MACROSESSION A
Chairs: Bianca Ferrara, Federico Rausa
bianca.ferrara@unina.it, federico.rausa@unina.it
Archaeology and war: contexts, material culture, iconography, literary evidence
In the ancient world, war was one of the events capable of conditioning the life of cities and their inhabitants like few others. Its traces are numerous and recurrent, both in terms of material evidence (defensive systems, levels of destruction that can be deduced from stratigraphic readings, collective burials of the fallen located in suburban necropolises, etc.) and as semantic and symbolic systems (images of war on public monuments and in artefacts of private use) and, finally, as memories left by literary sources (epic and tragic poems, treatises on poliorcetica). The Macrosession intends to address the theme of the relationship between the city and war through polysemous and multidisciplinary readings and interpretations that highlight transformations, continuities, and breaks from an archaeological perspective over a period of time between the birth of the city and the end of the ancient world, with particular attention to the representation of war in ancient cities.
Session A.1: The archeology of war in the ancient world: analysis, reconstructions, interpretations
Chairs: Luigi Cicala, Bianca Ferrara
luigi.cicala@unina.it, bianca.ferrara@unina.it
The war, in the ancient city, returns different levels of interpretation, not always discussed in organic and systematic way. Urban-architectonic evidence and excavation contexts offer precious and peculiar documentary sources. Traces of war events are visible in defensive structures, in levels of destruction and, more generally, in the stratigraphic palimpsests, as well as in the material culture. Also the burial space offers a large sample, both for individual and for collective graves of fallen warriors in different necropolises of the ancient cities. The session, starting from the material documentation, aims, therefore, to get into the different approaches to the reconstruction of war representation and of war dynamics, from the political, social, and economic point of view.
Session A.2: Cities and war in literary and iconographic sources: themes and contexts
Chairs: Giancarlo Abbamonte, Federico Rausa
giancarlo.abbamonte@unina.it, federico.rausa@unina.it
In the ancient city, the dialectic with war and its implications was a constant element of its history. The wartime events that invested it or were triggered by it have left, alongside material traces, extensive and lasting memories that the urban community has variously perceived and elaborated throughout its history. The literary and iconographic sources offer, within a vast temporal span, important evidence included in the plurality of the various literary genres and the repertoire of images on public monuments. The session intends to explore and investigate, in order to grasp their meanings, values and permanence, the themes that the literary and artistic documentation proposes, with particular attention to the identification of the contexts, material and immaterial, of the city.
MACROSESSION B
Chairs: Annunziata Berrino, Giovanna Cigliano, Piero Ventura
annunziata.berrino@unina.it, giovanna.cigliano@unina.it, piero.ventura@unina.it
War and peace in European and Mediterranean cities
Vienna, Sedan, Sarajevo… those cities mark the periodizations of modern and contemporary history, summarizing epochal passages with their names.
Between the late Middle Ages and the early modern age, the scenarios produced by the changes in the defensive systems of the cities, involving the military revolution, up to the construction of the barracks, must be taken into consideration; the representations in a vast iconographic and textual production of ceremonial events in urban spaces, relating to military victories or peace. Proceeding towards the contemporary age, residences, palaces, squares, factories, hotels become places of diplomatic summits, of building consensus, they are theaters of civil wars, armed clashes, attacks, scenarios of round-ups and persecutions, as well as places of elaboration of new geopolitical structures and peace programs.
The macro-session aims to deepen and reflect in particular on the functions that urban spaces have fulfilled in the processes of war and peace and on the symbolic languages used to fix them in collective imaginaries.
Session B.1: The Military Revolution in European cities: transformations and representations between the 15th and 18th centuries
Chairs: Diego Carnevale, Francesco Storti, Piero Ventura
diego.carnevale@unina.it, francesco.storti@unina.it, piero.ventura@unina.it
The transformations due to the Military Revolution led to significant changes in the European cities’ representations, between the 15th and 18th centuries. In this regard, we can mention the new defensive structures, created according to the criteria of the trace italienne, with the construction of new walls, the strengthening of the ports, up to the construction of barracks and the opening of several military academies.
In the iconography of cities at war, as well as in the thoughts and in the fears of the citizens, one can grasp the effects of sieges, destruction or resistance to attacks.
In the Early Modern period there is also an extensive ritual to celebrate victories or peace, with ephemeral apparatuses and religious celebrations, or funerals of military leaders, parades, as can also be seen from the publication of festival books.
The purpose of the session is to activate a wide-ranging survey, which considers European cities in theatres of war, but not exclusively, and in the broader context of the Mediterranean.
