ABRUZZO. UNA REGIONE IN CAMMINO FRA MEMORIA E FUTURO

Contemporary Architecture and its Place in the Provinces

Architecture in provincial districts like Abruzzo are naturally marked by a type of Roman conquest. The architects of the capital certainly played a predominant role also and above all after the Faculty of Architecture opened in Pescara (1967). After a first phase influenced by the presence of Milanese and Neapolitan professors, some of the Roman professionals become leading players as faculty in the new Chieti-Pescara university, also engaged in urban, provincial and regional building works. Conversely, as early as the 1930s, Pescara (where so much was built and almost from nothing) above all was the destination of architects from the North. For post-war reconstruction, architects arrived from Rome, with contracts few and far between, undertaking the albeit partial and humble rebuilding of the indoor market, wholesale fish market, and the D’Annunzio open-air theatre, to name just three projects. The reconstruction of Pescara got off on the right foot, with a number of contracts that seemed to promise a standard of quality that perhaps never arrived. Carlo Aymonino placed a winning bid for the indoor market in the most central area of the city, which included a dual-frontage space: a patio of stores for shopping and parking, and an industrial- style building for the market. The project was altered during its implementation, so only the market was completed, and in recent years it has been refurbished, recovering an urban role but co-opted by contemporary nightlife. The wholesale fish market was built under the terms of the competition design contract awarded to the Roman group Lillo Barbera and Ezio Gardi, but at the end of the twentieth century it was poorly renovated and lost the iconic salt tower, which was demolished for no discernible reason. The third competition involved the construction of an open-air theatre dedicated to the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio. Designs drawn up before World War II had identified a more central site but after the war it was decided to build it on the boundary of the southern pine grove. The opportunity attracted architect Antonio Cataldi Madonna to Pescara, who won the contract to build the auditorium and the attached stele, which was the beginning of the construction of a sequence of quality buildings, bringing prestige to many urban areas. His most significant project, however, was the Fabbrica Monti complex, in Pescara Porta Nuova, with the production facility to the rear and its metropolitan frontage with lateral pleating and undulated façade. The reconstruction plan and later the master plan were entrusted to the specialist Luigi Piccinato, who oversaw not so much the urban project as the building of the Adriatic Stadium, which was acknowledged by the INARCH national institute of architecture, and also mentioned by Bruno Zevi’s L’Architettura. Cronache e Storia journal as a model sports facility for medium-sized cities. The stadium is another artefact (its architectural qualities equalled by its structural excellence) that was tampered with whenever the opportunity arose: in the early 1970s when Pescara FC rose to the premier league; in 2009 for the Mediterranean Games.

Less impressive but equally significant architectures were again produced by Roman architects who rose to fame in the Fascist period: Marcello Piacentini, who designed the Spirito Santo church, its completion managed by the architect Francesco Speranzini, responded in a more sensual way to the icy pre-war interpretation for the cathedral of San Cetteo that Cesare Bazzani expressed in the Abruzzo Romanesque style seen in Collemaggio. A sort of tardy settling of scores between the two “archistars” of Fascism. Eugenio Montuori, who worked on Rome’s Termini station and the construction of the town of Sabaudia, suggested a small building, but of some urban complexity, that connected it both to the city and to the sea. Initially it was home to the Azienda di Soggiorno, the local tourist office, and then to the headquarters of the budding university, and lastly to the Vittoria Colonna Museum, which also underwent a questionable renovation in the 1990s. In the 1970s, fair-face concrete architecture was in vogue and began to be seen in Pescara: near the River Pescara, Palazzo Il Quadrifoglio by Alessandro Del Bufalo, and the Fascist civic centre (Pilotti); Francesco Berarducci’s house with auditorium, its balconies boldly projecting seawards; the Liceo Scientifico Leonardo Da Vinci high school at the foot of the Pescara hills, designed by the Neapolitan Michele Capobianco. Pescara was also the first city to host a call for bids from a private company (De Cecco), with tenders from star architects like Hadid, Fuksas, Gregotti, and Bohigas, with the latter awarded the contract but later disowning the project put in place by local technicians. Massimiliano Fuksas was selected by the same client to “repair” one of their office buildings, celebrated by the architect with a sculptural approach that overlapped the informal with the stereometric. Toyo Ito’s task was far less straightforward, not so much to design the new Piazza Salotto but simply to produce a contemporary sculpture that was a disaster, although no blame could be attributed to the brilliant Japanese artist. While the great names of contemporary international architecture failed to provide the city with a real landmark, this role was unexpectedly filled by the new bridges built over the River Pescara in recent years: Walter Pichler’s “Ponte del Mare” with its pedestrian and cycle path, connecting the northern and southern shores, and Enzo Siviero’s Ponte Flaiano, which directs the sustained vehicle traffic and upgrades the urban– suburban crossover by the Torre Camuzzi towers.

