Inside the great war d

INDEX

Project Great War 2014-18 Olivia Longo

7-11

A. CONSTRUCTION DESTRUCTION War destroys war builds Alberto Ferlenga

14-17

Military infrastructures and transformation of the territory Andrea Iorio

18 -23

The First World War in the Alto Garda-Adamello Davide Sigurtà

24-29

The white war and the (in)visible landscape infrastructure Filippo Orsini

30-39

B. WAR EFFECT Ruins, debrises and rubbles of the theatre of wars Silvia Dalzero

42-47

The Weight of Earth William M. Taylor

48-55

Memorial spaces and museums Andrea Nulli

56-59

“Landscape Velcro” Annette Condello

60-68

C. MUTANT BORDERS The border Benno Albrecht

70-73

Narrative palimpsests on the move Claudia Battaino

74-79

The landscape of strongholds Manfredi Leone

80-88

The Composition of Conflicts Olivia Longo

89-105

INDEX

Project Great War 2014-18 Olivia Longo

7-11

A. CONSTRUCTION DESTRUCTION War destroys war builds Alberto Ferlenga

14-17

Military infrastructures and transformation of the territory Andrea Iorio

18 -23

The First World War in the Alto Garda-Adamello Davide Sigurtà

24-29

The white war and the (in)visible landscape infrastructure Filippo Orsini

30-39

B. WAR EFFECT Ruins, debrises and rubbles of the theatre of wars Silvia Dalzero

42-47

The Weight of Earth William M. Taylor

48-55

Memorial spaces and museums Andrea Nulli

56-59

“Landscape Velcro” Annette Condello

60-68

C. MUTANT BORDERS The border Benno Albrecht

70-73

Narrative palimpsests on the move Claudia Battaino

74-79

The landscape of strongholds Manfredi Leone

80-88

The Composition of Conflicts Olivia Longo

89-105

WAR DESTROYS WAR BUILDS Alberto Ferlenga

Historians and experts in military field teach that the First World War represented a crucial transition point between strongly different modalities to interpret and to practice wars. The acceleration towards the modernity took place in a short lapse of time, following the outbreak of the hostilities, considering that in the Italian frontline the first cannon shots came from structures – the forts soon revealed to be obsolescent in their referring, even if in an updated version, the medieval fortresses and with their outdated firing and perforation capacities.

A little after three years, the scenery will be completely transformed. Among the new weapons, the air force will gain more and more importance, not only for its explorative role, but also for its offensive use, which, from the Second World War, will be determinant in every attack strategy. At the base of those changes there is, principally, the different weight of the entities at stake. The First World War cannot be seen anymore as a conflict of troops locally opposed, but of armies deployed on a continental scale. The mass dimension of the conflict is indeed the most striking characteristic.

On the battlefields masses of soldiers, masses of weapons and material were located, consequently causing masses of deaths. This fact involved an effect on the land that as no precedent in the history. It was not the same for the wars that without any intermission were carried out during the whole XIX century. The battles, often developing through a single day, rarely left any permanent marks on the fields. In many cases, the occasional confrontation between the vanguards of the different fronts generated confronts in unexpected areas. It happened for instance to the Italian army in Solferino (Italy), one of the most bloody battle of the Italian Risorgimento, when the two armies left on the field around 30.000 victims, but already few months later the battlefield regained its image of pleasant countryside. With the Great War, the question changes radically. The territory is strongly involved and other than the firing line, overturned by the cannon shots, the transformation touches the zone behind the front. Hundreds of kilometres of new roads and railways were built in order to take to the front millions of soldiers. The maintenance and coordination of masses of this entity required furthermore the construction of many aqueducts and telephone lines.

Moreover, in the front line, the prolonged maintenance of the positions required

the construction of endless row of trenches and of repairs excavated in the rock or in the mud. Hence, the modern war does not leave the territory intact but it modifies it strongly in relation to the necessities. It modified it insomuch as to obstruct the same offensive actions requiring the use of lethal weapon such as gases, able to affect the soldiers at the same time preserving the land between the trenches where the infantry fights. During this colossal action of territorial overturning, in which the quantity of means and hands at disposition allowed gigantic transformation, the territory of the war took shape from the convergence of ancient knowledge and new techniques.

As Rudyard Kipling has noticed visiting the Italian front, on one hand a population of farmers and miners continued in the wartime its peacetime activities, terracing and excavating galleries, on the other hand the accelerated progresses of the industry made soon available for the armies completely new construction and destruction tools.