Sessione B.2: War in Urban Contexts during the Contemporary Age: Reality and Representations
Chair: Giovanna Cigliano
The images of Stalingrad during World War Two have permanently conditioned our representations of war in urban contexts. Massive destruction of buildings and infrastructures, due to aerial bombardments and large-scale use of heavy artillery, has made a further qualitative leap in the wars of more recent decades, as well illustrated by the images of such conquered cities as Aleppo, Raqqa, Mariupol. This session calls would-be participants to submit research contributions that explore topics such as: the impact of military technologies and different kinds of weapons on the urban landscape; the living conditions of civilian populations in besieged, bombed and destroyed cities; photographic, media and artistic representations of cities at war.
Sessione B.3: Cities and tourism in war and peace
Chair: Annunziata Berrino
Conflicts and political and economic agreements constantly change the visions of cities; tourism is an active part of these dynamics. The tourist image and imaginary constantly evolve, expressing the elaborations and practices of culture and consumption, which reflect the dominant social, political, cultural, and economic balances. The session therefore invites to propose research and discuss how, why, with what tools and how effectively the image and tourist imagery of cities reflect the dynamics of rivalry and war and cooperation and peace; as well as on the real effects that these dynamics have on the complexity of the tourism system during the entire contemporary age.
Sessione B.4: Physical and Mental Landscapes of Warsaw in World War II
Chairs: Anna Tylusinska, Piotr Podemski
atylusinska@uw.edu.pl, p.podemski@uw.edu.pl
WAR-SAW = “bellum vidit”:
The session aims at an analysis of the violent transformations of the city of Warsaw urban fabric, from the entry of Hitler’s troops in September 1939, through the unspeakable tragedies of the two risings against the Nazis (the Jewish one in April 1943 and the Polish one in August 1944) until the ambiguous “liberation”, or the arrival of the Red Army and the (re)construction of Poland’s new capital city. With papers based on documents and memories, as well as a variety of iconography and film footage, session participants will try to report the voices not only of the well-known heroes of the Resistance movement but also of the male and female witnesses among the civilian population that “War-saw” (saw war) on a daily basis amidst occupation, extermination, collaboration and survival in a city that “survived its own death”.
MACROSESSIONE C
Chairs: Alfredo Buccaro, Alessandro Castagnaro, Andrea Maglio, Fabio Mangone
buccaro@unina.it, alessandro.castagnaro@unina.it, andrea.maglio@unina.it, fabio.mangone@unina.it
Identity, architecture and historical image of cities at war
The Macrosession will address the topic of arisen or transformed cities during and after the wars, with reference to their plan for defense and fortification strategies, as well as to the architectures that have characterized their physiognomy and identity over time. Urban planning models and theories from ancient to contemporary age, architectural typologies, construction techniques and their evolution due to progress in the military and ballistic fields will be investigated. Particular attention will be paid to the transformation of the urban image and of its parts, as well as the urban and suburban landscape, through the analysis of iconographic production, theories and techniques, also by the use of advanced tools of Digital Humanities.
Session C.1: Cities and walls of Spanish and Venetian dominions in the Mediterranean during the modern period
Chairs: Alfredo Buccaro, Emma Maglio, Alessandra Veropalumbo
buccaro@unina.it, emma.maglio@unina.it, alessandra.veropalumbo@unina.it
Since the early sixteenth century, the Spanish monarchy promoted a general urban and territorial re-organisation of its Mediterranean dominions in a predominantly military perspective, with the aim of improving and renovating the defensive works of the numerous cities and fortresses. Similar initiatives were undertaken in the Venetian lands to protect cities and borders, in a context upset by frequent conflicts.
The first commitment of governments was to strengthen the existing defenses and to build up new ones, according to the principles of ‘alla moderna’ fortifications: the bastion-type fortification was finalized within the mid-sixteenth century in the Italian peninsula too. The proposals of specialists and military engineers were essentially intended to achieve the difficult compromise between abstract geometric patterns – also connected to the crucial influence of Renaissance models – and real conditioning of territorial morphology; they deeply affected the places, activating urban renewal projects as well as new foundations. The fortification theories, also codified thanks to contemporary treatises, knew a fast circulation in Italy and the Mediterranean due to the war needs and contributed to shaping a common heritage of knowledge, guidelines, surveys, and projects.
A remarkable urban and territorial iconographic and cartographic production therefore corresponded to the representation of war and of the ‘new’ image of the city and of the fortified landscape: the session will turn its attention to it by investigating the multiple experiences of cities and fortresses that were planned, transformed, destroyed or rebuilt in the Italian peninsula and, in general, in the Mediterranean basin, in close relation with the war events involving those territories.
