The Liquid Museaum by baravalle biscottini, 2013

LIQUID MUSEAUM HYBRIDIZATION THROUGH THE MEDITERRANEAN COASTS

chiara baravalle giuseppe biscottini

Politecnico di Milano FacoltĂ di Architettura e SocietĂ Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Architettura Anno Accademico 2011-2012

CHIARA BARAVALLE _ GIUSEPPE BISCOTTINI

LIQUID MUSEAUM Hybridization through the Mediterranean coastsTUGH

RELATORE _ GENNARO POSTIGLIONE

Il lavoro di ricerca e il conseguente progetto deriva da uno studio sviluppato all’interno del Corso Integrato di Adaptive Re-Use del prof Gennaro Postiglione le cui ricerche si focalizzano prevalentemente su riuso e recupero di patrimoni minori e sul rapporto tra memoria collettiva e identità culturale intese come azioni diffuse di museografia e allestimento del territorio.

L’obiettivo è mettere le risorse dell’architettura al servizio dell’interesse pubblico attraverso un processo di progettazione che interpreta la disciplina degli Interni come un sistema in grado di sviluppare strategie di riattivazioni sostenibili facendo cooperare tra loro persone, ambienti e oggetti.

Metodologicamente, ogni lavoro di tesi prende dunque le mosse dalla identificazione di un questione emergente o latente della nostra quotidianità, indagandone il valore strategico e le motivazioni che la rendono un tema meritorio di attenzione progettuale. Si prosegue con l’individuazione degli obiettivi prioritari da perseguire e la stesura di un metaprogetto e un programma funzionale da soddisfare. Da questo background nascono le risposte progettuali che si riferiscono a specifici contesti di lavoro.

I lavori sono raccolti nel data base della Ricerca Azione sviluppata con le tesi: http://www.lablog. org.uk/category/diploma-works/ L’attività di Ricerca Azione connessa alla didattica trova riscontro anche nelle ricerche in corso: REcall-European Conflict Archaeological Landscape Reappropriation - possibili museografie per le eredità dei conflitti del Novecento in Europa (www.recall-project.polimi.it); MeLaEuropean Museums in an Age of Migrations – “l’europeizzazione” dell’Europa e l’ibridazione delle culture come agenda necessaria nella ridefinizione del Museum complex (www.melaproject.eu); Re-Cycling Italy (sul recupero il riuso e riciclo del patrimonio inutilizzato italiano).

CONTENTS ABSTRACT | 8 1 MEDITERRANEAN SEA | 12 history, geography, identity

2 THE STRAIT | 50

definition and interpretation experiences of straits Gibraltar, Bosphorus, Suez, Canal of Sicily

• NARRATIVE MAPS • reflections and considerations

3 MED CULTURE | 134

melting pot, fields of hybridization • LIQUID ARCHIVE •

4 REFLECTIONS | 158 mediterranean sea postcolonial museum proposal

5 CASE STUDIES | 176

mediterranean research centers and museums

6 PROGRAM + VISIONS | 194 liquid museum • VISIONARY COLLAGES •

7 DESIGN PROPOSAL | 246 a tanker through med sea

BIBLIOGRAPHY | 298

ABSTRACT

The Mediterranean Sea is not only situated between continents, but also acts as a historical and contemporary centre and border zone. The social, economic and political dynamics of this zone are complex. In the last century the Mediterranean has been separated through politics, religions, fear of clash of cultures etc. Unified by climate and the history of civilization, the Mediterranean region has the potential to be seen as a geographic unit, but at the same time with different realities together, as a sea that “speaks with many voices”, as “a mosaic of all the existing colours” (Braudel, 1953).

Since in the past its main role was dealing with commerce, trades and passages, we started to analyze the strait as the geographical area that represents this network in/ through the sea, in order to understand better its role in the history as passage and “place of exchanges”. In the image of the strait both the two dimensions are present, the longitudinal one, that connects two seas, and the transversal passage coast to coast and for its own potentiality it reminds to the image of fluxes of people, goods, ships, cargos but also of cultural, religious and ethnic hybridization.

This network and contamination of histories

8

and cultures, that characterize this particular

the ‘collection’ of a museum that has to repre-

area between Europe Asia and Africa dividing

sents the liquidity and multiplicity of the Medi-

Orient and Occident, allows to consider the

terranean Sea, also with its configuration.

Mediterranean Sea not as a boundary or a

In the era of a “liquid modernity” where the

barrier between north and south, or east and

difference between “far” and “near” has lost

west, but as a location of meetings and cur-

its importance (Bauman, 2002) and the in-

rents. In this case, the water could be consid-

stantaneity and quickly connections has re-

ered as an element that connects rather then

duced the distances, the final configuration

divides, according to the description of this

of the design proposal could be a “liquid mu-

sea made by Iain Chambers.

seum”, a mobile structure that travels in the

Following his theory that considers the sea

sea and docks to the Mediterranean coasts,

as a “liquid archive” (Chambers, 2007), all the

in particular we choose an oil tanker, symbol

arts such as music, food, art, poetry, literature,

of this world of exchanges and meetings, of

architecture with their histories of contamina-

trade and commerce. The Liquid Museaum,

tion and hybridization, are able to express this

as we called this ship, will travel on the sea

particular characteristic of the Mediterranean

becoming an archive and a centre of research

Sea, as if they were “suspended in a mutable

during the navigation, and a site for perfor-

and dynamic ecosystem”.

mance when is docked. This continuously contact between the archive and the main-

The aim of our design proposal is to represent

land, between different sites, will allow new

this kind of contamination between cultures

kind of hybridizations, that will become part of

and to express the open and multiple nature

the archive enriching it.

of Mediterranean Sea, telling the stories of

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the people who have inhabited its land sides

The visitor will travel through the exposition

and the influences between different cultures,

of these stories as in “the unknown island”

from India to Egypt, from China to Italy, from

of Josè Saramago, bringing with himself

Bisanzio to Venice, from the Arabian world to

the willingness to discover the “other” story

the occidental Spain. All these stories will be

of the Mediterranean Sea because this “liq-

uid museum” would be an open system that stimulates that dialogue and hybridization between cultures, that has always been the principal characteristic of that sea. The idea to be a “liquid museum”, with the intention to ‘navigate’ around the Mediterranean Sea, touching its landsides, is a way to represent its history of hybridization and make it know.

Reference list: Matvejevic P., Breviario Mediterraneo, Garzanti, Milano, 1991 Braudel F., Il mediterraneo, Lo spazio la storia gli uomini le tradizioni, Bompiani, Saggi tascabili, 1994.

Braudel F., Civiltà e imperi del mediterraneo nell’età di Filippo II, tr. It. Einaudi, Torino, 1953.

Chambers I., Paesaggi Migratori. Cultura e identità nell’epoca postcoloniale, Costa&Nolan, Genova 1996.

Bauman Z., Modernità liquida, Editori Laterza, 2002.

Chambers I., Le molte voci del Mediterraneo, Cortina Editore, Milano 2007.

Saramago J., Il racconto dell’isola sconosciuta, Einaudi, 13 ed. 2012.

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1. MEDITERRANEAN SEA

what is the Mediterranean sea?

HISTORY

“Il mare Interno è senza dubbio carico di ricorsi storici, di telestorie, di luci che gli vengono da mondi in apparenza defunti e che tuttavia vivono ancora” 1 BRAUDEL, 2010.

It’s an area that is identified with three cultural communities, three civilizations of great vitality and extension, with three special ways of thinking, believing, eating, drinking, living ...

Three characters with an endless fate, present from centuries and centuries. These are the Western civilization, which can also be identified with Christianity or Roman: Rome has long been the centre of the world, the capital of an empire extended to the ocean and to the North Sea, to the Rhine and the Danube.

The second world is Islam that, from Marocco, arrive over the Indian Ocean. The third civilization is Greek Orthodox, which includes at least all the current Balkan Peninsula, Romania, Bulgaria, almost all of Yugoslavia and Greece itself, full of memories where it reappears the ancient Hellas.

To understand the true nature of the Mediterranean is necessary to look to these three

16

great civilizations; to their misunderstanding,

Britain, and then Italy control the soil, subsoil,

contempt and execration of others, but also

finance and commerce. With capitalism the

sacrifice, irradiation, accumulation of cultural

Mediterranean enters in the world economy,

and heritage intelligence.

arise new city next to the ancient cities, organized with new architectures, new zoning,

“Se alle civiltà delle sue sponde il mare ha

and new ways of living.

dovuto le guerre che lo hanno sconvolto, è

The traffic in the Mediterranean knows a great

stato loro debitore anche della molteplicità

impulse that will not slow down over and feed

degli scambi (tecniche, idee, credenze), non-

the first port cities 3.

ché della variopinta eterogeneità di spettacoli che oggi offre ai nostri occhi” 2.

“Il mediterraneo continua a vivere sotto i nostri occhi, a combattere le proprie guerre, ad

In the Mediterranean history has played a

industrializzarsi e a migliorare il proprio livello

key role the economy, without it the countries

di vita, cercando di liberarsi dagli ultimi stras-

would have been helpless bodies and it is

cichi di un colonialismo finalmente espulso.

only through the economy that civilizations re-

Nel Sud l’altro Mediterraneo, dal Marocco alla

main and flourish. The most valuable assets

Turchia e all’Iraq, si sforza di riguadagnare il

coming from the sea, which is the center of

tempo perduto, che anch’esso, si accumula”4.

transportation, and only those who can master it, can be considered the master of wealth.

Throughout history the sea has seen several owners, people who, thanks to the skill in shipbuilding and thanks to a good dose of courage, could reach distant destinations sailing against storms and bad weather.

The innovation is the introduction of capitalism that, through colonialism, extends his dominion over the Mediterranean; France, Great

17

DIFFERENT SEAS According to the Belgian historian Henri Pirenne, the end of the ancient civilization has not occurred at the time of the barbarian invasions of the fourth and fifth centuries, but at the time of the Islamic conquests in the seventh and eighth centuries. Then began a laceration that will extend to the present day.

The Arab conquest of the Mediterranean in the seventh century, transformed the Roman lake into a Muslim lake and caused a crisis of trade, the disappearance of the city and the presence of an entirely agricultural economy.

(Pirenne, 2007) This is the time of fracture between East and West, Rome and Byzantium, fractures be-

CHRISTIANITY

tween the Mediterranean Christian-Byzantine

ORTHODOXY

world and Muslim world.

The Byzantine Mediterranean The Byzantine Empire, the pars orientis of the

ISLAM

Roman Empire, was spread over three continents.

Byzantium considered the Mediterranean, as did the Romans, an inland sea that was supposed to control a vast empire.

18

Constantinople was the center of cultural

however, was irradiated in the Mediterranean.

production and the most important in the Mediterranean but just when it seemed at the

The Latin Mediterranean

height of his greatness, there appeared the

The Latin area, around the XI century, in rela-

signs of a rapid decline for several reasons:

tion to the degree of civilization attained by

the process of feudalization and the subse-

both the Islamic world and the Byzantine,

quent disintegration of the political and social

appears not so evolved. He had, however,

structures.

a period of political expansion and progres-

The eleventh century is the century of the

sive economic growth that allowed the area

Eastern Schism (1054), and the rivalry be-

doubling. The awakening of the West also in-

tween the two religions, Christian and Muslim

volves the religious sphere so that the Church

caused an irreparable rift between the Latin

of Rome stands at the head of a general re-

and the Byzantine world.

form of Latin Christianity (Gregorian reform).

From a political point of view the Latin area

The Islamic Mediterranean

presents extremely fluid borders and organi-

The Islamic World did not represent a unitary

zation.

space; around the twelfth century it was divided into three large areas: the first was Persia, which was the one that gravitate less around the Mediterranean. The second region was formed by Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Sicily, and his heart was in Cairo. The third region was that of the Maghreb and Muslim Spain, and in this area there were more important centres such as Cordoba, Fez and Tunis, all centres that allow you to control the passage of ships on the Mediterranean Sea. Through Spain and Sicily, the Arab culture,

19

THE MEDITERRANEAN IN THE AGE OF PHILIP II

V, the greatest enemy of Christianity, the Ottoman Empire; the Western military campaign had shown that the two powers, the Spanish

After the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, Charles

and Ottoman, were equal and how difficult it

V decided to divide his dominions between his

was undermine the supremacy of the Turks in

brother Ferdinand and his son Philip. Philip II,

the east and of the Spanish in the west.

during his reign, created a highly centralized

Because of the commitment of different na-

monarchy and he, “the prudent king,� embod-

val fronts of Spain, Philip II adopted as naval

ied the figure of the Christian prince, defender

strategy the goal of the preservation of the

of the Catholic religion. Through the Spanish

fleet, so as not to be outnumbered.

Inquisition that was founded in 1478, the king

In the battle of Lepanto (October 7, 1571), the

exercised a control action on religion, politics

Christian fleet, consists of Spanish and Vene-

and culture.

tian, destroys the Turkish fleet. The battle was

The events related to the reign of Philip II can

one of the bloodiest in the naval history.

be summarized in three steps:

The Christian victory should be considered a

. 1559 - 1565 Philip II is devoted more to solve

victory more symbolic than real, but it had a

problems within the peninsula

huge resonance in the Catholic world.

. 1565 - 1580 the Turkish threat become more

After the battle, the league fell apart and holy

dangerous and, in this period, there is the

Venice and Spain stipulated two different

resolution of the conflict with the Netherlands

treaties of peace with the turkish enemy.

. 1580 - 1598 Philip II has different plans for

Spain, at the end of the Reign of Philip II, re-

expansion, but the defeat of the Invincible Ar-

gress from being a great strength in Europe to

mada in 1588 and the coming to the throne

a marginal, backward, isolated country.

of France Henry of Bourbon in 1594, decreed the arrest of the expansionist ambitions in Europe.

Philip II had to face, as did his father Charles

* Battle of Lepanto in Presciuttini P., Coste del mediterraneo nella cartografia europea 1500-1900, 2004.

21

THE LOSS OF CENTRALITY (16001650) After the final bankruptcy of Philip II, also his successor Philip III was forced to declare bankruptcy of the Spanish crown. The kingdom, in recent years, was going through a period of inactivity and passive national concern.

According to contemporaries’ view the causes of the decline of the country have to be explained by the cultural and religious history of Hapsburg Spain; for others, to determine the end of an era, were the defeats suffered due to French and the armed insurrections against Spanish domination. To this was added the weakness of trade and industry.

The Ottoman Empire At the end of the sixteenth century also the Ottoman Empire, like the Habsburg Empire, passed through a period of decadence, due to several financial crises that hit the entire empire.

The military campaigns were in fact become less profitable than in the past. To find the necessary financial resources to military ex-

22

peditions, the government resorted to a num-

Algiers, Salé.Thus began the golden age of

ber of devices such as the regularization of

the Barbary pirates that, around 1620, they

extraordinary contributions and the hoarding

possessed about 150 ships and infested with

of land. This situation is accompanied by a

their raids throughout the Mediterranean.

strong inflation that affected the population inexorably making this as a very chaotic period

23

in history.

THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA IN THE XVIII CENTURY

Dutch and English

In 1700 the Mediterranean has again a cen-

The difficulties that invested the Mediter-

tral role, it is in fact crossed and criss-crossed

ranean countries at the end of the sixteenth

by a number of ships from both Mediterra-

century had resulted in the appearance of the

nean and further afield. Venice, due to the

Dutch and English ships in the waters of the

presence of Russians, Austrians, French and

“inland sea”.

English in the Adriatic, is in crisis and his equi-

Around the middle of the seventeenth cen-

librium is upset. Trieste and Ancona become

tury, the Dutch, for their Mediterranean trade,

free ports and attempt several times to weak

employed regularly around 200 vessels of av-

the Serenissima but, despite the crisis, it can

erage tonnage of 360 tons.

remain the main port of the Adriatic, thanks

The British, for their part, pushed deeper into

to a long period of peace labeled as a period

the Mediterranean by setting up the first com-

of decline.

pany in Russia and in 1581 the Society of the

Venice, however, in this period is much more

East, preparing the leadership that led them

directed towards the East with whom it has a

to be the first power in the Mediterranean in

strong dependence. The city is imbued with

700.

Orientalist culture, is the intellectual capital

So the Norse began to roam the waters of the

and also has the role of protecting Europe

Mediterranean as both traders and pirates as

against Ottoman Turkey.

making the Mediterranean unsafe for the local

The Ottoman Empire

fleet. They settled in cities like Tripoli, Tunis,

The 1700 characterized two aspects of the

Ottoman state: on the one hand, the conflict with Austria and Russia create instability with-

THE MEDITERRANEAN IN THE AGE OF REVOLUTION

in the empire also bringing strong devaluation of peoples, on the other hand it was realized

In 1796, General Bonaparte undertook the

that reforms were necessary starting from

Italian Campaign with a series of victories

‘army and navy.

in which he defeated the Austrians and

The Arab provinces began to lean toward

the Piemontesi giving rise to the Republics

autonomy, both in Syria and Egypt and other

Transpadana and Cispadana and then, once

provinces of North Africa.

concluded a peace treaty with Austria, he

Despite the attempt of the Grand Vizier to re-

unified the two Republics formed together

main in peace and prevent further mishaps,

the Republic Cisalpina. In the same year

the Ottoman Empire was dragged into more

the French occupied Venice and the Ionian

wars.