Therefore, the war, implicitly oriented to destruction, becomes in its modern and global version, also an undeniable “construction factor”. This phenomenon happens in territorially vast areas producing effects durable in the time. The Futuristic artists, from Sant’Elia to Marinetti, that enthusiastically enrolled, attracted by the extreme modernity of that horrifying explosion of energy, have been fascinated by this potentiality even if shortly darkened by the more evident tragedy of millions of deaths.

After the war, the work organized by the units and the by the individual action of thousands of infantrymen and alpines will return a territory completely altered, in which the economic progress of the two post war periods easily took place.

The modification took place on more levels. The more striking is, as already said, in the field of infrastructures, especially those connected with transportation systems. The lines were linked and intersected becoming more and more aerial with the increase of the height. While the valleys were cut by ordinary railways, the first elevations were passed by rack railways and, high-flying, decauville or cableways were installed (at the end of the world there will be more than five thousands cableways).

Similarly impressive, along the front lines, the diffusion of defensive structures, trenches, wire fences, which cut as endless wounds the infinite European battlefields and the more compacted Italian front, following crests and rivers.

The Nation after the war received a topography different from the pre-existent and not only concerning the new infrastructures. In many areas of our mountains, for instance, the intensive use of the “war of mine”, consisting in the mutual attempt to blow up the enemy positions throughout long galleries filled with dynamite, determined a radical change in the outline of entire elevations: from

WAR DESTROYS WAR BUILDS Alberto Ferlenga

Historians and experts in military field teach that the First World War represented a crucial transition point between strongly different modalities to interpret and to practice wars. The acceleration towards the modernity took place in a short lapse of time, following the outbreak of the hostilities, considering that in the Italian frontline the first cannon shots came from structures – the forts soon revealed to be obsolescent in their referring, even if in an updated version, the medieval fortresses and with their outdated firing and perforation capacities.

A little after three years, the scenery will be completely transformed. Among the new weapons, the air force will gain more and more importance, not only for its explorative role, but also for its offensive use, which, from the Second World War, will be determinant in every attack strategy. At the base of those changes there is, principally, the different weight of the entities at stake. The First World War cannot be seen anymore as a conflict of troops locally opposed, but of armies deployed on a continental scale. The mass dimension of the conflict is indeed the most striking characteristic.

On the battlefields masses of soldiers, masses of weapons and material were located, consequently causing masses of deaths. This fact involved an effect on the land that as no precedent in the history. It was not the same for the wars that without any intermission were carried out during the whole XIX century. The battles, often developing through a single day, rarely left any permanent marks on the fields. In many cases, the occasional confrontation between the vanguards of the different fronts generated confronts in unexpected areas. It happened for instance to the Italian army in Solferino (Italy), one of the most bloody battle of the Italian Risorgimento, when the two armies left on the field around 30.000 victims, but already few months later the battlefield regained its image of pleasant countryside. With the Great War, the question changes radically. The territory is strongly involved and other than the firing line, overturned by the cannon shots, the transformation touches the zone behind the front. Hundreds of kilometres of new roads and railways were built in order to take to the front millions of soldiers. The maintenance and coordination of masses of this entity required furthermore the construction of many aqueducts and telephone lines.

Moreover, in the front line, the prolonged maintenance of the positions required

the construction of endless row of trenches and of repairs excavated in the rock or in the mud. Hence, the modern war does not leave the territory intact but it modifies it strongly in relation to the necessities. It modified it insomuch as to obstruct the same offensive actions requiring the use of lethal weapon such as gases, able to affect the soldiers at the same time preserving the land between the trenches where the infantry fights. During this colossal action of territorial overturning, in which the quantity of means and hands at disposition allowed gigantic transformation, the territory of the war took shape from the convergence of ancient knowledge and new techniques.

As Rudyard Kipling has noticed visiting the Italian front, on one hand a population of farmers and miners continued in the wartime its peacetime activities, terracing and excavating galleries, on the other hand the accelerated progresses of the industry made soon available for the armies completely new construction and destruction tools.

Therefore, the war, implicitly oriented to destruction, becomes in its modern and global version, also an undeniable “construction factor”. This phenomenon happens in territorially vast areas producing effects durable in the time. The Futuristic artists, from Sant’Elia to Marinetti, that enthusiastically enrolled, attracted by the extreme modernity of that horrifying explosion of energy, have been fascinated by this potentiality even if shortly darkened by the more evident tragedy of millions of deaths.

