Porto Flavia: an "iconic" engineering work in the mine machine-landscape

“The new triumph arising from National industry”. These were the words with which Porto Flavia was presented in the magazine “La Miniera Italiana” [The Italian Mine] in 1926, an extremely modern structure overlooking the sea that revolutionised the ore transportation system from the coasts of the Sulcis Iglesiente (an historical region in Sardinia). The project was designed by Cesare Vecelli in 1921 with the aim of creating a single embarkation point for the mines that were acquired by the Société des Mines et Fonderies de Zinc de la Vieille-Montagne, while the inauguration dates back to 1924. Porto Flavia is therefore the gateway to the sea of a dense and complex infrastructure network that allowed the transportation of ore from the innermost deposits to the coastal ones in Masua, along roads, railway routes and extremely long inclined planes served by modern funicular structures. The original idea was prompted by a rock spur overlooking the sea, inside which two tunnels were dug out: the top one with the mouth upstream and the bottom one with the outlet onto the sea. The two tunnels were separated by a difference in height of 20 metres where nine large storage silos were dug. During the loading operation, a mechanical cantilever arm poured the ore directly over the sea inside the hold of steamships. Porto Flavia is today one of the most significant and iconic mining-archaeology landscape structures on the coast of the Sulcis-Iglesiente: a Neoclassical façade, almost metaphysical, embedded in the cliff which frames the mechanical arm and conceals the ingenious internal gear, while the plastered surface hides a skilful blend of natural materials and elements derived from the mining production, such as reinforced concrete and the rails of the track. The recovery of this abandoned architecture could become the occasion for repairing, with new paradigms, the rich fabric of relations between the landscapes of the mining archaeology and those of the coastline, with an integrated model capable of creating a new development based on cultural and tourist uses.