Islands, and in the same period also Genoa fell for the pressure of Bonaparte, and so the

Russia in the Mediterranean

Ligurian city was therefore closely linked to

Catherine II had ascended the throne with

France.

great ambitions of reform and with a strong

The Treaty of Campo Formio put an end to

interest in the Mediterranean. The Russians

the rivalry with Austria: Austria had to give

launched a violent attack against the Turks by

Belgium but get Venice.

sending a fleet to the Mediterranean with the

Napoleon, to threaten the interests of Brit-

aim of raising the Balkan peoples under the

ish colonial, decided to take the Campaign

rule turkish. The latter suffered a huge defeat,

of Egypt who also appeared as the country

which reinforced the idea of the Empress of

that would have given France the keys of the

Russia striving for an empire from the Baltic to

Asian trade. The French defeated the egyp-

the Mediterranean, from Greece to the Cas-

tian military forces in the Battle of the Pyra-

pian Sea.

mids but were themselves totally destroyed

His goal was realized with the annexation of

by the English fleet in the bay of Aboukir.

the Crimea (1783). * Map of Mediterranean Sea in Presciuttini P., Coste del mediterraneo nella cartografia europea 1500-1900, 2004.

25

From the domain on Europe in Waterlooin1799, Napoleon became First Consul and immediately increased personal power and political and administrative centralization of the state.

In 1804, Napoleon became Emperor of the French and taken immediately a very active policy in Europe and the Mediterranean. The British tried to damage the French trade not only in the Mediterranean but also in the Baltic Sea, the Atlantic and the North Sea. After a series of wins and losses against the British and the Austro-Russian army, Napoleon became king of Italy in 1805 decreeing the end of the state of the Church and annexing Liguria, Tuscany, Lazio, Umbria, Marche to the French.

Napoleon suffered a defeat at Leipzig in 1813 in the Battle of the Nations by the coalition forces of Russia, Prussia and Austria that together invaded France and forced Napoleon to abdicate and retire on the island of Elba in April 1814, while the Congress of Vienna dismantled the Great Empire.

Fleeing the English surveillance Napoleon returned to France on March 1, 1815, and inaugurated the “100 days� when had again the power for a brief moment.

26

Finally, beaten by the Seventh Coalition at

The Italian Renaissance

Waterloo in June 1815, he was deported to

Between 1849 and 1860 in Italy began to

the island of Saint Helena where he died.

form new liberal and democratic forces that marked the period of the Italian Risorgimento that led to independence and then unification

NATIONALISM AND MEDITERRANEAN COLONIALISM IN THE XIX CENTURY

of Italy in the form of progressive expansion of Piedmont Savoy through successive annexations.

The Mediterranean back to the center of the

The first step in the process of unification of

world with the construction of the Suez Canal

In 1859 there began the War of Indepen-

in 1869

dence, which saw operations under the com-

The Suez Canal, the hegemony of England,

mand of Napoleon III.

gave another meaning even at the Rock of

Giuseppe Garibladi started an expedition to

Gibraltar: passenger ships, merchant ships

Sicily to liberate and annex the South to the

and gunboats direct to the Indies, from now

State of Savoy. He left Quarto and landed to

should no longer circumnavigate Africa or

Marsala with about 1,000 volunteers; Fran-

simply stop in Alexandria .

cesco II of Bourbon could not handle the

At the expense of these newfound centrality

difficult situation. Garibaldi in fact taken the

of the Mediterranean there was the Ottoman

island easily and went up the peninsula and in

Empire. In 1878 the Congress of Berlin took

Teano gave the territories annexed to Vittorio

place precisely to decide on the distribution

Emanuele II.

of the fragments of the Ottoman Empire and

March 17, 1861 Victor Emmanuel II was

on the reorganization of the Balkan question.

proclaimed King of Italy, and ten years after

This period also saw a major modernization

Rome became the capital of Italy.

and Westernization of Islam Arabic for work and for the contribution of French and Eng-

Mediterranean colonialism

lish.

The main features of the new colonial system are: the different geographical axis of colo-

27

nization, the different role of the European powers, and especially the different system of domination. The new colonization of the early nineteenth century was directed to Asia and the Indian Ocean and was driven by the strong nationalism typical of this era.

WINDS OF WAR The accident that is recognised as the cause of the outbreak of the First World War, took place in June 1914 in Sarajevo where, the heir to the Habsburg throne, Franz Ferdinand, was killed with his wife by the hands of a Serbian student, providing a pretext to Austria for a new interference in the Balkans. The Austria knew that Germany was on its side and in July 23, 1914 gave an Ultimatum to Serbia alerting all the Mediterranean powers. The complex interplay of alliances in the conflict drags all the European powers in this massive conflict, where are used military advanced technology and where vast territory are involved.

The first phase of the conflict was as a theatre in Western Europe. Italy entered the war in the spring of 1915 and made the “Covenant secret of London� with France, England, Russia.

28

In the following years the war moved and in-

and of Grain Britain, in Normandia and in

volved several countries and the budget at its

German); the oriental Europe (the aggression

end was terrible. In 1919 there was a confer-

of Hitler in Poland, in the U.R.S.S.) and the

ence in Paris for establishing the Peace.

Pacific with the Allies and the Japanese. Europe was seen as in the middle of the conflict

The Second World War

between the two great blocks powerful, the

The Mediterranean area was centre of im-

Russian and American.

portant operations: in Nord Africa, in Balkans and in Italy. There were also airsea battle in

Postcolonial Mediterranean

Creta, North Africa, Sicily, Greek, Anzio and

Since the middle of XX century processes

Provence. The principal fronts were the oc-

of decolonization started in the territory of

cidental Europe (the aggression of France

Mediterranean Sea. For example the de-

* Detail from a Genoese world map in UCLA’s

29

colonization of Maghreb, with the long fight of liberation of Algerian people, but also the affirmation of neo-colonial project in Morocco and Tunisia (Marconi, 2003).

Iain Chambers’ study on the postcolonial Mediterranean (2008) suggests a new way to rethink European, Arab, Middle Eastern and North African identities as intertwined, inviting us to see and think the world differently.

“If we think to the Mediterranean in terms of postcolonial region, we found a polarization of identities and differences, that is the result of the colonization. In fact in the logic of colonization, it requires a clear distinction between settler and colonized, between ‘subject’ and ‘object’. The geographical boundaries, together with the historical ones, have to be clear: here is the distinction built, according to colonial logic, between Europe and regions of the southern Mediterranean. Looking instead from a postcolonial point of view, the boundaries are not anymore so clear: we discover that the obligation to belong to one side or the other of the sea dissolves; it can be more than one thing at the same time, you can have multiple memberships, coexisting different roots, many voices living together.

Also the boundaries are mixed. With this ap-

30

proach it could be possible to express the complexity of humans identities, pressed by the logic of colonization” 5.

See Braudel F., Il Mediterraneo, Ed. Tascabili Bompiani, Milano 2010 pg 105

1

2

Ibidem pg 112

3 Vedi A. Nouschi, Il Mediterraneo Contemporaneo, Ed. Besa, Lecce 1999 4

Ibidem pg 121-122

Iain Chambers, Transiti mediterranei: ripensare la modernità, Università degli studi di Napoli l’Orientale, 2008, pg.16.

5

Marconi S, Reti mediterranee Le censurate matrici afromedioreintali della nostra civiltà, Gamberetti, Roma, 2003.

31

END OF V

NAPOLEON FOUNDED CISALPINA REPUBLIC AT THE END OF XVIII CENTURY

ALDI'S

GARIB "

"1000

GIBRALTAR IS DOMINATED

BY ENGLISH ARMY

ENGLISH AND DUTCH SHIPS ENTER IN MEDITERRANEAN SEA FROM XVII CENTURY

RY U N T O N I E T C IZA XX N LO O C REB DE H AG M OF

END OF V

HISTORICAL MAP OF MEDITERRANEAN SEA

MEDITERRANEAN UNITY VII - VIII CENTURY

VENICE'S INTERESTS TOWARDS THE EAST

COSTANTINOPLE centre of cultural production x century RUSSIAN SHIPS ENTER IN MEDITERRANEAN SEA TO CONQUER BALCANIC PENINSULA

POSTCOLONIAL APPROACH BATTLE OF LEPANTO 1571

MEDITERRANEAN UNITY VII - VIII CENTURY

FRANCE ARMY INVADED EGYPT TO BE CLOSER TO ASIATIC TRADES

SUEZ CANAL CONSTRUCTION 1867

GEOGRAPHY

The Mediterranean sea has an extension of 2.505.000 sq.km and it is composed by two basin, the occidental and the oriental.

Its coasts of 46.000 Km, from the 10.500 in Greek and 8.800 in Italy, only 3 Km in Monaco, are very different: from the very irregular with numerous plateau, to the more linear with plains; from highlands to desert.

HIGLHAND AND MOUNTAINS The Mediterranean Sea can be defined a “sea between lands” but probably it’s better to say a “sea between mountains”.

It is entirely situated in the area of folds and fractures of the Tertiary, across the ancient world, from Gibraltar to Insuland. The mountains are the backbone of the Mediterranean: a cumbersome, huge, omnipresent backbone that pierces the skin anywhere. For this reason the mountains are everywhere present around the sea except for a few small gaps: the Gibraltar strait, the passage of the Rhone, the straits leading to the Aegean and to the Black Sea; there is just one big lack of mountains in the territories from Tunisia to Syria for thousands of kilometres where the mountains give way to the Sahara desert that reaches

34

the coast.

physically closed, with impassable borders,

The Alps, the Pyrenees, the Apennines, The

like those that are common in the middle east,

Dinaric alps, the Caucasus, the mountains of

China, Japan, Indochina, India and even in the

Anatolia, the Libani, the Atlas are high moun-

peninsula of Malacca, and that no communi-

tains, endless, wide and powerful: some for

cations with the plan, must constitute itself as

their heights, other for their compact forms or

many independent worlds. These mountains

for the inaccessible, deep, recessed valleys.

have many resources: arable land sometimes

They turn towards the sea with grim and mas-

cultivated in terraces, olive, orchards, mul-

sive faces. A clear and understandable defini-

berry trees in the lower slopes and pastures

tion of the mountain is almost impossible in

in the highlands. Cultures are added to the

itself 1.

gains of farming rams, sheep, goats, cattle.

Normally the mountains are considered the

Thanks to these animals, the mountain is also

poorest regions of the Mediterranean, but

the domain of dairy and cheese, fresh butter

many are the exception to this rule of poverty

and meat.

and emptiness: many are favoured by nature

PLATEAU

and relatively densely populated; many are favoured because of the rain and others for

Alongside the high mountain there is the low

the rich subsoil and mineral wealth.

mountain, the one of plateau, hills and rev-

The mountain population is lost in a space too

ermonts.

large where movements are difficult, similar to

Plateaus are large and high uncovered plains

the new centres of the New World, also sub-

with dry and hard ground and with few inter-

merged in an area abundant, mostly useless

ruptions river; the streets settle there with

and hostile, and therefore devoid of contacts

relative ease and lead to narrow strips of well-

and exchanges, out of which there is no re-

established and prosperous life. Flowing from

newed civilization. Society, culture, economy,

the mountains the water allows irrigation and

everything has a character of archaic and in-

skilled horticultural crops, that are the beauty

adequate.

of these small regions.

In the Mediterranean there are mountains

37

PLAIN Austerity, harshness, poor life and sparse population refers to the mountain. Abundance, wealth, easiness, sweetness of life refers to the plain 2.

The man immediately took possession of the tallest and prominent points, the river terraces, the edges of mountain, and there he founded large compact villages, sometimes even city. On the contrary, the very bottom of

highlands

the basin, which is threatened by the waters, the dispersed town remained often the rule.

More the plains were large and vast, more the man has had more difficulty in their conquest.

For a long time it was occupied by man in imperfect and fleeting way.

In plain water does not always flow easily into the sea. This is due to the weak inequalities of the relief of the plain, to the slowness of 0

100

plain

1000 km

2000 km

3000 km

3800 km

flows, to the powerful line of dunes that acts as a barrier along the coast. If the water is still, it forms immense marshes, full of reeds and rushes.

DESERT Sahara fits within limits close to the Mediterranean and within other located at immense 0

100

1000 km

2000 km

3000 km

3800 km

* Orographical map higland * Orographical map plain

38

distances from it. It ‘s an immense area, very wide where “you can walk four months without being able to get out” 3. Along its endless paths peopel have to “orient with the compass and the astrolabe, as in the sea.” The overabundance of empty spaces condemns societies and economies to a perpetual motion, more expensive than elsewhere. The extreme mobility of men, range of motion pastoral, the old caravan and powerful action, the

plateau

activity of the city, everything responds and tries to respond to this imperative. It ‘a poor region without water where cities do not exist. Springs, rivers, plants and trees don’t exist and the presence of forests is very rare. The houses are made of clay and one another to form an endless row of centers that closely resembles a vast field of mud. The stone buildings, where they exist, are an excep0

100

dunes

1000 km

2000 km

3000 km

3800 km

tional masterpiece: they are built according to a special technique that overlaps the stones without the aid of a wooden framework. In the desert of Sahara the dromedary is the protagonist and the man is the parasite. The man could not live, move and work without the help of the camel.

0

100

1000 km

2000 km

3000 km

3800 km

* Orographical map plateau * Orographical map dunes

40

CLIMATE

space for the warmer seasons when the trees bloom and the nightingales sing.

Above the Mediterranean of land and water, there is a Mediterranean of air, unattached or almost the landscape below, truly independent from the local physical conditions. It ‘s the result from the influence of the Atlantic Ocean from the west and of the Sahara from the south .

The Sahara is the bearer of drought, brightness, and blue open sky, the Atlantic, there spills galore as gray fog, dust the water typical of the winter semester.

Every winter the rivers overflow the levees breaking, and the cities are victims of the horrors and flood damage. In winter flows Atlantic triumph. The anticyclone of the Azores lets the Atlantic depressions, which, one after the other, in long processions reach the warm water of the Mediterranean.

This time of year the weather is very unstable: rain and winds constantly torment the sea, under the blows of the mistral, the Noroit and Bora, it often becomes so white foam to look like an immense plain covered with snow.

Towards the spring equinox, everything changes and also quite suddenly, leaving

41

1

Braudel F., Civiltà e Imperi del Mediterraneo

nell’età di Filippo II, Einaudi 1949 Paris.

2

Braudel F., Civiltà e Imperi del Mediterraneo

nell’età di Filippo II, Einaudi 1949 Paris pag 46 3

A. Sprenger, Die Post- und Reiserouten des

Orients, Lipsia 1864

ALBANIA ALGERIA CIPRO EGITTO FRANCIA GRECIA ISRAELE ITALIA LIBANO LIBIA MALTA MONACO MAROCCO SPAGNA SIRIA TUNISIA TURCHIA EX JUGOSLAVIA COASTS

400 1200 700 1000 1700 10500 190 8800 -1900 190 3 50 2093 188 1250 -6166 LENGHTS

KILOMETERS

2,500,000 sq km

IDENTITY “Che cos’è il Mediterraneo? Mille cose insieme. Non un paesaggio ma innumerevoli paesaggi. Non un mare, ma un susseguirsi di mari. Non una civiltà, ma una serie di civiltà accatastate le une sulle altre” Braudel, 1985 The famous historical Braudel conveys very well the complexity of the Mediterranean Sea. It’s difficult to give only one definition for this sun

waves

rain

particular sea. A sea “inland” or “in the middle of the land” from the latin mediterraneus (from medius, “middle” and terra, “land”).

fishing

buoy

sea

Since centuries it is represented as a multiple reality, inhabited by different cultures and crossed by various people. There could be different interpretations as many people who are facing it. It was called Mare nostrum by

lighthouse

cargo

boat

the Romans or Mare internum, Ak Deniz “the white sea” in Turkish, Mittelmeer in German.

Thus they are all different way to define this “liquid continent”, and for each there is their

yacht

hot-air balloon

cloud

own cultural and historical meaning, a different view of this territory depending on whether you look at it, from Beirut, Marseille, Tunis, Athens, Cairo, Barcelona, or Istanbul1.

The Mediterranean world is a unique geo-

voulcan

border

windsurf

graphical reality but also a place richness of

44

interpretations and representations.

tural and commercial exchanges. This “liquid

As we see also the geography has some ele-

continent” that firstly could appear as a barri-

ment contradictory. If the mountains and the

er, with problems linked to the navigation and

highlands stands out against the seascape,

distances, has been indeed place of material

from the Pyrenees, to the Alps and the Apen-

and immaterial exchanges and migrations

nines, from the Balkans to Tauro, and could

also in the past. The presence of islands and

be found indifferently from one side to the

peninsular systems allows an “easier” naviga-

other of the Mediterranean, they are not the

tion, reducing the distances between lands,

only element of this territory. For example the

and this “network” allows to consider the

long expanse of the Sahara is an exception,

Mediterranean sea not a as barrier but a pas-

which contrasts the extended liquid surface.

sage, not as a boundary but a coexistence of

Thus the “sea of water” and the “sea of stones

different cultures.

and sand”, mountains, plateau and plains are all elements of the Mediterranean territory.

MIGRATION AND HYBRIDIZATION

Maybe the uniform element is the clime, “the same from one side to the other, that unifies

The history of the Mediterranean Sea is

landscapes”2 or the agriculture and cultivation

signed by the migration of people.

of olive.

The first and most important flux of migration

But in order to understand the “Mediterranean

is the Indo-European one, that consisted in

identity” what is more interesting than its veg-

two phases: the first was from East to West,

etation, climate, and geographical elements is

between the II and III millennium b.C towards

the network of relations and exchanges that

the Anatolia, Italy and Gallia: the second

has characterized it all along. That “ maritime

phase was at V century when Franchi, Lon-

and terrestrial routes” of its commerce is the

gobardi and Slavi came on the territory of the

force of its unity and the root of the Mediter-

Empire.

ranean (Marconi, 2003).

Arab represents the second consistent move-

Thus to understand its identity is important to

ment, with the occupancy of Spain, Sicily and

consider the fluxes that has promoted the cul-

other incursions on Italian and French coasts.

