Progetti contemporanei nei paesaggi consolidati del Mediterraneo. La modulazione della luce come strumento di analisi compositiva

The research opens a new chapter about the studies conducted until now on the traditional architecture of the smaller towns in Sardinia, which I have been part from 2007 to 2010 and has been completed with the editing of Manuals Retrieval of the historical centers of Sardinia. The research started from a socio-anthropological knowledge of the characters, urban and technological centers and from the study of the traditional Sardinian architecture. Furthermore, having the opportunity to meet the Mediterranean architecture on the same viewpoints, the research investigates the archetypal elements of traditional architecture under the aspect of composition. It looks at the ways in which the contemporary design strategies, released by ideological references, take them over elaborating them, comparing with the memory of places, beyond of every stylistic affiliation. Belonging to minimalist positions, regionalist or post-modern resuming solutions, contextualizing and reinterpreting them in a practical and empirical way, even trying to see which characters and modes could be identified as typical and recurrent. This kind of research, which specifically aims to verify the composition and some elements of the experience of this project, needs to be based on the knowledge of the culture and the debate which marked the activity of designers in the near past, from the first modernity trying to recognize which characters were conditioners, which continue to influence the present and which are typical and original in the actuality. For this reason, the research has an introductory part which incorporates some emblematic moments of the debate on the architecture of the twentieth century, referring to reality and figures of the Mediterranean. One is the myth of modernity celebrated from the first rationalism, especially in Italy and Spain, the other one is the debate about the historical centers of the late twentieth century, still typical of our country: in the first season the traditional Mediterranean architecture is transformed into a progressive ideal used to specify shapes and intentions of the new architecture, especially in its character of anonymity and puristic reduction. The first part of the research, introduces the relationship between modern architecture and Mediterranean inspiration and deepens in a critical manner, the weakness of the concept of Mediterranean, founded on one hand in a sham and on the other on how rationalism looks at the historical landscape searching for a radical overhaul of the style of architecture. The Mediterranean myth in the Italian architecture is mainly influenced by the idea of the correspondence of the formal themes of modernity and is used for political reasons in order to find a place of modern Italian positions within the regime. The Mediterranean architecture is not, therefore, re-interpreted conservatively, but revised into a new paradigm, a new way of imagining the architecture. In the second part, by the pre-war myth, still literary and idealized, we move to a more critical and accurate knowledge to the empirical verification and philological sort order, losing the progressive tension of the first season and building a system of strict preservation rules, revealed, too deterministic and inhibitory. The weakness of the rationalist positions, reveals the architecture of the Second World War, who looked to the Mediterranean, devoid by now, of the ideal tension during the rationalism: it is less parallelism between cutting-edge research and charm of the Mediterranean landscape and the question begins to focus more on the relationship with the towns, with the existing environment, and for a certain range of the debate, with the preservation of historic centers, up to produce more and become part of the theories of critical regionalism, political manifesto, as Frampton says, of resistance towards globalization. The enhancement of local realities is no longer specific to the Mediterranean, but is extended: it is as if the great architecture of Mediterranean figures lost part of the universal value, which instead is recognized during rationalism. In the present, after the crisis of the great paradigms interpretive, the debate about relationship between new and old loses strength and becomes eccentric compared to issues considered preeminent. Some great works receive media attention representing particular methodologies, these are exceptional circumstances, related to charismatic personalities who avoid to define a strong theory. This research select a field of attentive investigation to the works of medium size on which you can recognize an empirical approach (not programmatic), which could be recognized as typical of this period. An approach that addresses issues that in the past were strongly ideological - the relation between modernity and tradition and continuity and rupture with the figures of history - out of those programmatic intentions and norms: in this way many architects of the younger generation, active in the Mediterranean territories, they built a sensitive and imaginative dialogue between the elements inherited from the context and strategies - even radical - of contemporary design, defining a fertile scene and interesting to build new methodologies and practices of intervention. Currently there is no attention to the great paradigm, but an open and practical approach. I will approach the scope of this study as part of the Mediterranean, in order to understand the outcome of discussions which are the current approaches and isolating a specific subject of the tradition, one of the most characteristic, trying to figure out how the projects chosen take up and rework the issue. The modulation of the light, treated according to the manner in which you relate to some elements of tradition: the dematerialization of the building mass, the dimming systems, gaps in the patio and courtyard and places of shade. Each of the examples treated, shows that there is a traditional way to control the light that has characterized the Mediterranean architecture of the past and that has been expressed by the categories identified. I prove that there are contemporary projects which reflect those solutions contextualizing and reinterpreting them in an empirical and practical way: this is very interesting because it demonstrates the vitality of the relationship between contemporary architecture and history and how certain paradigms of the Mediterranean tradition have survived as a cultural and architectural legacy, in the attempt to offer a possible answer to the complexity of the problems posed by the existing historic and how have been reinterpreted. Beyond each "nuovismo", as well as the obsession of memory, which often gave rise to an analytical mummification that carries with it the nostalgic for the unachievable quality of the ancient city and the assurance of the absence of quality of the city modern-contemporary, can be an alternative based on the careful study of places to go back to the essential qualities that the architectures are realized in it.