Session C.2: Beyond the Turks. Memories of defences in cities and in the urban landscape between the 18th and 19th centuries
Chairs: Francesca Capano, Salvatore Di Liello
francesca.capano@unina.it, sadiliel@unina.it
From the beginning of the modern age, the territories of the kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and, more generally, the Italian and Mediterranean states, were largely marked by towers and fortresses in defence of wars and conflicts that were repeatedly attacked from land and sea. These architectures, either built on pre-existing structures or designed from scratch, profoundly marked the landscapes, from then on entrusted to the inevitable image of city walls, bastions, castles and towers. Later, between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, new military strategies of attack and defence imposed substantial changes in defensive architecture, leading to the adaptation, relocation of fortified lines or sometimes the abandonment of ancient bastions, now reduced to ruins magnified by romantic landscaping. Despite this, such changes continued to qualify landmarks of exceptional value. By comparing studies on the subject that also use technical and celebratory iconography, the session investigates the permanence or lost of the strategic functions of these architectures, their value in the identity of places and the memory of these fortresses, evoked in a dense war imagery strongly fuelled beyond the period remembered for the Turkish attacks.
Session C.3: “Theatres of War”: The cinematic mise-en-scéne of urban space as a war front
Chairs: Tanja Michalsky, Carlo Ugolotti
michalsky@biblhertz.it, carlougolotti@gmail.com
During the Second World War the European urban fabric, disrupted by forced population movements, bombings and guerrilla warfare, lost its ordinary functions. Any previous rational organisation of urban space was torn apart by the exceptionality of wartime. Cities, previously regulated according to rigid hierarchies and social and urban planning, found itself involved in a process of emergency rethinking its function, also as a result of the material demolition of its barriers and infrastructures. In the ruined centres of the 1939-1945 period, the devastated urban space can thus be interpreted as a large stage where the populations experience the collective drama of war in the open air, upon which claustrophobic recesses such as bunkers, hiding places and entertainment spaces such as theatres or cinemas (often converted into air-raid shelters) are grafted.
Cinematic narratives have been able to exploit and capture the exceptionality of these upheavals that present unique dramaturgical possibilities. Cinematic cities thus become spaces deprived of architectural barriers that make each act a ritual performance charged with symbolism: i.e. Rome, open city, where the open and collective spaces of Pina’s or Don Pietro’s execution coexist with the segregated spaces such as the Gestapo headquarters and the clandestine typography, or Naples, the “stage” onto which the protagonist of the Neapolitan episode of Paisà wanders.
This panel will analyse how films depicted European urban spaces that were devasted by the Second World War. Cinematic cities will be examined via concepts of theatricality and performative space, both from a profilmic perspective and as narrative mechanisms that offer stylised and metaphorical representations of the horrors of war. Arguably, the space of the city becomes a stage for History on which film directors and set designers exploited theatrical analogies in order to narrate the landscape in ruins. The panel seeks to analyse both the iconography of urban space as a warfront through the lens of “theatricality” as well as the meta-theatrical narratives adopted in films.
This perspective of analysis makes it possible to address both the representations of the city at war but also to explore a precise dramaturgical modality, the metatheatre (from Davanti a lui tremava tutta Roma to Le dernier metro, to cite a few examples), taking into account not only the iconographic power of cinema but also its narrative potential.
The panel will investigate the following topics:
1) the razed city as a stage for an en plain air representation of the drama of the populations involved;
2) the use and mode of representation of theatre spaces in war-themed films;
3) the adoption of meta-theatre narrative structures as a storytelling device.
Session C.4: Urban scars. The memory of the war and of the built heritage
Chairs: Juan Manuel Monterroso Montero, Begoña Fernández Rodríguez, Carla Fernández Martínez
juanmanuel.monterroso@usc.es, begona.fernandez@usc.es, fernandezcarla@uniovi.es
The city has a privileged place in the memory. It perfectly reflects the thoughts that each community has on its past and on the way in which it is and was represented. These are places through which political and ideological tensions run, which determine what is remembered and what is forgotten. For this reason, in the case of armed conflicts, those places where, in one way or another, their memory is perpetuated, they remain as scars that allow us to make a living document of the past.
This session proposes the city to be seen as a complex set of relationships in which the built heritage, the commemorative monuments, the urban projects, the religious spaces, the works of art and the images serve to glimpse a past to learn and think about it.
Proposals studying war events after the year of 1860 in any city in the world will be accepted.
Session C.5: European cities and war. Plans and transformations in the contemporary era
Chairs: Gemma Belli, Andrea Maglio
gemma.belli@unina.it, andrea.maglio@unina.it
In Europe, in the contemporary era, war methods and the need for expansion and transformation of cities have interacted differently conditioning cities’ shape, structure and image.