45

Finally the third flux is the Turkish migration.

accept foreign elements.

They occupied Anatolia from the ninth century.

MULTIPLE IDENTITY

According to Braudel, “The Mediterranean is a mosaic of all the existing colours”, composed

Thus the Mediterranean is not a monolithic

by people with different origins, religions and

identity but a “multiverse that trains the mint

cultures. But the richness and potentiality of

to the complexity of the world, to the hybrids,

the Mediterranean is given by the exchanges

the mixtures”4 . There isn’t a unique Mediter-

and the relationships between different eth-

ranean. The identity of the Mediterranean

nics. In fact in the past people moves from

Sea is this multiplicity ad diversity, the coex-

one side to the other without taking in consid-

istence of different landscape, environment,

eration the borders or the different religious.

people, cultures, and religions. This richness

As L. Godart says, the moments of greatest

is what characterizes the cultural heritage of

development of Mediterranean regions were

the Mediterranean Sea, that laps three conti-

always coexisted with the moments of most

nents and separates and unifies Orient and

openness towards the others cultures, be-

Occident under the same geographical area.

cause they were able to accept and improve the experiences of others. This hybridization is richer in consequences as much as there are many groups of civilizations3.

There were the Arab, the Greek and the Latin civilizations. Sometimes these civilizations remain strictly separated one from the other sometimes they are mixed. It is interesting what Braudel considers as civilization, as the only one that is able to export their goods away, to spread out. But a big civilization could be also recognized from the refusal to

47

1 See Introduction in Consolo V., Cassano F., Lo sguardo italiano. Rappresentare il mediterraneo, Mesogea, Messina, 2000.

2 See Nehemia Levtzion, Lo spirito del Mediterraneo: scambi culturali tra commercio e guerre in Domus 813 Marzo 1999, pg. 4-5.

F. Braudel, Civiltà e imperi del Mediterraneo nell’età di filippo II, vol.2, Piccola biblioteca Einaudi, 1982, Torino. pg. 806.

3

4 Consolo V., Cassano F., Lo sguardo italiano. Rappresentare il Mediterraneo, Mesogea, Messina 2000.

CONCLUSIONS

“Su una carta del mondo il Mediterraneo non è che una fenditura della crosta terrestre, uno stretto fuso che si allunga da Gibilterra all’istmo di Suez e al mar Rosso.”

Braudel, 1985.

The idea of Mediterranean given by Braudel as a fracture, a cove of the earth’s crust is evocative of a world that is really different from the ocean. Often the Mediterranean Sea is called “closed” sea, in contrast to the open waters of the ocean. In some places it becomes thin as a river, a “maritime doors”, and a “corridor of salt water” as defined by Braudel.

* Narrowest passages in the Mediterranean Sea.

48

The distances in the Mediterranean Sea are

a as barrier but a passage, not as a boundary

reduced by its geographical nature, by the

but a coexistence of different cultures.

presence of islands and peninsular struc-

These “places” where the distances are re-

tures. In the West, the Iberian Peninsula and

duced more are defined straits, areas with

the African coast are divided by the Strait of

their own particular geographical conditions.

Gibraltar, only 14 km; on the centre the Ital-

The straits are figures of a connection be-

ian Peninsula with its big islands (Corsica-

tween two different worlds and cultures. For

Sardinia-Sicilia) and the minor archipelagos

this reason we started to investigate the Med-

and Malta. In the East there is the Balkan

iterranean crossings from these particular

Peninsula, with its Adriatic Ionian Aegean is-

sites rich of meanings: the straits.

lands, with Crete and Cyprus and the strait of Bosphorus-Dardanelles.

These realities reduce the difficulty in the navigation allowing the migrations of people.

Since the past a relevant “network” of fluxes, people, goods, food, sounds and cultures characterized the Mediterranean Sea. Thus this “liquid continent” that firstly could appear as a barrier, with problems linked to the navigation and distances, has been indeed place of material and immaterial exchanges and migrations also in the past. The presence of islands and peninsular systems allows an “easier” navigation, reducing the distances between lands, and this “network” allows to consider the Mediterranean Sea not

49

1 Braudel, Il Mediterraneo, Lo spazio la storia gli uomini le tradizioni, Bompiani, 1985, pg. 51.

2. THE STRAITS

“The strait is a limited stretch of sea”

(La Cecla, Zanini, 2004)

INTRODUCTION

The straits are figures of connection between two different worlds and cultures. In the Mediterranean Sea there are different kind of straits: the strait of Gibraltar marks the boundary between Europe and Africa; the water of Bosphorus laps a transcontinental city, Istanbul, from one side of the bridge Europe, on the opposite side Asia. Finally the division between Africa and Asia follows the Red sea and the imaginary line (until the construction of the canal of Suez) that connects it with the Mediterranean Sea and divides the territory of Egypt, a transcontinental country between Africa and Asia.

The strait is more than a particular geographical area that facilitates commercial trades or settlement of industries and ports. It is an exchanging place of cultures and identities. In the fist part we describe through its history, geography and commercial trades, the characteristics of Mediterranean straits. Adding to the natural and artificial straits, Gibraltar, Bosphorus and Suez, also the narrowest point of Mediterranean Sea (138 Km) between Sicily and Tunisia, the strait of Sicily. This last strait marks the boundary between two basins clearly identified: the western and the eastern

54

one of the Mediterranean Sea. It has always been important during the history, as Braudel says: “The complicity of geography and history has created an intermediate boundary of coasts and islands, from north to south, dividing the sea into two hostile worlds� 1.

1 Braudel, Il Mediterraneo, Lo spazio la storia gli uomini le tradizioni, Bompiani, 1985, pg. 51.

55

DEFINITIONS

A narrow passage of water between two areas of land, usually connecting two seas. 1

“the strait is mirror and clepsydra between two coasts and two worlds” 2

“The straits are strong presence, singularities in the broken coast of the world. […] They are figure, as the mountain tops, where the geography is prevalent because they are a unique experience”2.

1

Enciclopaedya Treccani

2 F. La Cecla, P. Zannini, Lo stretto indispensabile. Storie e geografie di un tratto di mare limitato, Bruno Mondadori, 2004, pg.2.

3

Ibidem

* Strait of Gibraltar . where Europe (Spain) meets Africa (Morocco).

56

INTERPRETATIONS

The figure of the strait is a particular place not only for its geographical characteristics. As we discovered tanks to the work of La Cecla and Zanini, the strait is also a place rich of meanings: as they said it “changes meaning depending on whether you cross it”. It is rich of possibilities, linked to the idea of passage, gap or crossing and could be described only giving many interpretations of it.

Thinking to the crossing as a passage the strait is considered “in-between” a terrain vague, a threshold, a connection between two different bodies of water. It’s also a device where local and global stay together because it could be crossed in both the directions: a linear one, crossing from sea to sea, and a perpendicular dimension, from coast to coast.

It is a clepsydra, where coming near means going away and closing refers to the opening. A place where two sides of the same coin exchange values each other. Double view, double vision: what you see from a coast is different from the things watched by the other one. Finally a membrane, a kind of exchanging filter that regulates the passage between two spaces of different nature and density.

The floating part of the strait, the water, is what makes it work as device.

58

THE STRAIT AS DISCONTINUITY

PHASE CHANGING LO STRETTO COME DISCONTINUITÀ STRETTO COME DISCONTINUITÀ cambiamento di fase mbiamento di fase

THE STRAIT AS TERRAIN VAGUE

LO STRETTO COME TERRAIN VAGU LO STRETTO COME TERRAIN VAGUE

two bodies of land LO STRETTO COME TERRAIN VAGUE DISCONTINUITÀ e due corpi distinti di terra due differenti corpi d’acqua tra le due sponde confine largo e corpi distinti di terra due differenti corpi d’acqua tra le due sponde confine largo e fluido fluido “Between the two sides, containing the idea of border, but a fluid and wide border that could LO STRETTO COME DISPOSITIVO LO STRETTO COME INTERRUTTORE TRETTO COME DISPOSITIVO STRETTO COMEand INTERRUTTORE beLOpassed through not only crossed.

The strait is “in-between”, a terrain vague, a threshold, thinking to the crossing as a passage”

two bodies of water

terra

due differenti corpi d’acqua

tra le due sponde confine largo e fluido

“Two bodies of land with defined contour lines LO STRETTO COME INTERRUTTORE draw a minimum DIREZIONE 1 interval, linking two differentDIREZIONE 2 ZIONE 1 GLOBALE LOCALE 2 of spaces” bodies of water, twoDIREZIONE diverse pair passaggio mare-mare passaggio costa-costa aggio mare-mare passaggio costa-costa longitudinale trasversale itudinale trasversale grandi navi traghetti di navi traghetti

DISPOSITIVO

59

GLOBALE LOCALE

orpi distinti di terra

due differenti corpi d’acqua

RETTO COME DISPOSITIVO

ONE 1

ggio mare-mare udinale navi

tra le due sponde confine largo e fluido THE STRAIT AS DEVICE LO STRETTO COME INTERRUTTORE

GLOBAL LOCAL

DIREZIONE 2 passaggio costa-costa trasversale traghetti

GLOBALE LOCALE

“A particular place that changes meaning depending on whether you cross it. It is rich of possibilities, linked to the idea of passage, gap or crossing. It’s a device where local and global stay together.”

60

due corpi distinti di terra

DISCONTINUITÀ e

LO STRETTO COME DISPOSITIVO

due differenti corpi d’acqua

LO STRETTO COME TERRAIN VAGUE

tra le due sponde confine largo e fluido

LO STRETTO COME INTERRUTTOR

GLOBAL

terra

DISPOSITIVO

DIREZIONE 1 corpi d’acqua due differenti passage sea-sea passaggio mare-mare longitudinal longitudinale cargo, cruise grandi navi

DIREZIONE 2 tra le due sponde confine largo e passaggio costa-costa fluido trasversale traghetti LO STRETTO COME INTERRUTTORE

LOCAL

DIREZIONE 2 passage coast-coast passaggio costa-costa trasversal ferries trasversale traghetti

e

61

GLOBALE LOCALE

GLOBALE LOCALE

LO STRETTO COME MEMBRANA-FILTRO

filtro scambiatore, una membrana porosa che regola il passaggio tra due spazi, che non possono diluirsi l’uno nell’altro perchè di natura e densità differenti ma luogo di scambio

THE STRAIT AS CLEPSYDRA LO STRETTO COME CLESSIDRA

dove avvicinarsi significa allontanarsi e ilstrait chiudersi rimandaor all’aprirsi “The is a clepsydra, a shape which tapers at the centre, where coming near means going away and closing refers to the opening.

A place where two sides of the same coin exchange values each other”

LO STRETTO CO

doppia vista, vis viste da una cos viste dall’altra; l non è uguale a

62

THE STRAIT AS DOUBLE VIEW LO STRETTO COME DOPPIO IMBUTO

SSIDRA

ca allontanarsi all’aprirsi

doppia vista, vista doppia: le cose viste daview, una double costa non sonowhat quelle “Double vision: you see viste dall’altra; lo sguardo d’arrivo from a coast is different from the things non è uguale a quello partenza watched by the other one;dithe arriving view is not the same as the leaving one” LO STRAIT STRETTOASCOME MEMBRANA-FILTRO THE MEMBRANE

LO STRETTO COME CLESSIDRA

filtro scambiatore, una membrana dove avvicinarsi significa allontanarsi “A kind of exchanging filter, a porous memporosa che regola il passaggio tra due e il chiudersi rimanda all’aprirsi brane that regulate the passage between two spazi, che non possono diluirsi l’uno spaces of different nature and density. The nell’altro perchè di natura e densità floating part ma of the strait, the water, is what differenti luogo di scambio makes it work as device.”

63

LO STRETTO COME DOPPIO IM

doppia vista, vista doppia: le c viste da una costa non sono q viste dall’altra; lo sguardo d’ar non è uguale a quello di parte

SUGGESTIONS

THE STRAIT AS BORDER The strait can also be considered as border area. Its sides infact can face two different countries, two different cultures with various thoughts, religions and traditions. Sometimes its sides belong to different continents defining it as a frontier.

Infact, the border can not be represented by a line, but it’s a band, an indefinite zone where everything blends and mixes. Its edges are not fixed or written in the soil, are not welldefined and waterproof. After crossing the border, there is a land that is located in the middle, between the margins of two countries or of two different spaces. This figure could be identified with the sea of a strait, a free space, sometimes neutral whose dimensions are given by nature. People can exchange goods, opinions, experiences on the sea and they also write about it.

1 Zanini P., Significati del confine: i limiti naturali storici mentali, Mondadori milano 1997.

64

DESPINA AN INVISIBLE CITY

candied fruit, date wine, tobacco leaves, and already he sees himself at the head of a long

“Despina can be reached in two ways, by ship

caravan taking him away from the desert of

or by camel. The city displays one face to the

the sea, toward oases of fresh water in the

traveler arriving overland and a different one

palm trees’ jagged shade, toward palaces of

to him who arrives by sea. When the camel

thick, whitewashed walls, tiled courts where

driver sees, at the horizon of the tableland, the

girls are dancing barefoot, moving their arms,

pinnacles of the skyscrapers come into view,

half-hidden by their veils, and half-revealed.

the radar antennae, the white and red wind-

Each city receives its form from the desert

socks flapping, the chimneys belching smoke,

it opposes; and so the camel driver and the

he thinks of a ship; he knows it is a city, but he

sailor see Despina, a border between two

thinks of it as a vessel that will take him away

deserts.” 1

from the desert, a windjammer about to cast off, with the breeze already swelling the sails,

Despina is a border town in the middle of two

not yet unfurled, or a steamboat with its boiler

different deserts, it does not belong to one or

vibrating in the iron keel; and he thinks of all

to the another, and it doesn’t prefer anyone

the ports the foreign merchandise the cranes

neither. It exists just because it doesn’t have

unload on the docks, the taverns where crews

any favorites but hosts inside its walls people

of different flags break bottles over one anoth-

coming from everywhere, who remains just

er’s heads, the lighted, groundfloor windows,

for one day and who decide to settle here

each with a woman combing her hair.

forever. Who lives in Despina hear different languages and is not surprised or concerned

65

In the coastline’s haze, the sailor discerns the

about it, the people themselves change lan-

city form of a camel’s withers, an embroidered

guage several times a day depending on the

saddle with glittering fringe between two

job they do.

spotted humps, advancing and swaying; he

It’s a unique city that has the power to be

knows it is a city, but he thinks of it as a camel

seen differently depending on who looks at

from whose pack hang wineskins and bags of

it: looking at Despina the sailor recognizes

the shapes of the humps of a camel, and the bedouin will see the shape of a ship. Anyone who arriving here has the opportunity to upset his life and leave behind the past finding what has long desired.

1

67

Calvino I., The invisible cities, Einaudi, 1972.

EXPERIENCES OF STRAITS

Which are the straits of Mediterranean sea?

The Mediterranean straits separate always different continents. The criteria chosen to analyze these straits are history dimension and crossings together with the interpretations.

The Strait of Gibraltar has always been a crucial place of the world, from it depends the existence of a whole sea and of all the worlds living on its costs. It is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Spain in Europe from Morocco in Africa. In the narrowest point the distance between the two coasts is only 13 km.

It was all along reason of contentions. Its dominance changed several times from Moorish to Spanish hands and vice versa.

Container ships, tanks, military or tourist shipcross it every day, some just passing through the strait going inside the sea. More than 70 thousand every year.

The Bosphorus is in the eastern part of Mediterranean Sea and it is an important crossroad between Asia and Europe.

The strait of Bosphorus links the Black sea with the Marmara sea. Since the past Byzan-

68

tium has been a city very disputed, because

commercial cross-road. For the presence of

of its incomparable location for trade and

the desert the transversal dimension is de-

transport between three continents. Turkey

nied and is present just the longitudinal and

resumed control in 1936.

so the global one.

With its 700 m of width between Kandilli Point and Aşiyan, it is the world’s narrowest strait

Finally the Sicily canal, or Strait of Sic-

used for international navigation.

ily, marks the boundary between two basins

Many crossings characterized the waters of

clearly identified: the western and the eastern

Bosphous. Numerous ferries pass from one

one of the Mediterranean Sea. It’s important

side to the other every day, bringing people

in the Mediterranean traffic because signs the

to work or come back to home. As well as it

passage between the two basins. It has al-

crosses a transcontinental city, the coexis-

ways been important during the history and

tence of Europe and Asia is strongly visible

it’s witness of the interaction between two dif-

in its life.

ferent worlds, Orient and Occident, Africa and Europe.

Whit the realization of the Suez canal the Mediterranean resumed its importance as a link on the route to the East.

It was opened in 1869 allowing transportation by water between Europe and Asia without navigating around Africa. The only city present on the sides of the canal was Suez, then other cities were built like Port Said, Ismailia and Fayed.

It’s crossed by cargos and tankers having the predominance of the commercial use.

Despite of the other straits, this has an artificial construction; it is used as a military and

69

Strait of Bosphorus

Strait of Gibraltar

Canale di Suez

STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR

72

73

STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR

The Strait of Gibraltar has always been a crucial place of the world, from it depends the existence of a whole sea and of all the worlds living on its costs.

HISTORY The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Spain in Europe from Morocco in Africa. Since the past two places were facing on the two sides of the strait (the pillars of Hercules) named Abyla (today Ceuta) and Calpe (today Gibraltar).

74

Until the construction of the Suez Canal it was the unique entrance from the Ocean to the mare internum, the “gate” of the Mediterranean Sea. On the northern side, the Christian/ European culture was present in Spain while in the southern side there was the Arabic culture, which came to dominate later. In the VIII century the Strait of Gibraltar gained a new strategic significance as the frontier between Muslim North Africa and Christian Spain. In 710 a predominately Berber army crossed from North Africa and landed somewhere in the vicinity of Gibraltar, allowing the Islamic conquest of most of the Iberian Peninsula.