After the war, the work organized by the units and the by the individual action of thousands of infantrymen and alpines will return a territory completely altered, in which the economic progress of the two post war periods easily took place.

The modification took place on more levels. The more striking is, as already said, in the field of infrastructures, especially those connected with transportation systems. The lines were linked and intersected becoming more and more aerial with the increase of the height. While the valleys were cut by ordinary railways, the first elevations were passed by rack railways and, high-flying, decauville or cableways were installed (at the end of the world there will be more than five thousands cableways).

Similarly impressive, along the front lines, the diffusion of defensive structures, trenches, wire fences, which cut as endless wounds the infinite European battlefields and the more compacted Italian front, following crests and rivers.

The Nation after the war received a topography different from the pre-existent and not only concerning the new infrastructures. In many areas of our mountains, for instance, the intensive use of the “war of mine”, consisting in the mutual attempt to blow up the enemy positions throughout long galleries filled with dynamite, determined a radical change in the outline of entire elevations: from

THE WHITE WAR AND THE (IN)VISIBLE LANDSCAPE INFRASTRUCTURE Filippo Orsini

(In)visible landscape infrastructure.

To accept the mountains, a man needs to be born there or to be forced: too many demons live in there1 .

1

Translation by the editor: R. Kipling, La guerra nelle montagne, Impressioni dal fronte italiano, M. Zamorani (ed.), Ugo Mursia Editore, Milano 2011, p. 12.

Introduction The war operation in altitude took place in the extreme north-west limit of the Italian front – in the Giudicarie mountains, on the massive and harsh glacier of the Adamello, along the chain that from the Passo del Tonale goes to the Stelvio – in topographic conditions and characteristics that were totally different from the rest of the European frontlines.

The white war is a war obliging to go up, a continuous and inexorably strenuous climbing, drying bodies and minds forcing to abandon in the valley, downward, all that is superfluous.

Translating into construction practice this effort involve the necessity to unveil assembling methods and modalities, literally eliminating everything that is other than structural to reach the basics of the ars costruens and of the architectural discipline.

The tracks and the signs in the topography, the nervous trend of the orography are the ruler, reducing each intervention to the essential. The landscape infrastructure develops, adapting continuously to the altitude. Crossing the peaks of the glacier, these signs will become intangible: from the lightness of the aerial pattern of the suspended cables drawing courageous trajectories in the void, towards the ephemeral and temporary immateriality of the light in the nocturnal mountainous landscape.

During the construction of those war scenarios in the mountain, there is no activity to be consider implicitly not heroic, but actually any operational method had one final goal: to shorten the agony of the effort as much as possible, stopping the suffering against nature which obliged the actors – mostly constituted not by expert alpines, but by Lucanian farmers or Sardinian miners – to practice settling activities in the territory, there where nature dominates.

Behind the rhetoric narrations, there is a reality of a modus operandi based on punctual strategies.

The military civil engineering department developed some manuals which offered a complete abacus of the technical prescriptions for each of the different military thematic to face in the battlefield.

Obviously, the areas determined uncertainties and peculiarity impossible to foresee. But this idea of providing a reassuring manual, theoretically able to offer solutions for any operative necessity, meant also, for the soldiers, having a psychological support to overcome the emergencies of extreme situations.

Nothing can be considered more extreme than the building process, which led to the realization of two complementary infrastructural systems in very short time: photoelectric and cableway, both realized in order to control the alpine peaks of the western frontline running along the Alto Garda and the Passo del Tonale.

THE WHITE WAR AND THE (IN)VISIBLE LANDSCAPE INFRASTRUCTURE Filippo Orsini

(In)visible landscape infrastructure.

To accept the mountains, a man needs to be born there or to be forced: too many demons live in there1 .

1

Translation by the editor: R. Kipling, La guerra nelle montagne, Impressioni dal fronte italiano, M. Zamorani (ed.), Ugo Mursia Editore, Milano 2011, p. 12.

Introduction The war operation in altitude took place in the extreme north-west limit of the Italian front – in the Giudicarie mountains, on the massive and harsh glacier of the Adamello, along the chain that from the Passo del Tonale goes to the Stelvio – in topographic conditions and characteristics that were totally different from the rest of the European frontlines.