At the same time that big names in architecture were being invited to come to the region, architects graduating in Pescara were struggling to make their voices heard: Simonetta D’Alessandro and Ciro Coatiti built a large Late Rationalist residential complex on the hills; on another site, Angelo Campo built the church of San Giovanni Battista and San Benedetto Abate; on the hill overlooking Montesilvano, inside a deconsecrated cemetery, Marco Volpe installed an outdoor auditorium, with an interesting contrast between the existing masonry structures and new reinforced concrete architecture. In the area adjacent to the wholesale fish market, despite cuts, interruptions and postponements, Lucio Rosato and Ermano Flacco completed the Museo del Mare; the same slow progress was repeated for Luigi Coccia’s Mediateca della Musica, a music media library set on the site of an old incineration plant skirted by the Chieti–Pescara Asse Attrezzato bypass. In Torre de’ Passeri, Fabrizio Chella built a small kindergarten, climatically arranged around a patio system.

Chieti is a different story, with its old own so rich in historical and archaeological heritage that it is unable to showcase it adequately. The only ambitious intervention (effected next to the remains of the Roman amphitheatre) was by Ettore De Lellis, for the creation of the Civitella Museum. It was in Chieti Scalo that contemporary architecture appeared, first with the Expressionist Cassa di Risparmio designed by Luigi Antonucci and Paolo Chessa, the volumes arranged around a core with rigorous geometric and structural control. Subsequently, the new university campus was initiated with a BBPR project, inadequate for the hill site, and was followed by Giorgio Grassi and Antonio Monestiroli’s Casa dello Studente halls of residence (of which only a portico fragment remains after progressive demolitions), then completed with a sports facility, rector’s offices and faculties, designed by Giuseppe Barbieri, Adalberto Del Bo, Carlo Manzo, and Raffaele Mennella, professors of the Faculty of Architecture. In a few years Mario Botta built the large Sambuceto church, encoring the themes from his religious works, while in Pescara he was managing (and encountering massive delays) a residential building site and the university–courthouse district. The opera house project failed to materialize. In San Salvo, along the Chieti coast, the Valdese Temple was designed by Ipostudio, spearheaded by Abruzzo-born but adopted by Florence Faculty of Architecture Carlo Terpolilli; Giovanni Di Domenico built the public library. In Lanciano, Aldo Rossi’s Faro or lighthouse constituted a significant landmark in the urban fabric and since 2011 has

been home to the Rinascimento del Faro art event. In Frisa, Cimini Architettura produced the recent Padiglione della Transumanza in wood. In Francavilla, Mosè Ricci and Filippo Spaini designed MUMI, the Michetti Museum, installed partly below ground level in the old town, rebuilt after the destruction wreaked by the World War II. The church of Santa Maria Maggiore (today called San Franco), designed by Ludovico Quaroni in the immediate post-war period, is an impressive landmark of the time. During the same years that Quaroni was operational in Francavilla, Paride Pozzi produced a number of school complexes in Ortona, including the Leone Acciaiuoli Nautical Institute and neighbouring secondary school.