This territory had big military and commercial importance and it was all along reason of contentions. Its dominance changed several times from Moorish to Spanish hands and vice versa. Since 1704 Gibraltar fell into the English domain, when an Anglo-Dutch fleet

GIBRALTAR 28.875

defeated the Spanish in Gibraltar, becoming

ALGECIRAS 114.000

one of the Britain’s key colonies in the Medi-

TARIFA 15.670

terranean Sea, while Spain occupied the territory of Ceuta. Following the Spanish coup of July 1936 the Spanish Republican Navy

CEUTA 78.674 5 km

tried to blockade the Strait of Gibraltar to hamper the transport of Army of Africa troops

TANGIER 699.680

from Spanish Morocco to Peninsular Spain.

* Population’s map

75

But on 5 August 1936 the so-called Convoy de la victoria was able to bring at least 2,500 men across the strait breaking the republican blockade.

GEOGRAPHY The distance between Europe and Africa at the narrowest point is about 13 km. The Strait’s depth ranges between 300 and 900 metres.

It is 36 miles (58 km) long and narrows to 8 miles (13 km) in width between Point Marroquí (Spain) and Point Cires (Morocco). The strait’s western extreme is 27 miles (43 km) wide between the capes of Trafalgar (north) and Spartel (south), and the eastern extreme is 14 miles (23 km) wide between the Pillars EUROPE

of Heracles—which have been identified as the Rock of Gibraltar to the north and one of two peaks to the south: Mount Hacho (held

by Spain), near the city of Ceuta, a Spanish exclave in Morocco; or Jebel Moussa (Musa), in Morocco. The strait is an important gap, averaging 1,200 feet (365 metres) in depth in the arc formed by the Atlas Mountains of

50 km

AFRICA

North Africa and the high plateau of Spain 1.

There is a significant exchange of water

76

through the strait. A surface current flows eastward through the centre of the channel, except when affected by easterly winds. This surface movement exceeds a westward flow of heavier, colder, and more saline water.

Through the strait, water generally flows more or less continually in both an eastward and a westward direction. A smaller amount of deeper saltier and therefore denser waters

OCEANO ATLANTICO

MAR MEDITERRANEO

50 km

continually goes westward (the Mediterranean outflow), while a larger amount of surface waters with lower salinity and density continually goes eastward (the Mediterranean inflow).

CROSSINGS The Gibraltar Strait is one of the busiest maritime zone of the world, with up to 300 vessels sailing through daily, not counting the ferries which cross between the harbours on both coasts of the Strait as well as many fishing and pleasure boats.

Container ships, tanks, military or tourist ship.

Thousand and thousand are the ships that every year cross this strait weaving a dense network of human relations and economic exchanges. * Map of Land * Map of Sea

77

Tangier Med The Tangier Med complex, operational since July 2007, responds to the willingness of Morocco to build on the south shore of the straits of Gibraltar a leading industrial and logistics platform as part of the world trade network.

With a capacity of 3 million containers, this port is designed to accommodate the latest generation of container ships, making it possible to serve the global activity of transhipment and receive the traffic connected with import-export activities. In 2010, the Tangier Med port complex, which aims to become the largest transhipment platform in the Mediterranean, handled overall traffic of 23 million tonnes, with over 2 million TEUs handled.

Europe Point

Cape Trafalgar

max width 44,0 Km

Tarifa

eastern entrance 22,5 Km

western entrance 44,0 Km

5 km

min width 12,9 Km

Point Almina Point Cires

Cape Spartel

lenght 60 km

* Map of distances

78

Port of Tangier city As part of the new face of Tangier, the port will redesigned as a space for the welcoming of cruisers and pleasure boats, open as well to the city and to its cultural heritage and tourist potential. 1 Port of Algeciras It’s the second port of the Spain. In 2010 it exceeded 70 million tons in total traffic and more than 2.8 million containers 2.

Rumeli

ZOOM 3 BOSPHORUS PORTS ZOOM 3 BOSPHORUS PORTS

Rumeli

Tarifa

passengers

Gibraltar

R.kavaği Sariyer Büyükdere

passengers cargo-tankers

to Illichivsche Anadolu

Algeciras

cargo-tankers

to Illichivsche

A.kavaği Beykoz Paşabahçe Kandıllı Çubuklu Kanlica

Yenıköy İstınye Emırgan Bebek A.köy Ortaköy Beşıktaş Sirkeci Kabataş Yenikapı Karaköy

5 km

Anadolu

A.Hisari Kandıllı Üsküdar Çengelköy Harem Beylerbeyı Haydarpasa Kuzguncuk Üsküdar Kadıköy İnciburnu Harem Haydarpasa

5 km

5 km

Sirkeci to MarsiliaYenikapı Guzelyali to MarsiliaGuzelyali

Ceuta to Yalova to Yalova

to Derince

Kadıköy İnciburnu

to Derince

Tangeri Tangeri MED

80

Port of Gibraltar The overall number of vessel calls has increased from just under 4,500 in 2000 to a so-far record high of 10,042 in 2009 with a gross tonnage of 276,155,893. By far the most frequent purpose for calling at Gibraltar is bunkering, with 6,708 ships taking on fuel in 2009. In the cruise sector, a significant increase began in 2006 when the number of calls rose above 200 and passenger volumes exceeded 200,000 for the first time 3.

Rumeli

to Illichivsche

ZOOM 3 BOSPHORUS PORTS

Anadolu cargo-tankers

cargo-tankers Kandıllı

Sirkeci

Üsküdar to Barcelona to Genova Harem Haydarpasa to Sete

5 km

Yenikapı

to UK, North Europe and America

Kadıköy İnciburnu

to MarsiliaGuzelyali 5 km

to Yalova

to Derince

Tangeri Tangeri MED

* Map of ports and traffic LOCAL * Map of ports and traffic GLOBAL

81

14% (710)

78% (3964)

8% (408)

cargo+tanker

others

10% (185)

42% (722)

cargo+tanker

others

ISTANBUL passengers

All vessels by time in 30 days 100% (20) TANGIER passengers

48% (877) TANGIER MED passengers

71% (1118)

26% (399)

42% (722)

cargo+tanker

others

CEUTA passengers 78% (1896)

20% (469)

2% (48)

cargo+tanker

others

ALGECIRAS passengers 4% (38)

90% (842)

6% (57)

cargo+tanker

others

PORT SAID passengers

83

1

http://www.moroccanembassylondon.org.uk

2

Porto of Algeciras handbook http://www.apba.es

3

Porto of Gibraltar handbook http://www.gibraltarport.com

Morocco and Spain face the same stretch of sea.

What can you see from Spain or from Morocco?

EUROPA POINT

GIBRALTAR/english

CEUTA/spanish

RIF MOUNTAINS

STRAIT OF BOSPHORUS

STRAIT OF BOSPHORUS

“The Bosphorus is an optical dispositive, the mirror of the other coast, the reflection that a part of city gives to the other [...], it is a lens that enlarges what happens in the front side�

(La Cecla, Zanini, 2004)

HISTORY The Bosphorus is in the eastern part of Mediterranean Sea and it is an important crossroad between Asia and Europe.

The strait of Bosphorus links the Black sea

88

with the Marmara sea; the strait of Dardanelli links the Mediterranean sea with the Black sea. Bosphorus and Dardanelli separates Europa from Asia. In the 7th century BC, Greek colonists led by Byzas established the colony of Byzantium on the European side at the peninsula, today known as the Seraglio Point, where the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn meet and flow into the Marmara (667 B.C.).

Since the past Byzantium has been a city very disputed, because of its incomparable location for trade and transport between three continents. In the early 100’s BC, it became part of the Roman Empire and in 306 AD, Emperor Constantine the Great made Byzantium capital of the entire Roman Empire. From that point on, the city was known as Constantinople. For the next several hundred years Persians, Arabs, nomadic peoples, and members of the Fourth Crusade (who for a time governed the city) attacked Constantinople.

With the growing influence of the European powers in the 19th century, rules were codi-

ISTANBUL EUROPE 70%

fied (in treaties of 1841 and 1871) governing the transit of commercial and naval vessels

ISTANBUL 13.624.240

ISTANBUL ASIA 30%

5 km

through the strait. An international commission assumed control of the strait after the Ottoman defeat in World War I; Turkey resumed

* Population map

89

control in 1936. Its strategic importance remains high: several international treaties have governed vessels using the waters. including the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Turkish Straits, signed in 1936. In more recent years, the Turkish Straits have become particularly important for the oil industry. Russian oil, from ports such as Novorossyisk, is exported by tankers to Western Europe and the U.S. via the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles straits.

GEOGRAPHY The Bosphorus’ limits are defined as the connecting line between the lighthouses Rumeli Feneri and Anadolu Feneri in the north and

ORUS

between the Ahırkapı Feneri and the Kadıköy İnciburnu Feneri in the south. Between the limits, the strait is 31 km long, with a width of 3329 m at the northern entrance and 2826 m

EUROPE

at the southern entrance. Its maximum width is 3420 m between Umuryeri and Büyükdere ASIA 50 km

Limanı, and minimum width 700 m. With its 700 m of width between Kandilli Point and Aşiyan, it is the world’s narrowest strait used for international navigation. The navigation is difficult; in fact a 45-degree course alteration

90

is required for the ships at 1in its narrowest ZOOM point.

DARDANELLI-BOSPHORUS

The Strait of Istanbul, as it is also named, is characterized by the presence of many ports

MAR NERO

and there is a very heavy ferry traffic.

There is an underwater channel of high density water flowing across the floor of the Bos-

MAR MEDITERRANEO

MAR DI MARMARA

phorus (caused by the difference in density of the two seas).

50 km

CROSSINGS Many crossings characterized the waters of Bosphous. Numerous ferries pass from one side to the other every day, bringing people to work or come back to home. Furthermore two bridges cross the strait: the first, the Boฤ aziรงi (Bosporus I) Bridge, was completed in 1973 and has a main span of 1074 metres and the second bridge, the Fatih Sultan Mehmed (Bosporus II), was completed in 1988 and has a main span of 1090 metres. A third bridge will be built near the northern end of the Bosphorus.

Another crossing, the Marmaray tunnel, is a 13.7 km long undersea railway tunnel currently under construction and is expected to be completed in 2015. While the Bosphorus * Map of land * Map of water

91

Water Tunnel was constructed in 2012 to transfer water from the Melen Creek in Düzce Province to the European side of Istanbul.

The density of maritime traffic in Bosporus, which link Black Sea to Marmara Sea, has increased eleven-fold from around 4,400 ships passing annually in 1936, when Montreux Convention was signed to regulate transit and navigation in the Straits, to an average of 48,000 vessels per year recently. With 132 vessels transit daily, not including local traffic, it ranks second to Malacca Straits in density.

During the period from 1953 to 2002, 461 maritime incidents occurred in the Istanbul Strait or in its southern entrance at the MarBüyükdere Limanı

Rumeli Feneri

2 ORUS ENTRANCES

max width 3,4 Km

mara Sea. The majority were collisions.

Anadolu Feneri northen entrance 3,3 Km

5 km

southern entrance 2,8 Km

Umuryeri

lenght 30 Km

Aşiyan Point Ahırkapı Feneri min width 0,7 Km

Kadıköy İnciburnu Feneri

Kandilli Point

* Map of Distances

92

The naval transport is important in Istanbul, a city almost completely surrounded by the sea: Marmara Sea, Golden Horn, Bosphorus and Black Sea. Many citizens live in the Asiatic side of the city but go to work on the European side (and vice versa). The ferry lines are used more than the two bridges that cross it.

The ancient harbour on the Golden Horn is mostly used for private navigation, while the Karakoy Port in Galata is used for the cruise ships. The mercantile port is in the Asiatic part Rumeli

of the city, in the neighbourhood of Harem. to Illichivsche

ZOOM 3 BOSPHORUS PORTS ZOOM 3 BOSPHORUS PORTS ZOOM 3 BOSPHORUS PORTS

passengers

The strait Rumeli of Bosphorus is also characterized to Illichivsche Anadolu

Rumeli

cargo-tankers passengers

R.kavaği Sariyer Büyükdere

A.kavaği

Bebek A.köy Ortaköy Beşıktaş Sirkeci Kabataş Yenikapı Karaköy

Yenıköy İstınye Emırgan Bebek A.köy Ortaköy Beşıktaş

Kabataş Karaköy

A.kavaği Anadolu

Yenıköy İstınye Emırgan

R.kavaği Sariyer Büyükdere

Beykoz Paşabahçe Çubuklu Kanlica

5 km

A.Hisari Kandıllı

5 km

Sirkeci to MarsiliaYenikapı Guzelyali

5 km

Sirkeci

Yenikapı

Anadolu

to Illichivsche

to MarsiliaGuzelyali

to Yalova to Yalova

to MarsiliaGuzelyali to Yalova

Beykoz Paşabahçe Kandıllı Çubuklu Kanlica

A.Hisari Kandıllı Üsküdar Çengelköy Harem Beylerbeyı Haydarpasa Kuzguncuk Üsküdar Kadıköy İnciburnu Harem Haydarpasa

Çengelköy Beylerbeyı Kadıköy Kuzguncuk İnciburnu Üsküdar to Derince Harem Haydarpasa

Kadıköy to Derince İnciburnu

to Derince

94

by the presence of smaller touristic ports for private navigation.

Haydarpasa Port is handling mainly containerized cargoes.

Karakoy Port is the passanger port of Istanbul. It has full facilities for passanger ships and passangers.

Sirkeci Port is the ancient port on the Golden Horn, now used for private navigation.

Rumeli

Harem Port

to Illichivsche

ZOOM 3 is used mercantile traffic.

BOSPHORUS PORTS

Anadolu Rumeli

cargo-tankers

ZOOM 3 BOSPHORUS PORTS

to Illichivsche

Anadolu Kandıllı

cargo-tankers

Sirkeci

Üsküdar Harem Haydarpasa

5 km

Yenikapı

Kadıköy Kandıllı İnciburnu

to MarsiliaGuzelyali

Sirkeci

to Yalova

5 km

Yenikapı

Üsküdar to Derince Harem Haydarpasa Kadıköy İnciburnu

to MarsiliaGuzelyali to Yalova

to Derince

* Map of ports and traffic LOCAL * Map of ports and traffic GLOBAL

95

GRAPH 1. ALL VESSELS BY TYPE IN 30 DAYS All vessels by time in 30 days 14% (710)

78% (3964)

8% (408)

cargo+tanker

others

10% (185)

42% (722)

cargo+tanker

others

ISTANBUL passengers

100% (20) TANGIER passengers

48% (877) TANGIER MED passengers

71% (1118)

26% (399)

42% (722)

cargo+tanker

others

CEUTA passengers 78% (1896)

20% (469)

2% (48)

cargo+tanker

others

ALGECIRAS passengers 4% (38)

90% (842)

6% (57)

cargo+tanker

others

PORT SAID passengers

97

EUROPE

FERRY

COSSROAD LOCAL-GOBAL

CARGO

ASIA

In the Bosphorus the passage of cargos, in a global scale, and ferries, in a local scale, happens in the same time.

THE CANAL OF SUEZ

THE CANAL OF SUEZ

Whit the realization of the Suez canal the Mediterranean resumed its importance as a link on the route to the East.

HISTORY The Suez Canal, also known by the nickname “The Highway to India”, is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. It

102

was opened in 1869 allowing transportation by water between Europe and Asia without navigating around Africa. The first canal in the

PORT SAID 603.787

region seems to have been dug about 1850

PORT FUAD 560.000

b.C, when an irrigation channel navigable at flood period was constructed into the Wadi

ISMAILIA 254.477

Tumelat.

FAYED

Extended under the Romans (who called it Trajan’s Canal), neglected by the Byzantines, and reopened by the early Arabs, this canal

5 km

SUEZ 478.553

was deliberately filled in by the Abbāsid caliphs for military reasons in ad 775. Throughout, the reason for these changes appears to facilitate trade from the delta lands to the Red Sea rather than to provide a passage to the Mediterranean.

Before the construction of the canal (completed in 1869), the only important settlement was Suez, which in 1859 had 3,000 to 4,000 inhabitants. Its construction led to the growth of settlements in what had been, except for Suez, almost uninhabited arid territory. More than 70,000 acres (28,000 hectares) were brought under cultivation, and about 8 percent of the total population was engaged in agriculture, with approximately 10,000 commercial and industrial activities of various sizes.

* Population’s map

103

Port Said was created a customs-free zone in 1975, and tax-free industrial zones have been established along the canal. The major urban centres are Port Said, with its east-bank counterpart, Būr Fuād; Ismailia (Al-Ismāīlīyah), on the north shore of Lake Timsah; and Suez, with its west-bank outport, Būr Tawfīq. Water for irrigation and for domestic and industrial use is supplied by the Nile via the Al-Ismīlīyah Canal.

Between 1870 and 1884, some 3000 groundings of ships occurred because of the narrowness and tortuousness of the channel. Major improvements began in 1876, and, after successive widening and deepening; the canal by the 1960s had a minimum width of 179 feet at a depth of 33 feet along its banks, and a channel depth of 40 feet at low tide.

In 1882 Britain invades Egypt, with French assistance, and begins its occupation of Egypt, taking control of the canal. In 1888 the Convention of Constantinople renews the guarASIA

anteed right of passage of all ships through the Suez Canal during war and peace; these rights were already part of the licenses

50 km

AFRICA

awarded to Lesseps, but are recognized as international law. After the Suez Crisis the canal is restored to Egyptian sovereignty in

104

1956. Many times the canal was blocked by Egypt. Finally in 2008 new rules of navigation passed on by the Suez Canal Authority.

