Erice: planning for life E-Book

Matteo Tusa

• Herausgeber: Youcanprint
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The book is a manual for insiders or those facing this science which is town planning, to draw up a Historical Center Plan; It is also a guide for those who are going to or want to visit the "labyrinthine" Erice (TP), as with color photographs and text, describes all the architectural and monumental emergencies, even those appropriate over the years and from church, for example, transformed into a dwelling or something else; For each buyer, both of the Paper Copy and the eBook, it is granted free, the possibility to download online, from a Cloud, the entire Erice Recovery Plan that the Author has designed some years ago, and is formed from 107 Tables in pdf A0, for a surface of just 24 Hectares, 5 full-bodied Reports always in pdf, and that already form each one an essay, and moreover, plans, opportune, georeferenced.

Leseprobe

Index

Introduction

Preface

Chapter 1 The territorial and social situation

Chapter 2 History

Chapter 3 The historical cards of the monuments

Chapter 4 Urban history

Chapter 5 The survey

Chapter 6 Erice’s house

Chapter 7 Three hypotheses for recovery

Chapter 8 Archeology

Chapter 9 The plan

List of the plan materials

Bibliography

MATTEO TUSA

Erice: planning for life

Guide to the knowledge of Erice and the drafting of a recovery plan for its historic center

Introduction by Prof. Arch. Ettore Maria Mazzola

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Titolo | Erice: planning for life

Author | Matteo Tusa

ISBN | 9788892667327

© All rights reserved to the Author

No part of this book may be reproduced without the

prior consent of the Author.

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INTRODUCTIONProf. Arch.Ettore Maria Mazzola*

*Ordinary Professor of Architectural and Urban Planning at the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture - Rome.

Anyone who can define himself a common or “cultured traveler” touring western Sicily is regularly drawn to the distant vision of the marvelous and mysterious isolated summit on which Erice rises.

Since ancient times, Erice has been like a huge magnet for sea and land travelers to that extreme western corner of Sicily. It is no coincidence that its sanctuary was one of the most important in the ancient age, and one cannot believe it has been realized there by chance!

The charm of Erice gets you even before reaching it. As we climb along the curves, often wrapped in a very misty fog, we see the stone walls and buildings appear and disappear, with a “surprise effect” provoking a strong desire to reach the goal and understand what playful nature is announcing and hiding at the same time.

View of the Madrice Church wrapped in fog during the field trip of March 2012

It may even happen, as it did during one of the many study trips I made with my American students at the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture, that the fog also prevents the view of the surrounding buildings in the city center...

The simplicity and at the same time the nobility of Erice buildings have a unique impact on those looking at them. Everything from the urban layout to the shape, size and proportions of the city’s architecture presents absolute consistency, despite the millennial transformations and overlaps being perfectly legible. It is far too obvious that those who have built this architectural and urban wonder over time have done it in the absolute respect of the genius loci, which has shaped its character.

All this would deserve proper protection, enhancement and revitalization rather than being a kind of feud of the “Ettore Majorana” Center for Scientific Studies, which only comes to life for one month a year, thanks to the participants of seminars and events organized by the center.

This means that it would be necessary to put into practice what has been planned since 1989 by Arch. Matteo Tusa with his team; it would mean that 365 days a year, the city should be reborn, as the main cause of the degradation of the historic building heritage, if someone still doubts it, is due to its abandonment and under-utilization. But rebirth means reviving not only the buildings, but also all those craft and commercial activities that can develop the local economy. Rebirth also means recreating those socializing conditions that can develop the residents’ sense of belonging to those places, a sense which we could better define as a collective identity.

Panoramic view of Erice and the surrounding area

The very difficult recovery plan elaborated by my dear friend and colleague Matteo Tusa, and this precious book for which I was honored to write this introduction, fit perfectly into this all-round restoration picture of the beautiful Sicilian city.