The white war is a war obliging to go up, a continuous and inexorably strenuous climbing, drying bodies and minds forcing to abandon in the valley, downward, all that is superfluous.

Translating into construction practice this effort involve the necessity to unveil assembling methods and modalities, literally eliminating everything that is other than structural to reach the basics of the ars costruens and of the architectural discipline.

The tracks and the signs in the topography, the nervous trend of the orography are the ruler, reducing each intervention to the essential. The landscape infrastructure develops, adapting continuously to the altitude. Crossing the peaks of the glacier, these signs will become intangible: from the lightness of the aerial pattern of the suspended cables drawing courageous trajectories in the void, towards the ephemeral and temporary immateriality of the light in the nocturnal mountainous landscape.

During the construction of those war scenarios in the mountain, there is no activity to be consider implicitly not heroic, but actually any operational method had one final goal: to shorten the agony of the effort as much as possible, stopping the suffering against nature which obliged the actors – mostly constituted not by expert alpines, but by Lucanian farmers or Sardinian miners – to practice settling activities in the territory, there where nature dominates.

Behind the rhetoric narrations, there is a reality of a modus operandi based on punctual strategies.

The military civil engineering department developed some manuals which offered a complete abacus of the technical prescriptions for each of the different military thematic to face in the battlefield.

Obviously, the areas determined uncertainties and peculiarity impossible to foresee. But this idea of providing a reassuring manual, theoretically able to offer solutions for any operative necessity, meant also, for the soldiers, having a psychological support to overcome the emergencies of extreme situations.

Nothing can be considered more extreme than the building process, which led to the realization of two complementary infrastructural systems in very short time: photoelectric and cableway, both realized in order to control the alpine peaks of the western frontline running along the Alto Garda and the Passo del Tonale.

Construction technique The materials for assembly are new materials for the time, completely removable and safe: the stations cage, made of iron trellises; with the stands, formed by tubes, which fit one into the other; the motors and the mechanisms and the rollers of ropes; the two carrying cables, each of which constitutes the single rail, on which the carriage slides, the two hauling cables: one pulls the cart upstream, descending to the valley.

Entrance gallery generator group with projector pit.

Projector placed in ice gallery on the Adamello.

Realization and use Where the stations are marked, the miners started the excavation work: preparing the plots, access roads, shelters for soldiers and materials. The drillers work unceasingly; the rock opens, and there an esplanade forms.

Everything is ready: a column of baggage goes up along the trail, bringing, divided and sorted, all materials; pipes for easels are placed at predetermined points; the irons for the driving station continues all the way up at the top. Meanwhile, at the lower station, in few hours the irons are prepared: the cage bearing mechanisms (connected with the ropes) is formed: it is firmly resisting the rope tension, it is ballasted with stones, franked with posts and struts.

Another team is waiting at the stands: individual tubes are sorted in the required order, to form the uprights, and these are tightened by cross members, connected by diagonal; at the top there is the head, on which the carrying cables rest; below, on the crossbar, the rollers are located, which guide the hauling cables. The

soldiers prepare the props, the forks, the strings: the stand legs are spotted on the ground, the forks raise the head, the ropes, rightly tensed, ensure the balance: and tripod rises gradually, and it is implanted in the ground, and it is balanced in place.

Once the cages of the stations are completed and engines are mounted, the most serious and delicate work starts: the transport and the launch of the ropes.

The rollers are next to the station, at the bottom of the valley more or less, up to where the road allowed the transport with mules: ropes need to be transported on the top, to the drive engine, and from there they need to be launched, through the trestles.

To enable the transport, the rope is held by the roller, and it forms successive rolls, all connected, ten, twelve meters for heavier cables, twenty-five, thirty for the others.

The first suspension cable is ready: they are eighty, ninety rolls; and in the night, among the mule track or the trails, a long column of soldiers proceed slowly, at a steady pace, and every soldier carries a roll on the shoulder, and everyone is joined to the preceding of following companions, with a short section of rope that intercedes between the successive rolls. Forming a chain in which every man is no longer free in his movements.

When all the ropes are brought at the top, then the first detaches from the ground, lifted, disposing in a catenary shape, until it is at the correct tension. So for each rope, the work is done; the final step is to join trucks to tensioning cables.