GEOGRAPHY

MAR MEDITERRANEO

The northern terminus is Port Said and the southern terminus is Port Tawfik at the city of Suez. Ismailia lies on its west bank, 3 km

50 km

north of the half-way point.

The canal does not take the shortest route across the isthmus, which is only 75 miles,

MAR ROSSO

but utilizes several lakes, from north to south, Lake Manzala (Buḥayrat al-Manzilah), Lake Timsah (Buḥayrat al-Timsāḥ), and the Bitter Lakes: Great Bitter Lake (Al-Buḥayrah alMurrah al-Kubrā) and Little Bitter Lake (AlBuḥayrah al-Murrah al-Ṣughrā).

Topographically, the Isthmus of Suez is not uniform; there are three shallow, water-filled depressions—Lake Manzala and Timsah, and the Bitter Lakes, the last, though distinguished as Great and Little, forming one continuous sheet of water.

The isthmus is composed of marine sediments, coarser sands, and gravels deposited in the early periods of abundant rainfall, Nile alluvium (especially to the north), and wind* Map of land * Map of water

105

blown sands.

The overall length of the canal is 193 km and its width at water level is about 300/365 meters with a depth of 21 meters.

CROSSINGS The canal allows passage of ships up to 20 m draft or 240,000 deadweight tons and up to a maximum height of 68 m above water level and a maximum beam of 77.5 m under certain conditions. Some supertankers are too large to traverse the canal. Others can offload part of their cargo onto a canal-owned boat Port Said

width 300 m lenght 193,3 Km

5 km

Suez

106

* Map of distances

to reduce their draft, transit, and reload at the other end of the canal.

It is one of the world’s most heavily used shipping lanes.

The nature of traffic has greatly altered, especially because of the enormous growth in oil shipments from the Persian Gulf since 1950.

In 1913, oil in northbound traffic amounted to 291,000 tons; in the peak year of 1966, it amounted to 166,000,000 tons. The closure of the canal from 1967 to 1975 led to the use of large oil tankers on the route around the Cape of Good Hope. Since 1975 the increased size of tankers—the largest of which to Europe

Port Said

Port Fuad

cargo-tankers

Ismailia

Fayed

Suez

5 km

to Asia

108

cannot use the canal—has reduced the canal’s importance in the international oil trade.

The Suez Canal can accommodate ships with a vertical height (draft) of 19 m or 210,000 deadweight tons. Most of the Suez Canal is not wide enough for two ships to pass side by side. To accommodate this, there is one shipping lane and several passing bays where ships can wait for others to pass.

The convoy system allows ships to transit the Canal at fixed speed and with fixed separating distance between every two ships. The time used to transit the canal is about 12 - 16 hours. The traffic of vessels in 2011 is about 17,799 and 928,880 tons.

From north to south, the connections are: The Suez Canal Bridge, also called the Egyptian-Japanese Friendship Bridge, is a highlevel road bridge at El Qantara.

El Ferdan Railway Bridge 20 km north of Ismailia was completed in 2001 and is the longest swing span bridge in the world, with a span of 340 m. The previous bridge was destroyed in 1967 during the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Pipelines taking fresh water under the canal to Sinai, about 57 km north of Suez.

* Map of ports and traffic GLOBAL

109

GRAPH 1. ALL VESSELS BY TYPE IN 30 DAYS Ahmed Hamdi Tunnel south of the Great Bitter Lake was built14%in(710) 1983.

78% (3964)

8% (408)

cargo+tanker

others

10% (185)

42% (722)

cargo+tanker

others

ISTANBUL

The Suez Canal passengers overhead line crossing powerline was built in 1999.

100% (20)

Ahmed Hamdi Tunnel south of the Great BitTANGIER ter Lake was builtpassengers in 1983.

The Suez Canal overhead line crossing pow48% (877)

erline wasMED built in 1999.

TANGIER passengers

71% (1118)

26% (399)

42% (722)

cargo+tanker

others

CEUTA passengers 78% (1896)

20% (469)

2% (48)

cargo+tanker

others

ALGECIRAS passengers All vessels by time in 30 days 4% (38)

90% (842)

6% (57)

cargo+tanker

others

PORT SAID passengers

1

http://www.suezcanal.gov.eg

* Suez canal bridge

111

AFRICA

ASIA

The strait of Sicily

THE STRAIT OF SICILY

THE STRAIT OF SICILY

The Canal Sicily is the part of Mediterranean Sea between Sicily (Trapani) and Tunisia.

It divides the oriental Mediterranean from the occidental. The strait has no universally accepted name in English; other common names include Sicilian Strait, Sicilian Channel, Channel of Sicily, Sicilian Narrows and Pantelleria Channel. In Italian it is known as the Canale di Sicilia or the Stretto di Sicilia.

In Sicilian: Canali di Sicilia or Strittu di Sicilia.

Which of the two names is correct, Channel or Strait? If we considered their geographical definitions, the differences between them are linked to the type of waters involved. It’s called canal when the two bodies of water

118

have similar chemical and physical characteristics (density, salinity, temperature). Instead in the strait the characteristics of the two bodies of water are different. In this case it would be correct the name of Strait, as there are many differences between the western basin and the eastern one.

HISTORY Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean. Sicily is now part of the Europe Union, but its history makes in evidence that it has been always an area of meeting of different culture. It was witness of the passage of different: from Arabs to Normans, from Carthaginians to Romans. Geologically it seems that Sicily was part of the North Africa coast , in particular of the Libyan gulf of Sirte.

It was first settled by the Phoenicians, then Romans, followed by the Byzantines. However, it was under Arab rule (878 to 1091 A.D.) and their Norman conquerors (1091 to 1194 A.D.) that the island reached its pinnacle of glory. In these two short periods of history the Arabs were able to make Sicily a richadvanced land called by some historians in that era “an earthly abode of the blessed� or

119

“bride of the Mediterranean”, while medieval visitors from the other Arab lands called it ”a garden paradise”.

All this changed when the Sicilian Muslims were expelled from the island in the first half of the 13th century. After the death of Frederick II in 1250, many of the Arab’s technical and agriculture traditions started to disappear.

But many influences are still present in their language or cuisine. Neither Normans, or Spanish, or French or Piedmont people were able to obliterate it. This means that the Arab domination was not only dominion but integration between people.

GEOGRAPHY It is about 145 kilometres (90 miles) wide and divides the Tyrrhenian Sea and the western Mediterranean Sea from the eastern Mediterranean. Its maximum depth is 1,037 feet (316 m). Deep currents in the strait flow from east EUROPE

to west, and the current nearer the surface travels in the opposite direction.

AFRICA

The middle of the strait is characterized by the presence of many islands of different dimensions. From the smaller one of Linosa and Lampedusa, then Pantelleria and Malta, a big

120

archipelago system.

The island of Pantelleria has volcanic origins.

It is constructed above a drowned continental rift and has been the locus of intensive volcano-tectonic activity. It is about 73 km from Tu-

MAR MEDITERRANEO

nisia (Capo Bon) and 110 from Sicily. Instead Lampedusa geologically belongs to Africa since the sea between the two is no deeper than 120 metres. Lampedusa is an arid island and its fauna and flora are similar to those of North Africa. The island of Malta is the largest of the three major islands that constitute the Maltese archipelago. It is in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, between south of Italy and north of Libya

CROSSINGS As this strait marks the boundary between two basins clearly identified, the western and the eastern one of the Mediterranean Sea, it is also crossed every day by a huge number of different ships.

Deep currents in the strait flow from east to west, whereas current close to the surface of the water travels in the opposite direction.

This unusual water flow is of interest to oceanographers. It is the European gateway to * Map of land * Map of sea

121

Maghreb Area and Northern Africa. One of the world most important underwater Heritage sites.

During these years the Strait of Sicily has become the principal site of migrations and death of Mediterranean crossings. Since 1994 at least 6000 people have died along the routes that go from Libya (from Zuwarah, Tripoli and Misratah), Tunisia (Sousse, Mahdia and Chebba) and Egypt (in particular the area of Alexandria ) towards the islands of Lampedusa and Pantelleria, Malta and the south-eastern coast of Sicily, but also from Egypt and Turkey towards Calabria 1.

Capo Feto min width 145 Km Capo Bon

Mazara del Vallo 110 Km

Kelibia

74 Km

Pantelleria 250 Km 158 Km

Malta 182 Km

Lampedusa

* Map of distances * Pantelleria island

122

to Civitavecchia to Genova

to Salerno

Trapani Mazara del Vallo Sciacca

Kelibia Tunisi

Porto Empedocle Licata Gela Pantelleria

Sousse Monastir

Pozzallo

La Valletta

Mahdia

Lampedusa Linosa

passengers cargo-tankers

Trapani Mazara del Vallo Sciacca

Kelibia Tunisi

Porto Empedocle Licata Gela Pantelleria

Pozzallo

to Catania

Sousse Monastir

La Valletta

Mahdia

passengers cargo-tankers

Lampedusa Linosa

* Map of crossings

124

All vessels by time in 30 days 44,4% (8)

44,4% (8)

12% (2)

cargo+tanker

others

TRAPANI passengers

100% (4) TUNISI cargo+tanker 48% (11)

17% (4)

35% (8)

LAMPEDUSA passengers

31% (6)

cargo+tanker

21% (4)

others

48% (9)

PANTELLERIA passengers

cargo+tanker

others

65% (9)

7% (1)

28% (4)

SOUSSE passengers 26% (111)

cargo+tanker

others

60% (261)

14% (63)

cargo+tanker

others

MALTA passengers 95% (500)

5% (29)

MARSAXLOKK cargo+tanker

others

1

125

see http://fortresseurope.blogspot.it http://migrantsatsea.wordpress.com/

CONCLUSIONS

“A particular place that changes meaning depending on whether you cross it. It is rich of possibilities, linked to the idea of passage, gap or crossing. It’s a device where local and global stay together” 1 (La Cecla, Zanini, 2004) Being a “mirror and clepsydra between two coasts and two worlds” it is also represents very well the image of the Mediterranean as place of meeting, crash and reflection of different cultures, various world as Occident and Orient, a place that collects three different continents, Africa Asia and Europe.

On the Atlas we could find different type of straits: “the narrow straits, as the Turkish of Dardanelles and Bosphorus, sometimes gorge of few hundred metres, and wide straits, as the Canal of Sicily; the short straits with two points touching upon as in Messina; and the ones longs and winding as the Magellan strait .

Sometimes the strait could separates different regions of the same country, or two continents, as the strait of Gibraltar and Bosphorus, or two cultural worlds, as the strait of Sicily, the point of less width of Mediterranean (138 Km between Sicily and Tunisia) that

126

marks the border between two basins; the

In this way it’s considered a device that links

west and east of the Mediterranean Sea .

global with local, the passage of big ship with

The other definitions of the strait are more

the crossing of ferries and small boats.

2

figurative: it is presented as “place of images and image of other places”, “metaphor, from

All these straits have the characteristic to

Greek world that means transport, an ex-

divide two continents: Europe from Africa in

change of place, that brings from one side

Gibraltar strait; Asia from Europe in Bosho-

to the other: from one land to another land,

rus strait; Africa from Asia in Suez Canal. But

from a sea to another sea, and from one to

each strait, for its own particular geographical

the other” .

configuration and its history, is different from

3

the others. For example in the Gibraltar strait This image of “transportation” as intrinsic

we consider the interpretation as “double

characteristic of the strait could be extend to

view” more exhaustive, since each side rep-

the Mediterranean in itself, as image of ex-

resents two different worlds, the European

change, routes, commerce, meetings, fluxes.

and the African one. The Bosphorus instead

An exchange not only material but also a cul-

crosses a transcontinental city, thus the coex-

tural, ideological and religious meeting.

istence of Europe and Asia is strongly visible

“It’s a geographical device that could allow

in its life. The interpretation more exhaustive

or stop, facilitate or discourage a passage

to describe its peculiarities is considering it

depending on the context (natural or histori-

as a “device”, unifying local traffic of ferries

cal)” 4.

with passengers and the global one of the

Then the possibility to be passed through as

big ships. Finally the Suez Canal, despite of

well as crossed is another characteristic of

the other straits, has an artificial origin and it

the strait, it is “in-between, a terrain vague, a

is used mostly as a military and commercial

threshold, thinking to the crossing as a pas-

cross-road. For the presence of the desert the

sage” . There are two types of dimensions, a

transversal dimension is denied and is pres-

linear one, a crossing from sea to sea, and a

ent just the longitudinal and the global one.

perpendicular dimension, from coast to coast.

127

After the analyses of these straits we realized they’re not exhaustive enough to describe the Mediterranean culture and identity.

If we consider the main routes in medieval times and compare them with the today’s

Venice Genova

Marseille

Ancona

Barcelona

Naples

Valencia

Palermo

Murcia Cadiz

Malaga

Algier

Gibraltar

Tunis

Ceuta Tlemcen

Tripoli

MAIN MEDITERRANEAN ROUTES IN MEDIEVAL TIMES

128

shipping routes, we could say that the straits are important as part of a bigger and more complex network of fluxes, exchanges and trades.

Odessa

Dubrovnik

Varna

Bari

Istanbul

Athens

Rodi Creta

Cipro

Beirut

Alexandria

* Map of historical routes

129

Trieste Venice

Genova Marseille

Ancona

Rome

Barcelona

Naples

Valencia

Murcia Cadiz Algeciras Tangier Ceuta

Malaga

Trapani

Algier

Palermo

Catania

Tunis

Tlemcen

Tripoli

> 100 million tonnes > 20 million tonnes > 10-20 million tonnes oil tanker routes principal ferry lines

30% of merchant shipping and 20% of global oil shipping crosses the Mediterranean every year

GROSS WEIGHT OF GOODS HANDLED IN CARGO PORTS IN 2010 130

Odessa

Dubrovnik

Varna

Bari

Istanbul

Igoumenitsa

Athens

Cesme

a

Rodi Creta

Cipro

Beirut

Alexandria

0 * Map of today’s cargo ports trades

131

Therefore coming back to a larger visual of this sea, it become interesting the idea of Mediterranean given by Braudel as a “fracture”, evocative of a world that is really different from the ocean, where navigation, commerce and trade have always been part of its identity since the past. As “closed” sea, it has all along allowed migration, contamination and hybridization of cultures, as also Iain Chambers sustained in his book “Mediterranean crossings”, where the Mediterranean sea is considered the “container” of other histories and different cultures.

Studying the Mediterranean Sea through a postcolonial approach, we started to investigate its identity through its sounds, tastes and flavours, discovering “hydden” interactions and hybridizations, a new kind of Mediterranean.

132

1 La Cecla F., Zanini P., Lo stretto indispensabile. Storie e geografie di un tratto di mare limitato, Bruno Mondadori, 2004, pg.2.

See Kayser B., Il Mediterraneo geografia della frattura, Jaca Book, Milano, 1996, pg. 13.

2

3 La Cecla F., Zanini P., Lo stretto indispensabile. Storie e geografie di un tratto di mare limitato, Bruno Mondadori, 2004, pg.27-28.

4

133

Ibidem

3. MED CULTURE

136

137

MULTIPLE MEDITERRANEAN REALITIES

The Mediterranean is often considered as a category for social and historical studies.

Mostly in the past, when it was called “mare nostrum” and the Roman Empire extended his power to the almost entire Mediterranean areas, this space was perceived as a unified space. Perhaps for its geographical configuration, often described as a “closed sea”, or for the marine traffics, the commercial routes and exchanges that richness this area, it was possible to the different cultures to circulate from one side to the other, as we can found for example some tracks of Arabian culture in Spain or a Jewish community in the Arab world of the thirteenth century. As Iain Chambers explains in his book Mediterranean Crossings, “it was a commercial and cultural systemic sustained by travel, correspondence, and kinship and suspended in a Hybrid Arabic-Hebrew dialect that included the transliteration of written Arabic in Hebrew characters” 1.

It’s interesting how the Mediterranean Sea is described by the historical Fernand Braudel, in his book The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, not as an unique sea but as different realities together, as a sea that “speaks with many voices”,

138

139

as “a mosaic of all the existing colours”.

perception of division - the sea as a bound-

Braudel`s “Mediterranée” had an immense

ary between Europe and the modern North on

impact on this field of research, advocating a

one side and Africa, Asia and the South of the

distinctiveness of Mediterranean geography.

planet on the other side - and connection (see

His concept of a longue durée led in many

Chambers, 2007).

ways to a deterministic conception of its land-

The Mediterranean Sea is considered not as

scapes and seascapes, which produced an

a boundary or a barrier between north and

historical understanding of the sea as a main

south, or east and west, but as a location of

actor for interregional contact through the

meetings and currents. It evokes movement

ages. Subsequent research such as the one

of people, histories and cultures that show the

by Horden and Purcell modified among others

sense of this historical transformation and cul-

Braudel`s general approach by emphasizing

tural translation that make it “luogo di transito

the diversity of Mediterranean landscapes

senza sosta”. This idea of a multiple Mediter-

and its different resources as important fac-

ranean, where “the Occident and the Orient,

tors for the formation of an interregional con-

the Nord and the South, are evidently entan-

nectivity, however they maintain his main

gled in a cultural and historical net cast over

idea.

centuries, even millennia” 2 is a theory sup-

The Mediterranean has always been consid-

ported by Iain Chambers, who considers the

ered as the origin of Europe and Occident,

Mediterranean as a “liquid materiality”, where

but it has also been the “container” of other

the borders are “porous” and its surfaces are

histories and different cultures: Arab, Jew-

“criss-crossed” by its cultures and histories.

ish, Turkey, Greek and Latin cultures had

Its way of representing Mediterranean Sea

characterized this particular space, not only

as a liquid archive is not only a liquid meta-

for what concerns literature and history but

phor, in fact for Chambers the sea is consid-

also for music, cooking or intellectual world

ered “not merely as a surface that permits

in general. We could consider the Mediterra-

movement and migration between terrestrial

nean Sea as a “gate”, as a place where there

referents, but becomes the site of migrating

is a continuous exchange, as a simultaneous

histories and intertwining cultures” 3.

