dispersion of cultural heritage
in Sappada. Thanks to this
impulse, Sappada joined in
recent years a renewed idea of
its identity and awareness of
the richness of their linguistic
and cultural heritage”;
www.isolelinguistiche.it/
plodnSappada.page?docId=82,
accessed 14.4.2013. Some
further facts: the Fontana
Museum was set up in
1972; in 1975 the folk group
Holzhockar was founded;
“in the eighties Sappada has
been recognized Historical
and Linguistic Minority and
benefits from the funding of
Regional Law no. 73/1994 and
National Law no. 482/1999. In
1995 the Plodar Association,
was formed a cultural society
which has as its goal the
promotion and protection
of Sappada’s culture, and
publishes important books of
a scientific nature. In 2004
the first Sappadian language
courses started, whic h
had considerable success.
Remember also the Sappadian
language teaching in primary
schools which started a
decade ago”; www.plodn.
info/sappada/dialetto.html,
accessed 14 April 2013.
6_A brief ethnographic history
of Sappada is available, in
Italian, in the aforementioned
www.isolelinguistiche.it/
plodnSappada.page?docId=82.
7_Gino Valle, disputing the
Velasca of BBPR, said that “If
you want to bring elephants
into the city, don’t dress them
up as citizens”, implying that
the dimensional excess is
irreducible to the intentions
of linguistic adaptation.
The former Casa ai Monti,
seven-eight storeys high
and about fifty meters long,
remains a sort of elephant,
though dressed in Bavarian
style, as well as the refuge
of Agosto, Mattioni and
Polesello on the Zoncolan,
one hundred meters,
that recently underwent
a similar intervention of
vernacularization.
8_“Something therefore is not
a fake because of its internal
properties, but by virtue of
a claim of identity”. Eco U.,
“Fakes and Forgeries,” in Id., The
limits of interpretation, p. 182,
Midland Books, 1994 (1990).
9_The reference is obviously
to the fundamental book by
Venturi R., Scott Brown D.,
Izenour S., Learning from Las
Vegas, MIT Press, 1972.