BALZANI
esigenze delle comunità locali che dovranno essere ascoltate e comprese. Ma nello
sfondo di una ricostruzione diffusa del territorio di pianura appare altrettanto
cogente il riflesso verso tutte quelle altre realtà della regione e dell’Italia
non colpite ma che condividono i medesimi modelli di progetto e di processo
realizzativo così intrisi di tanta ingannevole sicurezza:
§ L’inganno emerge nelle qualità dei materiali, nelle semplificazioni di messa in
opera, nella perdita di attenzione al dettaglio, nella ridotta integrazione tra
attori professionali del progetto e attori imprenditori della realizzazione con
ovvie mancanze di trasparenza durante la messa in luce dei conflitti (tipologici,
morfologico-architettonici, strutturali, impiantistici).
“Nothing is built on stone,
everything on sand,
but our duty is to build
as if sand were stone”.
Jorge Luis Borges,
Apocryphal Gospel,
in “Elogio de la sombra”, 1969
Architecture is the core of
the 20th edition of Restauro
to encourage discussions,
suggestions, developments
and implementations through
safe and sustainable projects
(to renovate, restore and reuse)
on the background of the postearthquake rebuilding process.
“Nothing is built on stone,
everything on sand, but our
duty is to build as if sand were
stone…”. It’s fragment 41 of
Jorge Luis Borges’ Apocryphal
Gospel, part of the stunning
collection called Elogio de la
sombra published in 1969.
What does this mean? What
do the cruel limits of human
actions mean? And what do
the conscious questioning and
moving within the metaphor
of Dante’s contrappasso
mean, for architects?
Borges reverses the Gospel
of Matthew’s Sermon of
the mount, which includes
the famous Beatitudes, to
prove how his secular moral,
so disenchanted and filled
with a serene stoicism, can
be celebrated in a pantheon
with few comforting statues,
yet also with limited deceit.
And this is the key issue.
Deceit. The deceit caused
by ignorance, by the loss of
values, skills, models and
processes that can give
a sense and a meaning
to the project’s role and,
therefore, to the profession
of the architect. And I write
ignorance not to write
something worse.
Nothing like an earthquake,
experienced in one’s land,
reveals the urge to undeceive.
We see a sight we did not
want to see and it seems
as if the Argentinian poet’s
fragment went deep into our
flesh: a scalpel seeking for
another meaning.
6 paesaggio urbano 2.2013
Today we face a huge
opportunity to understand
(and to learn) and therefore
to get back to our roles. These
past months, in Emilia and
in the nearby areas, a lot
has been done to start the
productive proces