At the beginning of the Nineteenth century, new spaces were identified for military functions, such as the Campo di Marte, and at the same time there was a need to redesign places and structures with military functions, such as ports, barracks, road infrastructures, etc. In the second part of the Century, the disappearance of the need for numerous defensive elements (such as defensive wall) offers an opportunity to rethink the urban configuration, even concurrently with the strong demographic growth and the new needs for modernization. In the Twentieth century, then, the different offensive actions determine an even more evident ability to adapt.
The Second World War required defensive measures such as air-raid shelters, evacuation measures and proceedings for the safety of inhabitants, buildings and works of art, but also the rethinking of the structure of the territory, sometimes imagining the birth of small centers considered less vulnerable.
The end of the war, again, marked the appearance of new studies aimed at preventing the effects of any conflict and then at dealing with the conditions of the ‘cold war’. Finally, the end of the latter, leading to a reorganization of alliances (for example NATO), poses a series of opportunities for reuse and second thoughts, in the face of cases of disposal.
Also in relation to the reflection initiated in other places of scientific debate, this session calls for contributions capable of linking the theme of urban transformations of the contemporary era to the different ways in which European conflicts have been conducted in the last two centuries, and to the measures generated by fears of new possible, catastrophic war events.
Session C.6: Stories and possible futures of battle-scarred landscapes, burial places and places of memory
Chairs: Gemma Belli, Angela D’Agostino, Giovangiuseppe Vannelli
gemma.belli@unina.it, angela.dagostino@unina.it, giovangiuseppe.vannelli@unina.it
Conflicts have always triggered significant transformations in affected cities and landscapes. Besides the destruction marking the conflict-affected areas, some uplifting architecture works bear witness of painful memories. Moreover, in war contexts it is needed to cope with the demand for the burial of both the many fallen soldiers and the more or less considerable number of civilians. Thus, war fronts, cities and landscapes plagued by conflict have variously held: temporary war cemeteries, where the bodies of the fallen were placed while waiting to be brought back home; cemeteries for deceased prisoners, awaiting the final dispositions of their homelands; definitive war cemeteries designated to house soldiers fallen on the battlefields. At the same time, during and after the conflict, burial spaces for civilians are subjected to many pressures full of repercussions on the affected cities and landscapes both in material and immaterial terms.
Moreover, at the end of wars, monuments and huge architectural complexes are built in honor of the fallen soldiers, to celebrate them with mass ceremonies and commemorate their sacrifice and death in battle. These places have ended up connoting natural and historical landscapes in a strongly symbolic and evocative key.
Also in relation to ongoing studies and researches carried out within the University of Naples “Federico II”, the session encourages contributions aimed at reconstructing some pieces of a variegated and composite panorama made up of thousands of cemeteries and memorials for military and civilians dead in war, observing them in their relationships with cities and landscapes, with the symbols and the concept of sacred in the different countries, as well as with the communities’ imaginary. Moreover, the session intends to collect reflections on the destinies of such places that should be reconsidered in contemporary urban dynamics as possible spaces of coexistence for memories and new uses, heritage and new landscapes within the cities of the living.
Session C.7: Medieval sculpture in the aftermath of the World War II: destruction, dispersion and restitution. The impact on research methodologies and tools
Chairs: Paola Vitolo, Antonella Dentamaro
paola.vitolo@unina.it, antonella.dentamaro@unina.it
The destructions caused by of the World War II represented, relatively recently with respect to the development of modern artistic historiography, a watershed in the investigation of medieval sculptural complexes. In the aftermath of the end of the conflict, the loss of materials on the one hand, the restoration and reconstruction of works on the other, have often changed in a profound and irremediable way sculptural works and micro architectural contexts (chapels, altars …), with a significant impact on the critical approach to this field of study and above all on the sense of identity linked to places, as well as on the categories of representation of spaces. At the same time, these interventions have in some cases represented the opportunity for important discoveries on the material conditions of the works, for example revealing signs of interventions made over the centuries to the original contexts, cases of reuse of materials/works, sculptures that have remained hidden after later interventions etc.
How much was irretrievably lost during the Second World War? What was the impact of the reconstructions on the iconography of the places? How many works still survives, although in a fragmented state, in museums and private collections? Which contexts could be materially recomposed or reconstructed through historical images and the support of virtual reconstructions? To what extent, on the other hand, have post-war interventions represented an opportunity for scientific research?
The session aims to investigate, through the discussion of case studies, how and to what extent World War II conditioned and posed new methodological questions in the field of medieval sculpture studies.
The session is part of the activities of the MemId project (Memory and identity. Reuse, rework and repurposing of medieval sculpture in the Modern Age, between historical research and new technologies, FISR 2019).