His real focus is to re-imagine the cultural geography of the Mediterranean as a fluid, inclusive, porous space of overlapping exchanges between diverse peoples, languages, and sources of creative imagination. The sea is considered both as a passage and a bridge that links together a complex heterogeneity in an archi-pĂŠlagos, as Massimo Cacciari suggests and Iain Chambers makes in evidence.

1 Chambers I.M., Le molte voci del Mediterraneo, (original title Mediterranean crossing, The politics of an interrupted modernity), 2007, Milano, pg. 39.

2

Ibidem pg. 3.

Chambers I.M., Maritime criticism and lessons from the sea, Durham University, 2010.

3

* Mosquee de Paris – Ablution Fountain

141

LIQUID ARCHIVE

“The metaphorical force of the sea, with its waves, winds, currents, tides, and storms, where the earth touches the sky in the infinity of a horizon that promotes a journey, navigation, dispersal, provides a more suitable frame for recognizing the unstable location of historical knowledge than the restricted location of a landlocked world and its dubious dependence on the fixity of immediate kinship, blood, and soil� 4.

Chambers presents the Mediterranean as the hybrid product of cultural and material flows that resist the Cartesian mapping of borders and linear notions of progress and promotes the adoption of a more fluid cartography. The identity of the Mediterranean encountered here is not one defined by how it differs from modern Europe or Arabia but by how all its elements are in constant flux, resonating with the waves, carrying diverse flows emitted by sources near and distant. If the Mediterranean could propose a common view is that one of the cultural diversity unified by the same marine element, from that horizontal waves that make the distant near, the stranger familiar (Iain Chambers, 2007).

For Chambers the Mediterranean becomes

142

143

the site of an experiment of different way of writing the history, where the composition is open and in which the presumed stability of the historical archive, together with its associated facts, territorial museums and nationalist interpretations, is set to float (Chambers, 2010). As being in the sea means to be dispersed, exposed to unimaginable meetings and new routes, the archive become not fixed or permanent but always under construction.

Sometime the desire to have origins within its domain prevails, despite all the external influences are evident. This otherness – Arab, African, Asian, Islamic, Jewish – is apparently rejected but, however, historically present and inside the constitution of the modernity.

Therefore the Mediterranean sea – as the symbolic seat of meetings and mixing of cultural and historical currents, a place of transit and exchange – becomes the privileged framework to identify the slippery origin of historical awareness; to offer a fluid topography of rejected and forgotten memories; to experiment, finally, a different way of writing Mediterranean history, which contemplates the experience of disorientation.

We were inspired by Chambers’s interdisciplinary effort to conceptualize the Mediterra-

144

nean as a collection of hybrid flows, cultures,

but can provoke and provide the critical syn-

and places and by his description of the

tax of precisely another set of histories (Iain

Mediterranean Sea as a region, as an inter-

Chambers, 2010). Following the history of

connected diverse politico-cultural space, as

food and agronomy, or of music and textiles,

a liquid archive. Through diverse texts – his-

we will find us in a new kind of topography,

torical, poetic, filmic, culinary, sonorous – a

where the narrow confines of a national or

Mediterranean topography is deciphered in

even more local archive leaves its place to

which the North, South, West and East are

a more turbulent set of intercultural currents.

interlinked in a historical and cultural network without fixed and established borders.

We would like to deal with this topic from this point of view and we can make our own the words of Chambers: “The complex geopolitical, cultural, and historical space of the Mediterranean concentrates our attention on the question of cultural cross-overs, contaminations, creolizations, and uneven historical memories” 5. Thus together with Iain Chambers, we would like to consider the Mediterrananean “in a more malleable and unsettled manner, as a continual interweaving of cultural and historical currents”, being guided by the signs, suggestions, sounds and smell, that give us an intricate and open narration of Mediterranean sea.

In this sense literary, musical and culinary elaborations can became, according to Iain Chambers, not the witness of ‘minor’ histories

145

4 Chambers I.M., Le molte voci del Mediterraneo, (original title Mediterranean crossing, The politics of an interrupted modernity), 2007, Milano, pg. 29.

5

Ibidem pg. 30.

MED SEA AS A LIQUID ARCHIVE IAIN CHAMBERS, Maritime criticism, 2010

migrating histories and intertwining cultures

neither fixed nor perm but always under constru

''Deposited in the sea are histories and cultures connected, rather then simply divided, by water''

manent uction ''historical, cultural and social processes are suspended and sustained in a mutable and dynamic eco-system''

FIELD OF HYBRIDIZATION

“Here the relatively fixed confines of the sea, of the coastline, the plains, deltas, rivers, valleys, and mountain chains, have offered hospitality to often unforeseen historical processes and highly varied cultural formations … As a precise place, the Mediterranean evokes a continual intertwining of diverse root and routes; in its loungue durée (Braudel), it is testimony to both compounded sedimentations and disseminations” 1.

The signs of this kind of history and hybridization of cultures are evident for example in the Mediterranean diet, in which oranges, lemons and rice were introduced by the Arabs from the Orient; the eggplant from India; the peaches and cypress trees from China through Persia, or the sugar cane brought from India to Egypt and then introduced in Cipro in the X century and in Sicily in the XI century. From its diet but also the literature, the music, the art and the architecture we could understand this cultural interweaving that characterizes the Mediterranean Sea. This fusion can be more intense between some areas than between others but no corner or person of the Mediterranean can elude it, in this constant coming and going of

148

people, products and autochthonous and for-

and people helps to establish the identity

eign ideas that turn it into a unique space. “To

of the single person and its ethnic group. In

travel through the Mediterranean is to come

particular the meal is an important “bridge”

across the Roman world in the Lebanon, pre-

between cultures because eating together is

historic times in Sardinia, the Greek villages

an opportunity for meetings and interaction

in Sicily and the Arab presence in Spain, the

between different individuals. As it is linked

Turkish islam in Yugoslavia” (Braudel, 1985).

to a sensorial experience, it does not require

In particular the music suggest us to travel

mediation but could be easily understood

keeping a vision less complex and rigid than

even if I don’t know that culture or don’t speak

the others disciplines. In fact the sounds,

that language. Feed promotes the exchange

even if they born in some territories, could

between different cultures but at the same

easily travel and cross the boundaries of local

time food could change in a contamination

and national identities. As in the discussions

of dishes. This contamination takes place in

of music made by Chambers, in which sounds

both directions, towards the both cultures 2.

emitted across the Mediterranean resonate

These contaminations and migrations be-

together, he bring as an example the uses of

tween different cultures mostly characterize

the oud, that from Baghdad to Spain produce

the Mediterranean diet. For example find

“a nomadology of sounds” or the songs of Sic-

some tracks of Arab culture in Sicilian food.

ily were transformed in arab dirges.

“The origin of macaroni lies not with the Etruscans, Greeks, Romans, or Chinese but ap-

FOOD

parently with the Arabs. The earliest evidence of a true macaroni occurs at the juncture of

149

Migration implies a spatial displacement,

medieval Sicilian, Italian, and Arab cultures” 3.

a physical change of places, but also the

The Arabic influence, possibly the most de-

movement from one culture, the own original

fining in modern-day Sicily, comes through

culture, to another one. In the slow process

the Middle Eastern and North African way in

of cultural exchange present in the migra-

which food is prepared. The island’s intricate

tion, food with its evocative power of places

recipes like those in the Arab lands, combine

151

fruits, meats, nuts, vegetables and a greater

which is also a name of a well-known wine (zi-

number of herbs spices - like cumin, saffron

bibbo -zibib) are some of these food plants.

and sumach - not much used in other parts of

Although the Sicilian dishes, beginning from

Europe. It was in the field of agriculture that

about 1000 B.C., borrowed much from the

the Arabs reached the epitome of their contri-

conquering Greeks, Phoenicians and Ro-

bution to Sicilian life. From the very first days

mans, it was the Arab kitchen that has been

of the conquest, cultivation of the land was

the most pervasive, taking on its today’s char-

greatly encouraged.

acter from the Muslim era.

The Arabs brought with them citrus fruits

F. Wood supports this origin of pasta, writing

and cultivated them on a wide scale. Lemon

in her book Did Marco Polo Go to China?:

(Italian limone from the Arabic laymun) and

“It was the occupation of Sicily in 827 by an

orange (arancia from the Arabic al-naranjah)

Arab army that brought hard durum wheat to

orchards were to be found in all parts of the

Italy. Easy to grow but difficult to mill, it is the

island.

main ingredient in pasta. Durum wheat pasta

In addition, the Arabs introduced into the is-

then gradually spread northwards throughout

land, among others, a great number of the

Italy. ...the vocabulary of the Arabs in Sicily is

fruits, spices and vegetables, many of which

commemorated in a type of thin spaghetti still

still carry their Arab names. Buckwheat (Ital-

known by the old Arab name, itriya. Curiously,

ian saraceno), from the Arabic sharqiyin;

despite the demonstrated introduction and

brush palm (giummara - gimar); carob (car-

northwards movement, there seems to have

rubo - kharrub); cumin (cumino - kammun);

been a separate Genoese (not Venetian,

jasmine (gelsuminu -yasmin); prickly pear

alas) tradition of pasta-making, which also

(zabbara - sub~r); pistachio (pistacchio - fus-

owed a great deal to Arab influence. Small

tuq); spinach (spinacio - isbanakh); sugar

lasagne-like squares of pasta are called

cane (canna da zucchero - sukkar); saffron

mandili di sea or `silk handkerchiefs’, mandil

(zafferano - zafaran); sumach (sommacco

being the Arab word for a handkerchief, and

- summaq); tarragon (targòne -arkhun) and

in Genoa, linguini are known as tria, another

its crushing in mills; and a type of grape vine

Arabic word.”

The Arabs brought along with them their sweets - perhaps, the most important contribution made by these eastern conquerors to the Sicilian cuisine was the introduction of sugar cane into Sicily. This revolutionized the whole of European confectionery and gave to the Sicilians the Oriental taste for overpowering sweets, a characteristic which has survived until today.

Semolina and Fish Soup - C첫scusa C첫scusa is famous in the Trapani region of Sicily which abounds in recipes, mostly dealing with fish, going back to the Arab era. This westernmost tip of the island, stretching the fishing port of Mazara del Vallo north to Capo San Vito, was known in Muslim times as the capital of Arab cooking. Even today, in its cuisine, the area shows the deep imprint of the Arab past. This dish is of pure North African origin and is cooked in an earthenware double boiler still carrying its Arab name, mafarhada. However, in Sicily it is prepared with fish instead of meat or chicken and served as a soup.

152

ART

sellated mosaic is the Alhambra in the city of Granada in Andalusia in Southern Spain.

The Islamic world, primarily of Asia and North

During the middle ages Andalusia was ruled

Africa, took a radically different approach to

by Moorish Emirs. The mosaics in the Alham-

mosaics than Europe did. Instead of using

bra were heavily influenced by works being

tesserae (the small, usually square tiles made

produced just across the Straits of Gibraltar

from clay, stone of glass) to create a larger

in Morocco. Similar work was produced in

recognizable picture, Islamic artists used

the rest of North Africa and throughout Turkey

them to create complex patterns instead.

and the Middle East.

Usually these mosaics formed tessellations-repeating geometric designs of polygons that have no overlaps of gaps. Contemporary mathematicians have marveled at the complex geometric patterns used in these mosaics. Usually, but not always, images of living creatures were not used for religious reasons.

In Europe the place to see this type of tes-

MUSIC The “soundscapes� that twist and intersect in the Mediterranean are endless and overlapping, and encourage vibrant combinations and cultural resonances. Such multiplicity of sounds creates a fluid network that crossed every part of the Mediterranean sea and of the world in general.

This contamination is evident and clear also from the history: the expansion of the arab world in the VII century carried new musical structures and models like ghazal, madil, khamriyya. New rhymes and rythmes spread both in the north and in the south reaching North of Europe and Africa.

The music has always insisted on continuing hybridization of sounds that respond and

153

complicate the different currents and opportu-

fluidity and also thanks to the modern and ef-

nities of the modern world. The sounds arise

ficient technological innovations 6.

from certain territories but are intended to

The Music expresses a space, set up a time

travel quickly crossing the borders erected by

that is different from the tangible and known

local identities.

reality; it offers an ineffable and abstract “no-

Music is a language that flows free, undocked

mos” and often it gives voice to that people

from a specific location 4.

and to that social classes which cannot have

Music, as Said argues, has a strong nature

the opportunity to express their thoughts and

of ‘transgression’, because of its ability to

rights.

‘migrate’ from one context to another, and to

For all of this reasons it’s impossible to think

assimilate, mix and match different cultures.

that every city or country has its own music

It has also a strong public nature: it creates

with its own tones, armony and sounds, but

places and times for the articulation of social

it’s important to understad that there has been

relations, regardless of ethnicity, colors, lan-

and continues to be a big contamination and

guages and nationality.

hybridization of the way to compose a song.

Susan McClary writes that music has the

The characteristic of the occidental sounds

power of “socialize” 5, infact it contributes to

are present almost everywhere: in the con-

the formation of individual identity and to the

temporary pop egyptian, lebanese, israli and

way in which we experience our emotions,

turchish music, in the heavy metal groups of

desires and, through the dance,our body.

Teheran, Cairo and Casablanca. It’s also pos-

It can create a new cartography different from

sible to find oriental rap and hip hop.

the existing one that speaks about another

The melisma and microtones, typical of the

story or about an unexpected landscape.

Neapolitan songs, maybe have been origi-

There are infact stories and music composi-

nated more from the maqam music of the ara-

tions sedimented in the sea, suspended as in

bic parameters than from the structured eu-

a solution, that have been hidden and silenced

ropean harmony. The Neapolitan song, with

by radio or by political restrictions. Music has

its pathos is inbred to the flamenco of Seville

the power of “deterritorailizzarsi” thanks to its

or to the Portuguese fado. It’s also similar to

* Alhambra tessellation

155

oriental sounds like the algerian rai or the egyptian ughniyna.

The multiplicity and eterogenity of sounds that characterize the mediterranean music can be describe with the “contrappunto” 7. It is a way to compose music that put together at the same time different musical themes or different melodies. The themes are independent but, when played simultaneously, they can create a harmony.

“In the resulting polyphony there is concert and order” 8.

156

1 Chambers I.M., Le molte voci del Mediterraneo, (original title Mediterranean crossing, The politics of an interrupted modernity), 2007, Milano, pg. 34.

2 See Riccardo Pravettoni, Il cibo come elemento di identitĂ culturale nel processo migratorio, 3 Wright C. A. , A mediterranean feast, New York, William Morrow, 1999, in Iain M. Chambers, Another map, another History, another Modernity, California Italian studies, 2010.

4 Chambers I., Le molte voci del Mediterraneo, Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milano 2007 5 McClary S., Feminine Endings. Music, Gender and Sexuality, Oxford (Minn.), University of Minnesota Press.

1991 6 Chambers I., Mediterraneo blues, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 2012 7 Chambers I. Mediterranean Crossings, Università degli studi di Napoli L’Orientale, Napoli 2008 8 Said E. W., Cultura e imperialismo, Gamberetti, Roma 1995

157

4 REFLECTIONS

How to express the multiple reality of Med Sea, its liquid materiality?

How to represent the Mediterranean melting pot?

Can the Mediterranean multiple identity be represented in a postcolonial approach?

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

The Mediterranean has always been considered as the origin of Europe and Occident, but it has also been the “container” of other histories and different cultures: Arab, Jewish, Turkey, Greek and Latin cultures had characterized this particular space, not only for what concerns literature and history but also for music, cooking or intellectual world in general. We could consider the Mediterranean Sea as a “gate”, as a place where there is a continuous exchange, as a simultaneous perception of division - the sea as a boundary between Europe and the modern North on one side and Africa, Asia and the South of the planet on the other side - and connection.

Focusing on the analogies rather than on differences between cultures, the Mediterranean Sea is considered not as a boundary or a barrier between north and south, or east and west, but as a location of meetings and currents. It evokes movement of people, histories and cultures that show the sense of this historical transformation and cultural translation.

The Mediterranean Sea is at the same time a connector, a means of transport and a container, a site of migrating histories and

162

intertwining cultures. It is considered by Iain

when described it as “a mosaic of all existing

Chambers as a “liquid materiality”, where

colours” or by Matvejević’s description in his

the borders are “porous” and its surfaces are

Mediterranean Breviary. A network of different

“criss-crossed” by its cultures and histories.

fluxes and peoples, goods and ideas has all

The liquid materiality is expressed by tangible

along characterized this “big lake”.

and intangible heritage. Stories of music, food

Its strength is in its physical aspect to be a

and art weave on the sea, leaving traces and

“liquid continent” that brings together the his-

creating a different cartography.

tory of its habitants. As Derek Walcott said in his poems, the sea is history. It is vitality,

These stories are “settled in the sea and sus-

a continuous flow, a vibration of actions and

pended as in a solution” (Chambers, 2008).

daily events.

Music, food and art express the culture, tradition and identity of a group but also they are able to mediate between different cultures, opening to contaminations, crossroads and exchanges.

Music travels beyond the boundaries and flows free. Cinema, assembling different images, composes a not linear history but as a prospective. Poetry is able to dialogue between past and present.