Construction technique The materials for assembly are new materials for the time, completely removable and safe: the stations cage, made of iron trellises; with the stands, formed by tubes, which fit one into the other; the motors and the mechanisms and the rollers of ropes; the two carrying cables, each of which constitutes the single rail, on which the carriage slides, the two hauling cables: one pulls the cart upstream, descending to the valley.

Entrance gallery generator group with projector pit.

Projector placed in ice gallery on the Adamello.

Realization and use Where the stations are marked, the miners started the excavation work: preparing the plots, access roads, shelters for soldiers and materials. The drillers work unceasingly; the rock opens, and there an esplanade forms.

Everything is ready: a column of baggage goes up along the trail, bringing, divided and sorted, all materials; pipes for easels are placed at predetermined points; the irons for the driving station continues all the way up at the top. Meanwhile, at the lower station, in few hours the irons are prepared: the cage bearing mechanisms (connected with the ropes) is formed: it is firmly resisting the rope tension, it is ballasted with stones, franked with posts and struts.

Another team is waiting at the stands: individual tubes are sorted in the required order, to form the uprights, and these are tightened by cross members, connected by diagonal; at the top there is the head, on which the carrying cables rest; below, on the crossbar, the rollers are located, which guide the hauling cables. The

soldiers prepare the props, the forks, the strings: the stand legs are spotted on the ground, the forks raise the head, the ropes, rightly tensed, ensure the balance: and tripod rises gradually, and it is implanted in the ground, and it is balanced in place.

Once the cages of the stations are completed and engines are mounted, the most serious and delicate work starts: the transport and the launch of the ropes.

The rollers are next to the station, at the bottom of the valley more or less, up to where the road allowed the transport with mules: ropes need to be transported on the top, to the drive engine, and from there they need to be launched, through the trestles.

To enable the transport, the rope is held by the roller, and it forms successive rolls, all connected, ten, twelve meters for heavier cables, twenty-five, thirty for the others.

The first suspension cable is ready: they are eighty, ninety rolls; and in the night, among the mule track or the trails, a long column of soldiers proceed slowly, at a steady pace, and every soldier carries a roll on the shoulder, and everyone is joined to the preceding of following companions, with a short section of rope that intercedes between the successive rolls. Forming a chain in which every man is no longer free in his movements.

When all the ropes are brought at the top, then the first detaches from the ground, lifted, disposing in a catenary shape, until it is at the correct tension. So for each rope, the work is done; the final step is to join trucks to tensioning cables.

THE PASSAGE OF STRONGHOLDS Manfredi Leone Territorial defence led to extraordinary results in terms of forming and transforming the territory and landscape, at times with spectacular sights and incredible sizes.

The one hundred year anniversary since the beginning of the First World War offered a hint for reflecting on the spin-offs on the landscape, caused by the war and more in general by the defensive structures and their relation with the surrounding landscape.

The ancient landscape of strongholds: east and west An example that we could define of “continental” scale consists in the construction of the Great Wall of China, which had the purpose to defend the territories, a monumental work which completion, if we can talk about completion in this case, is the result of an 18-century activity.

The construction of the Great Wall began in 215 B.C. and, according to the latest measurements carried out with satellite instruments and infrared researches, it is 8,851 km long and no longer 6,500 km, as previously stated. There are traces of fortifications in the territory, of shorter length and uneven, dating back up to the 8th century B.C. Named “the wall of 10,000 Li”1, this gigantic defensive work mainly consists of a large defence portion above ground, to which trenches were added for 350 km and natural defences – impassable and inaccessible territories – for about 2250 km. Differently from the most widespread image of this work, the transformation of the Chinese territory does not lie in a continues and coherent element.

Construction, ordered by Emperor Qín Shi Huáng in the 3rd century B.C., carried on for almost 18 century until the Ming dynasty, under which empire the Chinese provinces extended along a vast territory difficult to control, often involved in conflicts with local tribes between the regions of Mongolia and Manchuria.

The latest wall, which is the most popular and visited, is the most architecturally refined and structured. It consists of a double wall structure interrupted by square-plan towers, built with advanced construction techniques and square stone, as well as clay bricks, lighter and easier to work.

This is an evolution of the first, most ancient portions, made with beaten earth, stones and wood. The Chinese wall incredibly merges with the landscape, both

1

A Li is approximately 500 meters.

The Great Wall of China.

in its recent and more rural and less imposing sections, an infinite border that graciously and effectively depicts and enhances the impassable landscape of Chinese mountains, in particular north of imperial territories. UNESCO declared the Great Wall world heritage in 1987.