Session C.8: Royal residences at war. Knowledge, conservation and enhancement of historical architectures and landscapes
Chairs: Viviana Saitto, Mariarosaria Villani, Massimo Visone
viviana.saitto@unina.it, mariarosaria.villani@unina.it, massimo.visone@unina.it
Royal palaces and residences out of town were often cities within cities, and they formed urban alternative poles to the capital. These architectural complexes started processes of anthropization and urbanization that affected the landscape evolution. Palaces and court parks boast a rich critical historiography concerning their foundation, urban iconography and their role in the territory. Other aspects are often less investigated, such as their role into the war years. In fact, court sites have served the function of military garrisons, have been warfare, headquarters of the armed forces, sites besieged by the population, spaces for sheltering people and cultural goods, and witnesses to treaties. These events have left iconographic and cartographic sources and documentation marked the architectural and landscape heritage and affected the set-up and their museification. The session investigates these topics from different points of view, such as the history, restoration and settings of these sites, which have been reinterpreted, in various ways, following wartime events.
Session C.9: “My City of Ruins”. Telling, representing, come back to life
Chairs: Giovanni Menna, Gianluigi de Martino
giovanni.menna@unina.it, gianluigi.demartino@unina.it
Constellations of ruins created by the irruption of the war in the life of the cities are the legacy that petrifies the signs and memories of death. In the same way, military structures abandoned in the extra-urban territory have helped to redefine the landscape by instilling in it a feeling of melancholy or resentment.
The session is addressed not only to historians and critics of architecture and landscape, but also to anthropologists, historians of culture and mentalities, scholars of social history and of history of literature and visual arts, and aims to host essays that have three possible objectives:
– to deal theoretically with the theme of the modification of the individual and collective sense of belonging to a place or a city in the presence of war ruins;
– to present some case-studies considered emblematic of the many possible ways in which life takes or resumes in cities whose face has been disfigured by the signs of destruction;
– to tell the way in which the communities have told – and still tell – through interventions on the stones, but also with words or images the way in which the violence of the armies has marked the urban or extra-urban territories but has not defeated those who they live there: to tell the way the communities have told – and still tell – through interventions on the stones, but also by words or images the way in which the violence of the armies has marked the urban or extra-urban territories but has not defeated those who they live there: remembering as resist.
Session C.10: Factories and work. The representation of the urban-industrial space at the time of war and at the time of peace
Chairs: Francesca Castanò, Maddalena Chimisso, Roberto Parisi
francesca.castano@unicampania.it, maddalena.chimisso@unimol.it, roberto.parisi@unimol.it
The tight connections between places of production and urban spaces, the working class and the territory, production processes and consumption patterns, highlight the crucial role of the factory, both in theatres of war and in peace programmes. From the industrial revolution to nowadays, the factory becomes the interpreter and witness of the changes in society, embodying the political mutations and capitalist visions that are often the primary cause of war conflicts. Within this framework, the relationship between city and factory was consolidated through an exponential growth, which joined productive spaces, living spaces and consumer markets, in addition to raising their vulnerability in wartime. Similarly, prevented by some difficulties and oppositions, the processes of reconstruction, reconversion, and rebirth of the wounded territories attempt to refound this relationship on the basis of persevering economies of peace, able to return fundamental powers to governments, such as work, democracy, and culture, as promoted, for example, by Olivetti’s community philosophy, which made the coexistence of these fundamental values very concrete.
The aim of the session is to collect and focus on contributions that, through the iconography of the city, investigate the cases of national and international factories involved in the war industry throughout contemporary history, with a scalar approach capable of intercepting both the incidence on urban contexts and the landscape, and the impact on everyday life, through the series of productions: objects, tools, materials from which a new idea of modernity and domestic comfort stem from. Similarly, the session aims to highlight significant industrial stories referred to new spatial and relational qualities, in which the organisation of work, the use of technologies, integration and inclusion, change according to the changes that in peacetime progressively involve the whole society and the values and culture it expresses.
Session C.11: The reconstruction in Italy after the World War II (1945-1965)
Chairs: Alessandro Castagnaro, Luca Guido
alessandro.castagnaro@unina.it,
The years following the end of World War II represented one of the most interesting periods in contemporary Italian architecture. On the one hand, the reconstruction of Italy imposed new design reflections; on the other, Italian society had to deal with the past, putting aside the rhetoric of the regime.