The Mediterranean as a melting pot of different cultures with its hybrid and multicultural identity is the Mediterranean that we discovered during this investigation through its history, geography, trades and exchanges.

It’s the Mediterranean described by Braudel

163

The Sea Is History * “Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?

Where is your tribal memory? Sirs, in that gray vault. The sea. The sea has locked them up. The sea is History.”

* DEREK WALCOTT, “The sea is history” from Selected Poems, 1964.

165

MIGRATING MODERNITIES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN * The centrality of the sea to any idea of the Mediterranean comes to our assistance. The sea itself confronts meaning. Its winds, currents, flotsam, varying depths and multiple shorelines induce a provocative contrast with the seemingly stable homelands proposed by the inherited archive of cultural, historical and disciplinary identities. Opposed to the geometrical (and geopolitical) logic of barriers to overcome and differences to integrate, the sea both reflects and absorbs maps that suggest an altogether more fluid understanding. It permits the possibility of an open-ended comprehension of the continual composition of a multiple Mediterranean, where West and East, North and South, Europe, Asia and Africa are caught up in a historical and cultural net that stretches over centuries, even millennia.

Here

the

‘Mediterranean’

is

interrup-

ted continually by a vulnerability that accompanies the encounter with other voices,

other

bodies,

other

histories.

All of this suggests a critical rigour which is

166

encouraged less by the conclusive rationali-

negotiate the very sense of cultural, historical

zations of disciplinary procedures and rather

and political belonging.

more by the registration of the complex and

This particular space inaugurates the space

contingent conditions induced by the transit

of translation. Here, where everything is lo-

of bodies, histories and languages in which

cated, identified, catalogued and explained in

the analytical categories are themselves both

subjective reception, we stumble across the

suspended and sustained. In this excessive

signs and symptoms of something that po-

and often undisciplined space, heterogeneous

tentially exists beyond the subject: elsewhere

tempos and mixed temporalities disturb the

in a coeval time and space. Translation intro-

discursive desire for transparency and home-

duces the possibility of alterity, and of being

coming, proposing another Mediterranean,

‘othered’.

whose interpretations affect our sense of modernity, our sense of our selves and others.

Working with an interdisciplinary and intercultural cartography of the Mediterranean, literary, cinematic, musical and culinary maps can become potential testimonies of other histories, permitting us to reach out beyond existing critical modalities.

Such

an

‘interruption’,

proposed

by

the transit and transformation of these languages, forces a breach in the walls of our ‘home’, creating an opening in our time which can be traversed in order to review the categories, premises and protocols that sustain ‘our’ world. Here, beyond the obvious discomfort disseminated by displacement, it becomes possible to re

167

* Iain Chambers, Lidia Curti, “Migrating modernities in the Mediterranean”, Postcolonial Studies

AREAS

MEDITERRANEAN SEA EUROPE

ASIA

Gibraltar, Barcelona, Marsille,

Istanbul, Cipro, Beirut,

FEATURES

Port Said, Tunis, Algeri, Tanger

Genova, Venezia, Dubrovinik, Athen, Istanbul, Cipro

STRAIT

LIQUID ARCHIVE

AFRICA

MULTIPLE IDENTITY cohexistence of different landscapes, people, cultures, religions

Gibraltar Bosphhorus Suez

NETWORK various fluxes and exchanges

migrating histories and intertwining cultures ''Deposited in the sea are histories and cultures connected, rather then simply divided, by water''

‘’Joins the sea that separates the countries’’ ALEXANDER POPE

‘’water as element that connects rather than divide’’ IAIN CHAMBERS

‘’the sea is history’’ DEREK WALCOTT REFERENCES

‘’a mosaic of all existing colours’’ BRAUDEL

MATVEJEVIC

POSTCOLONIAL ERA

In contraposition to the colonial era, that put in evidence the differences between Europe and South Mediterranean countries, the postcolonial times are characterized by this research of analogies between different cultures.

Iain Chambers’ study on the postcolonial Mediterranean suggests a new way to rethink European, Arab, Middle Eastern and North African identities as intertwined, inviting us to see and think the world differently.

In his research of a postcolonial museum he tried to investigate the museum as a site of cultural powers and traditions in the light of a postcolonial critique.

“How to conceive and conceptualize museum spaces and practices in the light of the histories, cultures and lives that such institutions have structurally excluded in the course of their formation?” 1.

The key point of all the questions around a new configuration of a museum in a postcolonial era, could be summarized in this deliberate passage from the museum “as a national crypt and cemetery of commemoration to a migrating network of traces and memories”.

170

POSTCOLONIAL MUSEUM the Pressures of Memory and the Bodies of History *

(meant as cultural spaces rather than physical places) into living archive through creation, participation, production and innovation we will also consider the following issues:

How to conceive of a “postcolonial museum”

How does the museum reshape its cultural

in the contemporary epoch of mass migra-

spaces in the light of the precarious condi-

tions, Internet and digital technologies? How

tions of work of the subjectivities working

to consider this space, practices and institu-

within its context? How are those subjectivi-

tions in the light of the repressed histories,

ties produced within this context?

sounds, voices, images, memories, bodies,

How do new media arts participate in the

expression and cultures that the Occident

complex transformation of cultural artwork?

has either denied or investigated as merely

How to work towards new forms of archiving

objects of traditional display practices? How

— “affective”, sensorial, sound and fluid ar-

to retrace and re-route museums perspec-

chives — even in conventional museum

tives taking into account the pressures of the

spaces?

denied bodies of European history repressed in its colonial past and present?

How to re-think memory and its means in the light of the dissonant, asynchronous and displaced memories coming to meet us from the unregistered present, and the future narration of contemporary migration?

How to re-open the museum space, in order to transform it from a place of national identity and the accumulative logic multiculturalism, to a site of contaminations, fluxes, border-

1 Chambers I., Cultural Memories, Museum Spaces and Archiving in museums in An age of migrations edited by Luca Basso Peressut and Clelia Pozzi, Melabooks.

crossings and migrating memories?

* MELAproject abstract

Focusing on the transformation of museums

171

http://www.mela-project.eu

POSTCOLONIAL MUSEUM APPROACH a theoretical approach that “investigate the museum as a site of cultural powers and traditions in the light of a postcolonial critique thath highlights the histories, cultures and bodies”

MEMORY

ARCHIVE

OBJECTS

passage, site of transit, connect-

assemblages of flows, connec-

tangible and intangible heritage

ing past present and future

tions and networking

(sounds, images, simulations..)

“affective“, sensorial, sound, fluid

a) migrating museum AREAS

b) from single artist to participative museum and social technology c) subjectivity and artists in the age of precariousness d) museums, digital archives and new media arts e) alternative archiving practices

FROM

evolution in the idea of museum CONSERVATIVE museum as national crypt and cemetery commemoration

TO

PERFORMATIVE migrating network of traces and memories site of contamination, fluxes, border crossings and migratin memories

How to re-think memory?

How to re-open the museum space, in order to transform it from a place of national identity and the accumulative logic ulticulturalism, to a site of contaminations, fluxes, border-crossings and migrating memories?

QUESTIONS

How to conceive of a “postcolonial museum� in the contemporary epoch of mass migrations, Internet and digital technologies?

How to retrace and re-route museums perspectives taking into account the pressures of the denied bodies of European history repressed in its colonial past and present?

PROPOSAL A MUSEUM OF MEDITERRANEAN SEA IN A POSTCOLONIAL ERA

Considering the Mediterranean sea as a “liquid container” of material stories. Looking from a postcolonial point of view, its boundaries are not anymore so clear: we discover that the obligation to belong to one side or the other of the sea dissolves; it can be more than one thing at the same time, you can have multiple memberships, coexisting different roots, many voices living together.

Our proposal is to collect all these stories forgotten and dispersed in the Mediterranean Sea and show them through different artistically expression, such as music, visual arts, cinema, literature and food. In this sense the Mediterranean Sea become a “fluid archive”, that is visual, sound and poetical, as announced by Iain Chambers.

Many are in fact the stories that express and represent the “other history” of the Mediterranean Sea and that would be the “contents” of this museum, called LIQUID MUSEAUM.

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5 CASE STUDIES

We studied the already existing realities

present of the Mediterranean.

that conduct research and investigate on

With the Events we mean those manifestation

the Mediterranean nature and identity. With

that are not fixed and permanent but are held

this analysis we found out that the methods

occasionally, for example every year, and that

and approach to the Mediterranean topic are

gather lots of people for a short period.

numerous and different, and for this reason we divided all these case studies in three dif-

The analysis on the case studies allowed us

ferent fields: the MUSEUM, the RESEARCH

to have more awareness in the draft of the

CENTRE and the EVENT.

program: in order to have a complete vision of

We mapped each case study and we tried to

the Mediterranean we thought important the

underline which is its nature and what type of

Liquid Museaum would have all the aspects

research and activities take place.

of each categories, thinking to a place that could be at the same time a research center,

The Museums that we chose to analyze are

as place of investigation, a museum as a digi-

places that expose physical objects or tell sto-

tal archive where all the objects and stories

ries about the Mediterranean with educational

are collected together with a map of the other

and historical purposes. This category was

Mediterranean realities, and over all a site of

important to understand what type of Mediter-

performance.

ranean object are already exposed and how the exhibitions are prepared nowadays.

During this research we also found some sug-

The Research centers make studies about

gestions of different projects that in inspire

the Mediterranean from different point of

us for the program of our Liquid Museaum,

view, organizing conference and international

such as the Theatre of the World built by Aldo

meetings. From this category we understood

Rossi for the Biennale in Venice in 1979. It

that was fundamental that the Liquid Muse-

was built in a shipyard, was towed by sea

aum had a research department with labo-

and docked off the Dogana in the middle of

ratories, workshops and lectures in order to

the water, where it remained during the Bien-

keep alive and make known the past and the

nial exhibition. Then the theatre crossed the

* Theatre of the world by Aldo Rossi, crossing the Adriatic Sea from Venice to Dubrovnik

179

Adriatic Sea and settled in Dubrovnik. “Its voyage made possible the most adventurous and accidental of encounters, rendered totally surreal by the stateliness of its demeanour” .

Aldo Rossi described this project as “a place where architecture ended and the world of the imagination began”, suggesting us in the imagination of the Liquid Museaum.

180

CASE STUDIES

FIXED

MUSEUM

RESEARCH CENTER

EVENTS

• MUCEM (Marseille)

• Centre for Mediterranean Stud-

• Biennale of Young European

• Museu de la Mediterranea

ies (Bochum, Germany)

and Mediterranean Artists

(Spain)

• Anna Lindth Fondation

(around Mediterranean cities)

• New Mediterranean Multimedia

(Alexandria, Egypt)

• Biennale of Mediterranean Sea

Library (Cagliari)

• The Marseille center for Medi-

(Genova)

• Galata, museo del mare

terranean integration (Marseille)

• Expo of Mediterranean

(Genova, Italy)

• Istituto Studi Mediterranei

(Palermo)

• Museum of med archaeology

(Lugano)

(Marseille, France)

• EuroMed

• Museu de la mediterranea

• Fondazione Mediterraneo

(torroella de montgri, Spain)

(Naples, Italy)

• Museo dell’intreccio mediter-

• Center for eastern Mediterra-

raneo

nean Studies

(castel sardo, Italy)

(Budapest, Ungary)

• Museo delle trame del mediterraneo

MOBILE

(Palermo, Italy)

181

• Teatro del Mondo, Aldo Rossi

• Trusted subcultures, Rietveld

(Venezia-Dubrovnik)

Landscape

• Nomadic Museum,

• N A P New Amsterdam Park,

(New York)

Rietveld Landscape

CASE STUDIES MAP

centre for mediterranean studies bochum, GERMANY

Museum

centre f institute of mediterranean studies lugano, SWISS teatro del MONDO med sea centre mediterranean integration marseille, FRANCE MUCEM marseille, FRANCE museum of med archaeology marseille, FRANCE

biennale of mediterranean sea genova, ITALY galata, museo del mare genova, ITALY

museu de la mediterranea torroella de montgri, SPAIN museo dell'intreccio mediterraneo castel sardo, ITALY

mediterranean multimedia library cagliari, ITALY

fondazione mediterra napoli, ITALY

centro

expo of mediterranean palermo, ITALY museo delle trame del mediterraneo palermo, ITALY

NOMADIC museum .....

event museum research

of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities stockholm, SWEDEN for eastern mediterranean studies budapest, HUNGARY

aneo

o polifunzionale e museo del mare reggio calabria, ITALY

biennale of young european and mediterranean artists med sea

anna lindth foundation alexandria, EGYPT

CENTRE FOR MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES

esearch

MAPPING

FIELD

Ruhr-Universität Bochum GERMANY

It is the first academic institution in Germany which is dedicated to the cross-epochal study of social science and the humanities in this multi-layered contact zone between Africa, Asia and Europe.

Supported by the Federal Ministry for Research and Education the Centre for Mediterrranean Studies has created a platform from which to coordinate the activities of all Mediterranean scholars at the Ruhr University in Bochum and to connect them with national and international Mediterranean studies. The focus of research is on the humanities, cultural and social sciences, including geographical, natural and political sciences.

http://www.zms.ruhr-uni-bochum.de

RESEARCH

Research Group 1: People on the Move – Migration as a Regional Resource Research Group 2: Social Networks – Corpora of Knowledge and Transmediterrean Contacts Research Group 3: Intercultural communication - Pragma and Dogma Research area 4: diplomacy and naval supremacy – Political Networks Conferences and workshops Lecture series Regular symposia (Mediterranean forum) On-line databank of people involved in Mediterranean studies in the German-speaking world Calendar of international Mediterranean Studies events University courses and promotion of young researchers/scholars

MUSEE DE CIVILISATIONS DE L'EUROPE ET DE LA MEDITERRANEE

MUCEM

MAPPING

useum

FIELD

Marseille FRANCE MuCEM will soon be based in the Fort SaintJean which overlooks the Port of Marseille, and a new adjacent building.

The MuCEM is a museum dedicated to the cultures of Europe and the Mediterranean whose opening is planned in Marseille.

Along with the collections of the former Museum of Arts and Popular Traditions in the Bois de Boulogne, it will house the collections from the “Europe” department of the Museum of Man in Paris.

* http://www.mucem.org

RESEARCH

A museum of the 21st century, the MuCEM will focus principally on the cultures of the Mediterranean, from a comparative and multidisciplinary perspective in which Europe and the other continents bordering the Mediterranean will play a major role. It will offer a new perspective on the cultures of the Mediterranean.

MUSEU DE LA MEDITERRANEA

useum

MAPPING

FIELD

17257 Torroella de MontgrĂ­ SPAIN

The Museum of the Mediterranean has the ambition to be a Museum of the XXIst century. It has been designed as an open space of participation for all and belonging to all, aiming at the discovery of the Mediterranean area, using the five senses and the leading thread of sounds and musics.

The aim is not to praise an imaginary Mediterranean, but to show an area which is riddled with cracks: never ending wars, problems of understanding, a damaged environment... and in front of this scenario, we would like to persuade the visitors of the need for dialogue and understanding in our daily life, provoking reactions that could lead to a critical attitude of the world that surrounds us.

* www.museudelamediterrania .cat

RESEARCH

The museum is divided in section, each of them has a research theme: - We live in a territory open to the sea, in contact with the other peoples of the Mediterranean.

- Music flows from mouth to ear, folllowing the sound wawes by means of the contacts between the peoples.

- We are the heirs of a Mediterranean landscape and culture.

- The mediterranean reality today.

NEW MEDITERRANEAN MULTIMEDIA LIBRARY

MAPPING

Via Mameli 164 Cagliari - ITALY

RESEARCH

esearch

FIELD

Located in a strategic point of the city, near to the main gates of Cagliari, and in general close to one of the most important infrastructure of the area, the Mediterranean MultiMedia Library (MEM) aims to promote the culture of books and other media , becoming a new place to gather and meet.

The Multimedia Library is divided in: - The Historical Archives is one the most important of the island and consists of a large collection of scrolls and royal charters, codes parchment and papers.

- The Municipal Library with a section on Sardinian Studies: is one of the most valuable sources for the knowledge and study of the historical, political, social and cultural rights of the Sardinian people.

- General Library

ANNA LINDTH FOUNDATION

esearch

MAPPING

FIELD

Swedish Institute, 57, 26 July Avenue, Mansheya Corniche, Alexandria - EGYPT

The Anna Lindh Foundation facilitates and supports the action of civil society of the Euro-Mediterranean Region in priority fields which affects the capacity for individuals and groups to share values and live together.

* www.euromedalex.org

RESEARCH

The Foundation’s programme is focused on activities in fields which are essential for human and social dialogue: - Education and Youth - Culture and Arts - Peace and Co-existence - Values, Religion and Spirituality - Cities and Migration - Media

THE MARSEILLE CENTER FOR MEDITERRANEAN INTEGRATION

MAPPING

FIELD

271 Corniche Kennedy 13007 Marseille – FRANCE

www.cmimarseille.org

RESEARCH

esearch

CMI aims to enhance the convergence of sustainable development policies by providing a platform for knowledge sharing and joint learning. The CMI is created by a Memorandum of Understanding among Founding Members which include, at the end of 2009, Egypt, France, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, as well as the European Investment Bank and the World Bank. Other collaborative arrangements with countries and partners are being prepared.

Three programs are currently being developed in the Sustainable Development Cluster at the CMI: -The Mediterranean Environmental Sustainable Development Program “Sustainable MED” is jointly led by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

-The second on Water Resources Management “Economic approach to the management of water demand” is led by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and UNEP/MAP/Plan Bleu.

-The third on Environmental Economic Evaluation is led by Plan Blue.

All programs are being developed in close collaboration with partner organizations and the concerned countries in the region, and will serve to provide a platform to facilitate the joint identification of solutions to common environmental challenges.

