Disclosing the landscape

Abandoned villages and tourism perspectives

Abstract

As part of the debate on the inner areas of Italy, villages are assumed as cornerstones in the historical construction of the territory; they are recognized as a patrimonial value since they express a relationship between human settlements and contextual specificities. Depopulation and abandonment in these places are recurrent phenomena which have been deepened by recent seismic events damaging the building heritage. Reading and interpreting these phenomena require a shift of perspective that leads to attributing new values to villages in order to transform them into spaces of opportunity and potential future project which prefigure alternative economies such as tourism. An architectural vision -based on the analysis and design of buildings and urban relations- can be complemented by a landscape vision revaluing villages throughout the ancient and contemporary territory. The village of Arquata del Tronto, which is considered one of the most beautiful among those located along the Apennine ridge in central Italy, was razed to the ground by the 2016-17 earthquake. What remains is its sediment, the imprint of an architectural work perfectly adapted to geography, an embankment from which the landscape may be observed. The spur of sandstone as geographical figure is associated with the idea of a platform as architectural figure; this is a possible theme for landscape design experimentation.