Architecture-territory for the urban design, 1970-2016

The debate developed during the 70s of the twentieth century around the planning of the University of Cagliari in the territory of the wide area, matures in a cultural and national climate particularly rich in experiences, some of which are proposed by great Italian protagonists of architecture in the Italian peninsula. Significant in this context is the competition project won by Vittorio Gregotti - coordinator of the project team, made up of Emilio Battisti, Hiromichi Matsui, Pierluigi Nicolin, Franco Purini, Carlo Rusconi Clerici and Bruno Viganò - for the University of Calabria (1974), achieved starting from 1977. In these same years the University of Cagliari is launching a design competition for the construction of a university and hospital center in the territory of the first urban belt of the capital of Sardinia (composed by some little cities: Elmas, Monserrato, Quartucciu, Selargius, Sestu, Pirri), where compact city, with some timid and limited residential projects in the first suburbs, gave way to the campaign, and to an economy even based on agriculture and wine production. The competition was won by Luisa Anversa Ferretti, architect learner of the “Roman school” who coordinated the group consisting of Pierluigi Malesani, Giuseppina Marcialis, Giuseppe and Marcello Rebecchini, Giangiacomo d'Ardia, Dario Passi and Livio Quaroni. The proposal is very ambitious; it doesn’t only tried to make sure that the university took hold in the territory, responding fully to the objectives of the call, but proposed a diffusion process of the functions and of the structure of the territory to the large scale: an utopia capable of looking at the future to design its own present. Outcomes of the project prove less mature then original proposal. The project was realized only in part, losing the positivist vision of territorial control through architecture (architecture-territory). The morpho-typological studies, advanced during the competition and later deepened in the preparation of the Master Plan of the University of Cagliari – drawn up by the same design team -not find any concrete results; so, in the in the 80s of '900, a process of abandonment of the campaign advanced, and it will favor, since the same years, the urban sprawl with settlements characterized by fragmented tissues. An archipelago of small settlements starting from the urban density of the cities of the first crown of Cagliari. The urban-rural dichotomy weakens and the territory becomes an uncontrolled urban. The study on the large scale of this territory is often taken up by some planning tools drafted by involved municipalities; however, these tools do not reach an effective implementation. The same advanced strategies from the study for the Ecomuseum of The Rural Landscape, "The covenant by which a community is committed to take care of a territory, preserving and working to increase its value" (Maggi, 2002), which concerns a large part of this territory (Selargius, Monserrato, Quartucciu, Settimo San Pietro), will only have the merit of bringing the attention of the community towards the needs of project on big and small scale, open and aimed in perspective, as it was proposed in the past, linked to the productivity of the agricultural production sector, placing the landscape as the first item of value. But it is with the reorganization of the metropolitan areas, implemented by law n°. 56 of April 7, 2014, that there was a political convergence of intent towards a shared project of territory by the local governments interested in this issue. From this moment some interests, studies and projects ripen in order to exploring the possibilities for enhancement of this vast territory with a return to a careful look at local conditions. The paper proposes a reading of this urban temporality (1970-2016) starting from the needs of the present, by verifying the actuality of past experience; at the same time it proposes some design studies, developed between different scales, in the biennium of university research 2013-2015. The goal is to understand if the urban project may be the most effective tool in the management of times and scales of transformation of the contexts; an open project that shows attention to the needs of development of a large part of the territory, to the aspirations of the communities and to the values of the places expressed in terms of memory and identity. The contribution is concluded with some experiences of project characterized by different scales which faced morpho-typological aspects on the large scale.