Plan of the ground floor of the buildings in the city of Erice - Extracted from the recovery plan of Erice elaborated by Matteo Tusa

But there is more. The fact that the book provides in-depth information on urban history, as well as the splendid plans hand-drawn by the author and his collaborators, make the work a great up-to-date guide for anyone wishing to know this wonderful town. In addition, the fact that the text carefully explains the whole design process - accompanied by elaborated charts - makes the volume a gorgeous technical guide to the development of a recovery plan for the entire national territory.

Despite Law 457/78, only Emilia Romagna Region has legislated within the terms set out in order to provide guidelines for the development of a recovery plan, whereas since then very few recovery plans have been properly elaborated in our country, and very few publications have been made to give the universities a good bibliography for the students of urban planning courses, dealing with this delicate matter which, let us remember, should be the main area of development in Italy.

In an era focused on selfishness, in a professional field based on envy and rivalry such as that of architects, and in the light of the immense sufferings and injustices Matteo Tusa had to go through while elaborating this recovery plan with professionalism and courage, I find his generosity extraordinary in making all his precious works public. Their disclosure will surely help Italian professionals to work on their projects.

The work of Arch. Matteo Tusa for Erice is therefore comparable, in depth and completeness, to the urbanistic-architectural and typological ones by Saverio Muratori and Gianfranco Caniggia and, as such, worthy of the widest spreading.

PREFACEArch. Matteo Tusa

This essay stems from the finding that nothing has changed in this matter after a quarter century since my Erice plan was adopted by the City Council (06/05/1991), indeed there has been a deep involution in culture too.

By reviewing the 107 boards in A0 format, plus the historical, archaeological, urban and jurisprudence reports of the plan in order to digitize and georeference it, I realized that a guide could be made, since I do not think there is any other available. And so here came the idea of a paper book, an e-book, and the full plan in a Cloud, where whoever wants can download the whole or parts of it. It should be pointed out that it was all designed by hand, because back in 1989 there were still very few computers for graphics. Because of the disappointments suffered and the lack of solidarity from the many collaborators and consultants, I only mention the mourned Professors Vincenzo Adragna for History and Carlo Doglio for Urban Sociology.

I was assigned the plan in March 1987 by the then Mayor of Erice, Sen. Giuseppe Perricone, who had had information about me since I had established a Regional Planning Commission of the PRI within the Group in the Sicilian Regional Assembly. When I received the call to go to Erice I did not know what was waiting for me and after signing the assignment document I was submitted to, I became aware of its importance and the commitment it required for many aspects.

At the time, besides carrying out the free profession, I was a “cultor” of urban planning at the Faculty of Architecture in the University of Palermo.

Having passed the first emotional moments, I began to try to understand the steps to be taken, and since Erice was and is almost synonymous with Zichichi, I went to the Archbishop of Monreale, the now deceased Monsignor Salvatore Cassisa, whom I knew to be part of the Construction and Urban Planning Commission of the city from 1984 to 1989, in order to have the references to meet the President of the “Ettore Majorana” Center for Scientific Studies.

Mons. Cassisa in my presence telephoned to Geneva to talk to Zichichi, but did not find him, and then wrote for me on his own cardboard, words of presentation to the professor’s then secretary, Dr Pinola Savalli. During four years of almost daily presence in Erice, despite asking for it several times, I have never met Zichichi. Nor did I understand why he did not want to meet me.

My ideas became clearer when the professor was informed by his “informants” in Erice that in my analysis work I had discovered that he had no title to hold the convents and churches, and that the related folders are missing at the State Archives of Trapani.

I do not find it useful to stay on this, I do not report, but I know how things went from my three years of life in jail and in the meantime the prescription has intervened, so I can only hope that someone who has had starring role in my arrest will go through a crisis of conscience and tell the truth, knowing that there is no more risk of arrest for them now.

The fact today is that Erice is without plan in the “A” area, also because I proceeded to distrust the various mayors who have succeeded over the years from using the great amount of documentation whose intellectual property belongs to me, and in fact the now deceased Prof. Bruno Gabrielli, whom I had warned of the matter, refrained from proceeding in 2000 by stopping on a rough plan drawn up entirely on my paperwork.