Several articles, essays and publications have tried to analyze those years, bringing to light the work of the main protagonists of the period. However, much remains to be done from an historical-critical point of view. In particular, it remains to be understood how the teachings of the masters reverberated away from the main cultural centers in the work of lesser-known designers and in the day-to-day architectural actions and practice. Contemporary historiography very often focused on the work of the emerging figures while neglecting those buildings which represented a particular kind of architectural prose, as Roberto Pane argued in 1959 in Città antiche Edilizia Nuova: “The distinction between poetry and architectural literature finds its best confirmation in the observation […] that it is not the few outstanding monuments that create the environment of our ancient cities but the many works tending to express a particular choral value and to provide therefore, the peculiar imprint of a civilization.” (R. Pane)
Many have welcomed the concept of architectural literature, opposed to architectural poetry; but it will be useful to develop further clarifications and examples. Many publications focused on urban transformations and social housing politics in the big cities. However, what happened in the countryside and little towns? How did technologies and materials from other countries modify or updated the Italian construction tradition? What did the tourism industry create and how influenced Italian architecture? What is the contribution of architects and engineers who designed factories, warehouses, office buildings for public corporations or private companies? Who were the clients and how were they able to influence the designers involved in speculative operations? What were the most important publications and how did they influence historiography, iconography, and specialized journals?
These questions represent some of the topics that we would like to discuss. For these reasons, the session intends to focus on the contribution of architects and engineers who have been less investigated by historiography but whose works developed new themes and contributed to the architectural debate in significant and singular ways. Papers should focus on specific case studies (buildings and/or their authors) and try to reconnect them to the architectural debates characterizing those years.
MACROSESSION D
Chairs: Antonella di Luggo, Ornella Zerlenga
antonella.diluggo@unina.it, ornella.zerlenga@unicampania.it
Drawings of cities at war: constituted realities, images, memories
From the theoretical thought underlying the construction of the project, to the evidence of visual culture, up to the recent and unconventional applications of digital technologies, the disciplinary area of Drawing wants to discuss the role of Representation both in the formulation of the defensive project and in the production of war images and/or in documenting the permanence of urban contexts interested by war events. The macro-session thus intends to launch a debate around the following themes: the configuration of the design of the city at war in relation to the specificities of the places; the complex of intangible ‘architectures’ able to communicate messages but also to offer visible/image/historical evidence of the war event; the methods and processes of cognitive investigation of the traces of the modified city, of architectures or urban spaces damaged by war events through the use of the most recent technologies of survey, representation and narration.
Session D.1: Fortifications and defences, between case studies and theories
Chairs: Antonella di Luggo, Ornella Zerlenga
antonella.diluggo@unina.it, ornella.zerlenga@unicampania.it
The session aims to welcome proposals about studies and research conducted on the design of fortification and defence systems that, in different forms and ways, have been conceived over the centuries to provide protection and safeguard of places and cities. Indeed, there can be many types and spatial forms through which the theme can be interpreted. These include walls, watch-towers, forts, fortresses, defensive systems, etc., which contribute to outlining particular images of cities as well as constituting predominant and recognisable elements of a territory. Projects of artefacts designed for defence but also for offense, so much so that from the 16th to the 18th century there is an extensive production of treatises about military architecture in which the project bases its control on knowledge of the disciplines of drawing and geometry not only for the elaboration “on paper” but also for the transposition “on the ground” of the defensive form.
Session D.2: The representation of war, between symbolism and visual culture
Chairs: Daniela Palomba, Maria Ines Pascariello
daniela.palomba@unina.it, mipascar@unina.it
The session aims to welcome proposals about studies and research carried out on the symbolism underlying the representation of war and its effects in terms of illustration, visuality, narration and communication. Starting from what war means in the social imaginary – from a medium of overpowering and offense to a necessity of defence and security; from feelings of fear to one of elation; from the painful to the civil and ethical responsibility – multiple and articulated, often contrasting, tools have been and are used to give visual form to collective perceptions and emotions. War painting, propaganda flyers, photography, documentaries, maps, media and graphic symbols thus constitute a complex of intangible ‘architectures’ able to communicate messages but also and above all to provide visible evidence / images / snapshots of both the war event and the place where it took place, and the figuration of the thought that surrounded it.
Session D.3: Traces of city memory, between contemporary and digital technologies
Chairs: Vincenzo Cirillo, Simona Scandurra
vincenzo.cirillo@unicampania.it, simona.scandurra@unina.it
The session aims to welcome proposals about studies and research carried out on traces, on fragments of architecture and cities, on what remains of territories that have been heavily damaged either by wars or by the effect of time and the transformations that places have suffered. These are the areas in which contemporary technologies can be used to learn about and document these testimonies.
Drawing and representation make it possible to describe what remains of the traces of the city’s memories, to narrate the transformations undergone, but also to give shape to figurations of structures that have now been destroyed. Therefore, we welcome reflections on methods and processes of cognitive investigation of the traces of the fortified city and of the architecture or urban spaces damaged by war events through the use of the most recent technologies of surveying, representation and narration of these contexts.
