Calabrian Blueprints

01 X INFO

02 X DESCRIPTION

Calabrian territory has always been a popular destination among travelers coming from all over Europe to be witness of an enchanted landscape, sometimes romantic. If the Enlightenment century redefined the meaning of the Grand Tour in the south, the nineteenth century, instead, replaced the classic myth with misery and backwardness, the enchantment with dramatic landscapes and the danger of a violent land.

Calabria, as known today, has maintained its introverted character, little inclined to be understood.

Its territory, very particular, is composed by different types of landscapes: from the mountains to the hills up to the sea, all concentrated in a few kilometers. In the 1960s the construction of Salerno-Reggio Calabria motorway and the upgrading of the Calabrian railway network helped to alleviate the isolation of the region, also called “The Third Island” due to its historic disconnection with the rest of the peninsula. However, this has contributed to an uncontrolled explosion of buildings, from the hinterland to the coast, still visible today, changing its characteristics, rewriting the social behavior of the community towards the territory. Over the years the image of mountains, forests, coasts, plains and valleys has irretrievably merged with viaducts, tunnels, wind turbines, dams, ports, bridges and pylons. The result is a new vision of Calabrian landscape that takes these elements into account, and it identifies with them. The link between nature and architecture is now indissoluble, going to decline an alphabet of structures and artifacts characteristic of these places.

“Calabrian Blueprints” uses parallel and heterogeneous expressive forms to tell a new vision of landscapes. A rewriting of the text of Calabrian territory, even natural, anthropic or imaginary, through the use of a stylistic alphabet made of symbols, places, artifacts, memories and signs placed between utopia and reality.

Image. The nineteenth-century engravings of Jules Coignet tell the rural and romantic aspect of Calabria.

These become the basis for the grafting of new artefacts through the overlap of a golden utopian layer, proposing a reinterpretation of the landscape.

Material. On an imaginary orography of Calabria are inserted models depicting abstract architectural archetypes. These can be moved and relocated autonomously to underline how the graft taken from the context becomes an integral part of the representation of the territory.

Perception. A series of elaborates, reinterpretation and synthesis of blueprints, describe with an abstract pictorial language, the most immediate perception of the landscape, up to the point of being translated into an exercise of style.

Iconography. The textile work describes and partly classifies the elements that constitute the symbolic alphabet of the new visions of Calabrian landscape. Each symbol has its own history and value, proposing a synthesis in the flag for a new territorial identity.

03 X ABOUT

“Calabrian Blueprints” is a reflection on Calabrian landscape curated by Pasquale Iaconantonio, Vincenzo Guarini, Salvatore Sart, Rita Elvira Adamo, Cristina Muto.