Life in Erice is non-existent today as then, despite the cableway built over the years. It only comes to life in August for a few weeks. The annual residents are now even less than the 300 of the time of the plan, and for all the months of the year, except August, the place seems a deserted labyrinth, despite the sign wanted by Zichichi saying “City of Science” where, on the contrary, for six days, men and women from various countries meet to attend the rich buffets the professor offers, at whose expense we do not know - because it is to say that the former “CCSEM” and the new “E. Majorana Foundation” are mysteriously not subject to any management and/or financial control while enjoying substantial public funds - and discuss neutrinos in the infinite cosmos.

The only restoration carried out in more than 25 years, and in a fairly questionable way, since it has turned a walkway into a carriageway, is Pepoli tower: all the rest lies under a layer of moss due to the moisture caused by the clouds periodically and unexpectedly investing it.

MATTEO TUSA

Erice: planning for life

Chapter 1 The territorial and social situation

The municipal territory of Erice is very extensive and includes several fractions: Adragna, Baglio Rizzo, Ballata, Casa Santa, Case sparse, Crocefissello, Lenzi, Lenzi Sottano, Napola, Pizzolungo, Pozzo Rocca, Quartana, Rigaletta, San Giovannello, San Giuliano Trentapiedi, Specchia, Torretta.

The territory is so extensive yet the town is so small, located on the homonymous Monte Erice, and therefore commonly called Erice Vetta (summit), which has little more than half a thousand inhabitants, and which was named Monte San Giuliano until 1934.

Until the 1950s Erice’s municipal area was mainly used for pasture or agriculture with orchards and gardens. From the postwar period onwards, a disordered process of urban expansion was observed, especially in the fractions of Trentapiedi, San Giuliano, Pizzolungo, Raganzili, Sant’Anna, Borgo Cià, Argenteria, San Giovannello and Fontanelle, where a migratory flow came from the nearby Trapani and added to the most populous fraction of Casa Santa. This has made Erice a bit particular, because it included, in addition to the three-thousand-year old historic center, two agricultural fractions and a quarter of the city of Trapani too. And even earlier, it also included the far neighboring villages: Valderice, Custonaci, Buseto Palizzolo and San Vito Lo Capo.

In 1955, when the last of the neighboring towns, Valderice, first named Paparella San Marco, gained independence, Erice’s municipality was made up of Erice Vetta and the hamlets of Casa Santa, Ballata and Napola. Very different centers, both from the economic point of view and the one of political and social issues: Erice Vetta with a service sector economy characterized by a tourist vocation, Casa Santa based on commerce and related activities, Ballata and Napola mainly agricultural.

All this was also reflected on the outcomes of the electoral population. As long as the number of voters coming from the capital and its surroundings was fairly balanced, the electoral body was able to cope with the different types of problems coming from the various territorial contexts. Since 1963, this balance has been diminished due to the uncontrolled building expansion of the city of Trapani, which involved the area of Erice and caused a number of problems from the urban, economic and social point of view. In fact, it led to an increase in population and a new reshuffle of the electoral body that brought Erice’s citizens, with their tourism-related problems, to no longer be politically represented in an effective manner.

From the analysis of the territory it is noticed how these changes have progressively led to an economic and social involution.

The degradation in which the city is falling is the mirror of a general state of neglect which started with the abandonment of primary activity, especially the agricultural one, in favor of the tertiary sector; a process interrupting the historic medieval relationship between city and country that had consolidated over time.

The depopulation of the city was progressive. The first to abandon it were the aristocratic families whose wealth was based on the exploitation of the territory; with them the related classes also disappeared, and so on to reach less than a thousand inhabitants, many of which are older people or entrepreneurs who have their own business there, or investors not living in Erice but spending only a few days a year there.

Chapter 2 History

There are no clear data on the origin of the city and the characteristics of what had to be its original residential structure, which emerged and developed in a very remote era, in any case not later than the X-VIII centuries B.C., in relation to its role as sanctuary of an Aboriginal worship that in the historical times would take Mediterranean resonance and dimension, and in parallel with that of strong place from the strategic-military point of view. Both roles motivated its existence and fame for centuries.