The province of Teramo also sees contemporary architecture established in the capital city, ancient Amiternum, exposed to a sort of coastal attraction: the courthouse design carried the prestigious signature of Gianfranco Caniggia, a friend of Saverio Muratori and like him turning a vigilant eye on history and tradition, reflected in the roof domes that are clearly inspired by Roman spa architecture. Guido Canali designed the Maglificio Gran Sasso in the Val Vibrata industrial area and managed to give an architectural interpretation to the prefabrication theme of a large industrial complex. Nicola Di Battista revived the communal residential landing theme, creating almost a shared living room in the Nepezzano building. The Adriatic Sea is embraced in the views from Leo Medori’s villa on the Giulianova hillside. Giovanni Vaccarini also worked along the coastal area of the same town, on the site that was once the Cinema Arena Braga, which became the hybrid building that overlooks the sea using Moretti’s approach. The same architect had also worked on the Astra building and subsequently built the Capece-Venanzi house, featuring a wall punched by an abstract bore mosaic.

The contemporary architectural history of L’Aquila and its district must be seen as before and after the 2009 earthquake. In the early 1960s, the city activated a fascinating sequence of experimentation on the theme of the residential building, choosing projects by Marcello Vittorini (Barattelli residential complex, four-apartment house on Largo Belvedere, building for commercial use and housing on Via Strinella, Domus Nova cooperative dwellings), who had previously built the Borgo Residenziale 8000 residential village in the Fucino area, and kindergartens around the province (in Cerchio, Collarmele, San Benedetto dei Marsi). At the same time, in L’Aquila, the Lenti, Piroddi, Sbriccoli, Tomassi group built the new Palazzo di Giustizia courthouse, and a few years later Annibale Vitellozzi designed the INAM building. In the 1980s, Paolo Portoghesi (with Gigliotti, Massobrio and others) played the leading role in creating the Istituto Tecnico Industriale technical college and the Accademia di Belle Arti fine arts college in L’Aquila, as well as a number of cultural centres for the province’s larger cities of Avezzano and Sulmona, the latter where Riccardo Morandi had built the Capograssi bridge in the early 1960s to connect the two separate sides of the conurbation.Subsequently Luigi Zordan took up the theme of residential experimentation with the Monticchio complex (together with Anversa Ferretti, De Amicis, Izzo, Nicoletti) and the houses in the Pianola district. The same architect designed and built the secondary school in Via Acquasanta. The Faculty of Engineering library on the Roio hill (damaged by the 2009 earthquake and subsequently reinforced) is by Giulio Fioravanti (with Rolli).

After the earthquake a housing plan was launched with an urgent procedure that set aside any urban and landscape consideration, expanding L’Aquila’s urban settlement across its district. Projects arrived from brilliant young architects like Renato Ruatti and Corvino- Multari, but today are mostly in a state of wear and degradation. Recent history documents construction of a number of temporary architectures in the devastated urban centre, which propose some impressive wooden constructions, like the church of San Bernardino; the Mensa di Celestino food kitchen by Antonio Citterio and Patricia Viel; Shigeru Ban’s Concert Hall, and Renzo Piano’s Auditorium del Parco. Alberto Apostoli worked on the makeover of Palazzo Provinciale del Lavoro using a geometric play of staggering the new accentuated openings. The hinterland of L’Aquila, also severely hit by the earthquake, includes the construction of Casa Onna by the Studio MAR, a general clinic in San Gregorio by Emanuele Luciani and Giovanna Di Virgilio, a community centre in Poggio Picenze by Burnazzi and Feltrin, the Casa dello Studente San Carlo Borromeo in Coppito by Lamberto Rossi Associati, the kindergarten and elementary school in Goriano Sicoli by Picco Architetti.