MACROSESSION E
Chairs: Renata Picone, Valentina Russo
renata.picone@unina.it, valentina.russo@unina.it
Restoration and War
The macrosession aims to deepen the theoretical and technical issues related to the transformation of historical urban core and small villages in relation to the dynamics of alteration and destruction caused by war conflicts. The aim of the session is to outline case studies, protagonists, solutions and management methods also considering the evolution of the cultural debate, which inevitably produces new instances and updates to every conflict. Into the session will be addressed Issues related to conflicts of any time, with particular reference to: conservation and enhancement of architectural evidence of war conflicts (fortifications, bunkers, etc.); design and construction of devices for the protection of cities heritage in case of conflict; loss of the monumental heritage, urban aggregate and landscape transformations; remission from war damage to conflict ended and strategies for restoration and conservation of the architectural, archaeological and urban heritage, integrated into the related landscape contexts; debates, projects and interventions at national and international level regarding the integration of the new architectures into urban parts ruined by war actions; identity factors, collective memory and repercussions on programs of remission from war damage.
Session E1: War defenses/offenses. Restorations, reconstructions, transformations of defensive structures and their landscape
Chairs: Bianca Gioia Marino, Marco Pretelli, Andrea Ugolini
bianca.marino@unina.it, marco.pretelli@unibo.it, a.ugolini@unibo.it
Fortresses, castles, and fortified walls constitute a testimonial corpus of extraordinary architectural and cultural interest through which it is possible to reread the historical memory and settlement dynamics of a territory; an indispensable corpus for understanding the ways in which a place is garrisoned in relation to its physical context, which has always conditioned the availability of materials, forms and settings to match the morphology of the sites; testimonies with a strong identity character as they are linked to the landscape and historical dimension.
The growing interest in this type of heritage is also testified by the adoption in 2021 of the ICOMOS Guidelines on Fortification and Militar Heritage, an international guideline document for their protection, conservation, interpretation and preservation.
Precisely because of their defensive function, they have always been, throughout history, the target of conquest and therefore destruction, which has been followed by reparations, reconstruction, transformation and restoration.
The session intends to welcome all those contributions that critically concern the stories of defensive artifacts and fortified places that have been, throughout history and up to contemporary times, the object of abandonment and/or historical and modern projects of reuse or adaptation to changing conditions of offense. The interest is also extended to the transformations of those landscapes (urban and non-urban) in some way related to the structures, as well as to restoration interventions and to the actions of enhancement of the fortified heritage, including those that have emphasized aspects of the role of defensive architecture in the context of the war event, with impact of their function at the landscape scale.
Session E2: The significance of Places, not-Places, in the post World War II recovery. The case of Germany and the actuality
Chairs: Roberta Fonti, Raffaele Amore
roberta.fonti@icloud.com, raffaele.amore@unina.it
Eighty years after the outbreak of World War II, the understanding of practical issues and reconstructive choices especially for the reactivation of monumental buildings damaged by War is still of a remarkable relevance to the present day.
New methods of aggression and exceptional events of a natural cause have urged specialists and local communities to establish in the practice of rebuilding novel models and methodologies of intervention that, at times, are calling for the need of taking unconventional choices.
The session aims to welcome, through the help of case studies, a selection of critical contributions focused on the diverse cultural approaches and related technical choices that have been guiding architectural and urban restoration interventions in German cities destroyed by bombing. And that, today, guide many of the interventions performed after recent armed conflicts.
This is also intended to aim at contributing to a possible reinterpretation of more or less well-known postwar interventions, all the while deepening the knowledge of the diverse and multifaceted design strategies used by architects and restorers in the World War II recovery of Europe and revealing their impact on current situations of postwar recovery and reconstruction.
Session E3: The dawn of reconstruction in Italian historic cities: urban plans and fabric between destruction, transformation and protection instances, 1944-1954
Chairs: Andrea Pane, Carlotta Coccoli
andrea.pane@unina.it, carlotta.coccoli@unibs.it
In the aftermath of the end of the Second World War, with the historic Italian cities devastated by bombings and occupations, the urgent needs were the remission of war damage, the restoration of some symbolic monuments and, above all, the house and work for people. While great hopes appeared for a new path in urban planning, in the light of the recent approval of the law of 1942, a first failure was already consummated with the approval of the Ruini law on reconstruction plans in the winter of 1945. This was a true and precisely «step back», as Luigi Piccinato would later say, with respect to the expectations of an “ethical” reconstruction. However, the Ruini law oriented the transformations of dozens of Italian cities, large and small. The plans summarily drawn up downstream of this law had determined, in fact, the new face of the cities, summarily decreeing the disappearance of significant portions of historic urban fabrics and opening the way, in many cases, to property speculation. However, numerous debates and positions had taken place, regarding the distortions produced by these instruments, which defined the path for a first, partial turning point, which took place with the inter-ministerial decree no. 391 of 1954, that required the adoption of the town planning scheme drawn up according to the law of 1942 in one hundred Italian cities. Thus, the aim of the session is to deepen these ten years (1944-1954) crucial for the reconstruction of historic Italian cities, focusing in particular, through the genesis of the reconstruction plans and their first applications, the fate of urban fabrics not yet considered as “monuments” but on which, precisely in contrast with the tumultuous urban transformations, the first embryonic requests for protection will be formed.