There are two examples of the shorter section but with similar purposes in the ancient history of Europe, that mark the landscape of the British island: Hadrian’s Wall (122 A.C.) and the Antonine Wall (142 A.C.) The size of the Roman Empire found its limit at the boundaries with the English territory that borders with today’s Scotia.

The constant incursions of barbarian Picts’ tribes, led to the construction of defences: the Hadrian’s Wall was built as complex system of elements arranged along a line. The system consists of an embankment and ditch with pointed posts, a 5-metre high stone wall, a road and a ditch marked by two banks. A simple and effective work, but complex at the same time: a section of 117 km cuts in half the entire territory of the British island, rising on the hills that characterise the landscape from the Tyne River to the East up to Solvay Firth to the West, cutting the entire region. The Antonine Wall realised by Antoninus Pius just afterwards, shifts the defence landscape by a few kilometres to the north, for a shorter

THE PASSAGE OF STRONGHOLDS Manfredi Leone Territorial defence led to extraordinary results in terms of forming and transforming the territory and landscape, at times with spectacular sights and incredible sizes.

The one hundred year anniversary since the beginning of the First World War offered a hint for reflecting on the spin-offs on the landscape, caused by the war and more in general by the defensive structures and their relation with the surrounding landscape.

The ancient landscape of strongholds: east and west An example that we could define of “continental” scale consists in the construction of the Great Wall of China, which had the purpose to defend the territories, a monumental work which completion, if we can talk about completion in this case, is the result of an 18-century activity.

The construction of the Great Wall began in 215 B.C. and, according to the latest measurements carried out with satellite instruments and infrared researches, it is 8,851 km long and no longer 6,500 km, as previously stated. There are traces of fortifications in the territory, of shorter length and uneven, dating back up to the 8th century B.C. Named “the wall of 10,000 Li”1, this gigantic defensive work mainly consists of a large defence portion above ground, to which trenches were added for 350 km and natural defences – impassable and inaccessible territories – for about 2250 km. Differently from the most widespread image of this work, the transformation of the Chinese territory does not lie in a continues and coherent element.

Construction, ordered by Emperor Qín Shi Huáng in the 3rd century B.C., carried on for almost 18 century until the Ming dynasty, under which empire the Chinese provinces extended along a vast territory difficult to control, often involved in conflicts with local tribes between the regions of Mongolia and Manchuria.

The latest wall, which is the most popular and visited, is the most architecturally refined and structured. It consists of a double wall structure interrupted by square-plan towers, built with advanced construction techniques and square stone, as well as clay bricks, lighter and easier to work.

This is an evolution of the first, most ancient portions, made with beaten earth, stones and wood. The Chinese wall incredibly merges with the landscape, both

1

A Li is approximately 500 meters.

The Great Wall of China.

in its recent and more rural and less imposing sections, an infinite border that graciously and effectively depicts and enhances the impassable landscape of Chinese mountains, in particular north of imperial territories. UNESCO declared the Great Wall world heritage in 1987.

There are two examples of the shorter section but with similar purposes in the ancient history of Europe, that mark the landscape of the British island: Hadrian’s Wall (122 A.C.) and the Antonine Wall (142 A.C.) The size of the Roman Empire found its limit at the boundaries with the English territory that borders with today’s Scotia.

The constant incursions of barbarian Picts’ tribes, led to the construction of defences: the Hadrian’s Wall was built as complex system of elements arranged along a line. The system consists of an embankment and ditch with pointed posts, a 5-metre high stone wall, a road and a ditch marked by two banks. A simple and effective work, but complex at the same time: a section of 117 km cuts in half the entire territory of the British island, rising on the hills that characterise the landscape from the Tyne River to the East up to Solvay Firth to the West, cutting the entire region. The Antonine Wall realised by Antoninus Pius just afterwards, shifts the defence landscape by a few kilometres to the north, for a shorter

Fort of Valledrane in Treviso Bresciano. (Picture by D. SigurtĂ )

Fort of Valledrane in Treviso Bresciano. (Picture by D. SigurtĂ )

In the territories of our time, the architectural project enters into a relationship with the more or less visible and intangible traces of historical identities that have stratified the reality that we live every day. The essays in this book are a multiidentitarian collection on the issue of rehabilitation of boundary areas and conflict where memories, traces and absences create remembrances telling about human stories waiting for new rebirths.