Session E.4: War ruins, archaeological remains and urban gaps in stratified cities
Chairs: Stefania Pollone, Lia Romano
stefania.pollone2@unina.it, lia.romano2@unina.it
The conflicts of the 20th century, characterised by the massive use of aerial bombing, left wounds still recognisable today within the urban fabric of the historic city. These can be linked to the presence of architectures or sites reduced to ruins, but also to the archaeological evidence that has emerged as a result of demolitions. These contexts often appear deprived of their meanings and their physical relationships with the urban environments and the communities, which are not always able to recognise their values.
With respect to this field of investigation, the session welcomes proposals – also interdisciplinary and inherent to themes and contexts without geographical limitation – which aim to investigate aspects related to knowledge, critical interpretation, conservation, and design for these ‘difficult’ heritages.
Theoretical and operational aspects can be discussed with reference to the following issues:
– What meaning do war ruins assume in the present, or have assumed in past decades, within the historic city and the collective memory?
– How have parts fragmented by the war been preserved and integrated into their context? According to which conceptual and operational approaches?
– What relationship appears to be defined, also through recent experiences, between architectures ruined by conflicts and voids determined in the historic city? What strategies emerge in the construction of new urban narratives?
– What dialectic has made its way among archaeological evidence, unearthed during the post-war reconstruction phases, the ruins, and the design of new parts of the cities?
– What strategies, also related to the digital humanities, could contribute to the understanding of the architectural parts that have survived destruction? And which ones could foster communication of what has been lost due to war and possibly post-war events?
Session E.5: Ruins in war. Protection, damage and conservation of archaeological sites
Chairs: Zaira Barone, Luigi Veronese
zaira.barone@unipa.it, luigi.veronese2@unina.it
The session aims to investigate the impact of war events on the archaeological built heritage, with particular reference to the processes related to protection, the cataloging of damage and looting and restoration practices. Recent studies have clarified the processes of destruction and reconstruction in huge sites such as Pompeii and Villa Adriana in Tivoli, during the Second World War. Less space was instead dedicated, in historiographical, but also archaeological and architectural history studies, to the damage suffered by urban and extra-urban archaeological areas during war conflicts. The session therefore aims to collect case studies which, using the photographic, iconographic and cartographic document as the main investigative tool, allow an advancement of knowledge for a triple purpose: 1) to map the war damage of archaeological sites, still often unpublished; 2) clarify techniques, methods and protocols of protection and intervention for archaeological areas, which often in anticipation of war conflicts seem to be overshadowed by museum collections and “great monuments”; 3) reconstruct the management processes and intervention techniques in the reconstruction phase in relation to the contemporary debate on restoration, also with a chronological opening that can range from twentieth-century conflicts to recent ones that still affect numerous areas of the planet.
Session E.6: Bombs on Palermo: the defensive systems, the theoretical statements and the practice of the restoration of monuments after the World War II in Sicily
Chairs: Gaspare Massimo Ventimiglia, Raffaele Amore
gasparemassimo.ventimiglia@unipa.it, raffaele.amore@unina.it
The tragic series of bombings in Palermo during the air raids of the early 40s of the twentieth century caused extensive tears in the urban structure of the city and damage to its historical monuments. Among the architectures severely marked by the destruction are also the Abatellis and Sclafani palaces, and the churches of Magione, del Gesù, Annunziata, Santa Maria della Catena, San Giorgio dei Genovesi, Santa Maria la Nova and San Francesco, just to mention some of the best-known monuments that have been damaged.
The section intends to collect the historical reconstructions of the dramatic events of those years, giving space to memories, testimonies, chronicles, reports that also allow to outline the cultural, political, and so-cial framework of the time. Contributions relating to the experiences of guarding and protecting the artis-tic and architectural heritage will be welcomed, as well as studies relating to military fortifications or de-fensive infrastructures that propose analyses and suggestions for their conservation and fruition.
The aim is above all to highlight the significant case studies, the protagonists and the interpreters of the restoration forced to deal with the torn urban aggregate and the incomplete architectural buildings, the at-titude of the bodies in charge of protection with respect to the rules and charters of the restoration already formulated before the Second World War, the theoretical elaborations and the intervention choices in the light of the national and European debate on conservation issues, the restoration techniques but also the results of the urban plans that were drawn up in the following years to restore the historical city.