INSTITUTE FOR MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES

esearch

MAPPING

FIELD

Via G. Buffi 13, CH-6904 Lugano - SWISS

The Institute for Mediterranean Studies (ISM) promotes scientific and cultural thinking on the Mediterranean, casting a critical eye on the complex political reality of the area with the tools afforded by the social sciences and the humanities.

It looks at the Mediterranean as a specific object of research and as an analytical category, which makes it a prestigious partner nationally and internationally.

Since its foundation in 1997, the Institute for Mediterranean Studies has acted as a forum of exchange between international organizations, institutions, researchers and scholars from different countries.

It organizes meetings, seminars and conferences aimed at fostering dialogue and mutual understanding in the Mediterranean area.

* www.usi.ch

RESEARCH

Its research activities place particular emphasis on the dialogue between academics, civil society, and international institutions.

ISM research addresses issues such as the making of a Mediterranean identity in the literary heritage from the eighteenth century to date, gender dynamics between social practices and cultural models in present-day Mediterranean societies, and migratory intentions in educational context within the Mediterranean area.

FONDAZIONE MEDITERRANEO

MAPPING

FIELD

Via Depretis, 130 80133 Napoli - ITALY * www.fondazione mediterraneo.org

esearch

The Fondazione Mediterraneo - network for dialogue among societies and culture - is an international non-profit Organisation of Social Utility (Onlus) established in 1994 in Naples with the aim of promoting dialogue and peace in Mediterranean areas and all around the world. It includes specialists and internationally recognised scholars on the Mediterranean, politicians with international and diplomatic experience, and who have been involved in actions to promote dialogue and peace.

The Fondazione Mediterraneo is developing a work plan to accomplish the following:

RESEARCH

1. Activities of network the branch offices of the Fondazione 2. Participation in the programs of the network to which the Fondazione belongs 3. Technical coordination-organizational of the main office 4. Coordination of the Maison de la MĂŠditerranĂŠe, Maison des Alliances, Maison de la Paix-Casa Universale delle Culture 5. Management of the database 6. Management of the web site and portals 7. Management of the press bureau and of press reviews 8. Management of the library 9. Management of the spaces for lectures, seminars, meetings, workshop, shows and varied events of the headquarters/main office 10. Actions for international visibility 11. Construction of relations and institutional engagement with countries, institutions and associations of the Greater Mediterranean

BIENNALE OF MEDITERRANEAN

vents

MAPPING

FIELD

Via G. Buffi 13, CH-6904 Lugano - SWISS

The Biennial of Mediterranean Countries derives from the need to create an occasion to reflect on the social, industrial and cultural development , which allowed the Mediterranean Sea to grow and become again one of the world’s interesting areas. Following the invitation of the Italian Foreign Office, the Biennial will be opened with an innovative format combining cultural elements with the peculiar industrial and technological direction of the city.

The Biennial of Mediterranean Countries is an occasion to give great visibility to the industrial and cultural initiatives of co-operation, which are taking place between the North and the South of the Mediterranean Sea, in order to focus on the strategic themes to develop this area such as energy, transports, sustainability, water and respect for the territory.

* www.usi.ch

RESEARCH

There are exhibition of shows and interactive laboratories, conferences and events about scientific subjects. Moreover there may be spaces dedicated to history, art and customs.

-the exhibition about the origins and the features of the Mediterranean Sea - Mare Nostrum by Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali - the exhibition “The words of the sea” about linguistic and cultural transmissions inspired by the Linguistic Atlas of the Mediterranean Sea edited by Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice - the project “Human Race” about genes, peoples and languages by La Sterpaia- Workshop of the Art of Communication co-ordinated by Oliviero Toscani - the review “Science in cooking” which, focusing on some typical raw materials, shows traditional recipes and farming methods, peculiar manifacturing and preservation of the different countries on the Mediterranean Sea.

BIENNALE OF YOUNG EUROPEAN AND MEDITERRANEAN ARTISTS

MAPPING

FIELD

every year is settled in a different mediterranean city. * www.bjcem.org

RESEARCH

vents

The Biennial was conceived as a multi-disciplinary meeting, open to young artists under 30 years old coming from all the Euro-Mediterranean Countries.

The aim of the Association is to create opportunities for the young artists to produce and showcase their works and to support their mobility and learning process.

BJCEM is an independent organization, open to anyone who shares our aim and interests without cultural, religious, political, social or moral distinction. It’s member of the Anna Lindh Foundation and the Culture Action Europe network.

During the 27 years of its history, the Biennial has been considered as the main window over the creation in the Mediterranean, presenting the productions of young artists working on different fields of artistic research and creativity included: Visual Arts Design Fashion Architecture Gastronomy Literature Cinema Music Performing Arts Theatre and Dance

6 PROGRAM

LIQUID MUSEAUM

The Mediterranean sea is not static but, as a liquid surface, has a continuous movement; it’s not owned by any king, region, country or nation but it’s a free and an open system, place of migrating histories and of hybridization between people and cultures.

In order to think back the identity of the Mediterranean and its liquid nature, and especially in a postcolonial era of multiculturalism, contaminations, fluxes and migrations, it follows a different type of museum, not a solid sacred temple representative of a society, but to a liquid narrator of material stories, a Liquid Museaum.

The “Liquid Museaum” is a ship that, traveling on the water, carries and gives voice to all the stories “picked up” from the sea and from people. Its role is to express, show and study the Mediterranean that, as Iain Chambers says, is a liquid archive.

198

Liquid archive * Why water? This is to introduce the theme of a liquid archive and the accompanying idea of historical, cultural and social processes being suspended and sustained in a mutable and dynamic eco-system.

The ontological challenge of water, as opposed to a rootedness in the ground beneath our feet, forces the adoption of fluid coordinates that require continual navigation and negotiation. the sea is here considered not merely as a surface that permits movement and migration between terrestrial referents, but becomes the site of migrating histories and intertwining cultures.

* IAIN CHAMBERS, Maritime criticism

199

AN OIL TANKER In the contemporary epoch of mass migrations the travel, as a metaphora of exchanges and meetings, would have an important role in the configuration of the museum, so we thought about a mobile structure that travelling on the Mediterranean Sea, could reach its coasts. In fact a fixed site would not be appropriated to the needs of a postcolonial museum of the Mediterranean.

Thanks to its migratory condition, the museum would be continuously enriched by interactions like exhibitions and conferences on the identities of places that reach.

As container of this “Liquid Museaum� we choose an oil tanker, symbol of this world of exchanges and meetings, of trade and commerce.

201

LIQUID MUSEAUM MANIFESTO OBJECTIVES “Raccontare il Mediterraneo, ripensare il Mediterraneo, attraversarlo seguendo traiettorie di volta in volta diverse attraverso le espressioni artistiche -musica, arti visuali, cinema, letteratura. In quest'ottica il Mediterraneo diventa un archivio fluido che è insieme sonoro, visivo e poetico“ (Iain Chambers) The aim of the Liquid Museaum is to investigate the Mediterranean as place of “hybridization” through three main areas: 1. a dipartment of research 2. a digital archive - as an instrument of collection and multimedia narration 3. performance sites - as platforms of new connections and exchange

ACTIONS The action “LIQUID MUSEAUM” moves along some main areas - Music, Literature, Gastronomy, Visual art- in order to express the multiple nature of Mediterranean Sea.

ACTIVITIES The activities moves from theorical approach with conferences, lectures, laboratories, to a performative and dinamic aspects linked to the artistical expressions.

1. DIGITAL ARCHIVE

2. RESEARCH DEPARTMENT

3. ACTION

narration places

workshop

Concert hall

multimedia spaces

lecture hall

Recording Studio

video projection

laboratories

Acoustic rooms

audio-video gallery

offices

Stages Open plaza (Market)

unit rooms

Projection space

collective spaces (kitchen, living

Mobile units (barges)

room....)

Kitchen garden

202

The Liquid Museaum travels in the sea dock-

cular relation between archive research and

ing to different landsides, with the aim to show

action.

the multiple identities of the Mediterranean

The stories and the Mediterranean identity

Sea and the common elements between dif-

are narrated and expressed through three dif-

ferent cultures. Music, food, and other artis-

ferent parts: what we call ACTION, a platform

tical performative expression will be the ve-

of new connections and exchanges, the RE-

hicle to represent the multiple mediterranean

SEARCH and the ARCHIVE, an instrument of

identities. The nature of the museum, open

collection and multimedia narration.

and flexible, reflectes the nature of the liquid archive, leaving the visitor free to choose his own approach.

It is established a mutual interaction between the mainland and the platform with an exchange of experiences, identities and cultures in both the directions: the mainland absorbs the stories of the “liquid museum” and the “liquid archive” could be enriched by the landscapes and the identity of that paticoular place where it is docked.

The platform / oil tanker is used as an archive and a research department during its navigation, and will become a site of performance when it docks at the port. With open spaces for events, concerts, performances and market activities, it will become the theatre of new kind of hybridizations, that will become part of the archive enriching it in a continuous cir-

203

WHAT

Open system that stimulates DIALOGUE and HYBRIDIZATION between different cultures

WHY

LIQUID MUSEAUM MANIFESTO

In order to express the MATERIALITY of Mediterranean Sea its MULTIPLE NATURE and the CONTAMINATIONS between different cultures

ACTIVITES

FEATURES

ARCHIVE

Open / Closed spaces

Inside / Otside the ship

Liquid

Active / Fixed spaces

Open, Flexible

Always under construction

Workshops

Performances

Library

Lectures

Exhibition

Conferences

Concert

Gallery

SPACES

Different spatial configurations

Mediateca

Rooms

USERS

ACTION

Open

Offices

OBJECTS

RESEARCH

Seminaries Laboratories Aulas

on the ship

Gallery

Concert hall

Labs

researchers students, artist, visitors,

Open theatre Performances stage

Music, Art, Gastronomy, Literature, Cinema, Show

204

The Liquid Museaum is an open system that stimulates dialogue and hybridization between different cultures.

The three components are strictly linked one to the other.

The Archive is open and always under construction. It’s not static but dynamic and increases through new hybridizations.

The Research studies the archive materials and the exchanges on the Mediterranean, investigating new possible interactions.

The Action is the vital and dynamic part of the museum, with its performances it expresses the contemporary migrations and contaminations that will be recorded in the archive.

205

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PROGRAM

LIQUID ARCHIVE “open” archive under construction from historical memories

MUSEUM

ACTION

getting increase

memory of the past “not in use”

archiving different types of materials

act of the present “in use”

1. digital objects MULTIMEDIA ARCHIVE VIDEO GALLERY

digital memory immateriality global collection in one archive

- how produced - how used - when used

LABs

(past, present, future)

on the ship

2. material objects OTHER EXISTENT MUSEUMS memory of the past materiality

local collections

in specific territories on the med coasts*

disciplines GASTRONOMY

Il mondo in cucina: storia identità scambi, M. Montanari

MUSIC

knowledge

tools

receipt

products

performance

instruments

Mediterraneo Blues, I. Chambers

RESEARCH DEPARTMENT

LABs research WORKSHOP

catalogation of materials and informations

LECTURES

* see case studies map

208

PROGRAM OF DISCIPLINES MUSIC

GASTRONOMY PRODUCTS

material knowledge food, beverage

instruments, audio

Wine and Extra Virgin Olive Oil Dairy Products and Meats Bread and Pasta Legumes and Vegetables

GROUPS

instruments String (oud, guitar, mandolin) Keyboard (harpsichord, piano)

spaces

kitchen

practice room

tasting workshop

recording room

kitchen school

concert hall

food shop kitchen garden

Electronics Percussion

technical spaces

Wind

larder

backstage, instrument

cold storage

storage

music, sounds, how to use, technics...

wine cellar

symbolic values, menu, receipt, eating habits, how to cook, how to eat.... immaterial knowledge

209

Wild edible plants and herbs Fish

CHRONOPROGRAM

The Liquid Museaum ship travels on the Mediterranean Sea reaching all the big ports facing its water. We have imagined an itinerary based on the already existing commercial and touristic routes, and also considering the ancient routes that during the centuries have crossed the Mediterranean water.

The Liquid Museaum will visit 26 cities homogeneously dislocated in all the 46000 km of the Mediterranean coasts. It sails at 26 km per hours (600 km per day) and it spend almost 1 month to reach all the cities on the route.

The Liquid Museaum during its travel, alternates period of navigation with period of docking, thus the period need to complete the entire travel around the Mediterranean is extended to 2 months.

The navigation routes is characterized by different duration, a minimum of 6 hours (ex: from Port Said to Alexandria), to a maximum of 2 days (ex: from Creta to Catania) and the period of docking can range from 2 to 4 days; it change basically with the length of travel, in fact longer is the navigation, longer is the docking, with the bigness of the city and of the population, and with the concomitance of events organized in the city.

210

Also the activities on the Liquid Museaum ship change if it is docked or not.

When it is docked all the ship is active and all the different fields work out: laboratories, workshop, conference and lectures, exhibitions and performances take place on the ship all day long, the museum and the archive are open to public visitors and the theater organize shows and musical performance.

The platform becomes an active and dynamic soil where sellers of that city could bring their products in different stands organized on board.

Instead during the navigation only the research part and the archive are active and in these periods the Liquid Museaum ship is lived by students, researchers and artists that can use the spaces preparing the upcoming shows and the crew.

211

Trieste

DISTANCES TIME

Venice

Genova 135km 5 h

Marseille

Barcelona

549km 21 h

590km 22 h

5 2

Ancona

Rome

343km 13 h

Naples

625km 24 h Valencia 372km 14 h Murcia

Cadiz Algeciras

Tangier Ceuta

Malaga

569km 22 h 185km 7 h

200km 8 h

154km 6 h

697km 26 h Algier

Tlemcen

ECOAFRICA TANKER Stazza lorda: 79.000 t Lunghezza fra perpendicolari: 275 m Larghezza: 45, m VelocitĂ di servizio: 14 nodi (26Km/h) 1 day (600Km)

DISTANCES-TIME OF PERCORRENZA

170km 6,5 h

Trapani

Palermo

Catania

Tunis

570km 22 h

Tripoli

Odessa

557km 21 h

a

Dubrovnik

Varna

195km 7,5 h Bari

Istanbul

Igoumenitsa

Athens

Cesme

794km 30 h 1650km 50 h

Rodi Creta

480km 18 h 649km 24 h

1300km 50 h

Cipro

700km 26 h

Beirut

Alexandria

HYPOTETICAL ROUTE LIQUID MUSEAUM

Trieste Venice

Genova

8h

Marseille

Ancona 8h

8h

Barcelona

Rome

Naples

1day 8h Valencia

8h

Murcia 8h

Cadiz Algeciras

Tangier Ceuta

Malaga 8h

1day

Trapani

1day Algier

Tlemcen

Palermo

Catania

Tunis

1day

Tripoli

1 day (600Km)

HYPOTETICAL ROUTE "LIQUID MUSEAUM"

1day

Odessa

1day Dubrovnik

Varna

1day

Bari

Istanbul

Igoumenitsa

h 8h

Athens

Cesme

a

y

2days

1day

2days Creta

Rodi

1day Cipro

2days

1day

8h 6h

Alexandria

Port Said

8h

Beirut

Napoli Genova

Marsiglia

Barcelona

Valencia

Malaga

Algeciras Tangeri

Algeri

Tunisi Pantelleria

performance

Tripoli

research (workshop, labs, lectures) research archive/museum

Catania

archive/research 8h travel 1d travel 2d travel period of stop 1d 2d

Creta Alexandria

Reggio Taranto Ancona Venezia

Dubrovnik

Igoumenitsa

Athens

Istanbul

Cesme

Cipro Mersin Beirut Port Said

M U L T I M E D I A , ° @

°

°

a

,

°

L I B R A R Y

, °

a

a @ ° studio azzurro ° museum as narration , ° a @ @ ° , a , °

@

@ 1 remember 2 preserve 3 value 4 participate 5 share memory

multimedia virtua

l

video

files

film

audio

°

ARCHIVE

what to see, in which order or language and with which kind of technology.

The Archive is the third main area, the one

This digital approach is a way to know about

that more identify the Mediterranean in the

the materiality of things without their pres-

sense given by Iain Chambers as a “liquid

ence.

archive”.

The museum becomes more a dynamic

It consists of two different part: a Multimedia

place, not just a place for collecting and ex-

library and a Sea Memory Museum that col-

hibiting: this is a di¬stinguishing feature in the

lect object found in the water as a memory of

passage from an idea of a museum as a col-

a story of the past.

lection to a museum as narration, as Studio

The multimedia archive collects digital ob-

Azzurro* well express in their exhibition. The

ject such as video or files that show different

sensitive environments, which Studio Azzurro

stories about music and gastronomy. It’s an

has been developing in an artistic context

immaterial and intangible global collection, an

since 1994, bring an open dialogue between

interactive experience and is totally absent

physical elements and intangible aspects,

the typical contemplation of the “normal” mu-

through interactive technology. The concept

seum.

of the sensitive environment in the museum

In this area it is possible to rebuild the story

project is considered as a place in which there

of an object, an instrument or a particular

is an interrelation between the virtual compo-

type of food, to get in touch with a particular

nent and the physical presence.

type of music or regional cuisine and to get more information about them. It is possible to know about its history, its origin for example where and when is born, if its significance has changed during time or if it still exist or not.

It is a narrative habitat where the visitor is supposed to play an active role, to choose

* STUDIO AZZURRO, From museum as a collection to museum as narration.

219

S E A

M E M O R Y

M U S E U M

sea memory museum zarsiz

objects

C H I VI O DEL M A R

memory sea history floating objects

archive exhibition

A R

tunisia

collection

objects

The Sea Memory Museum is the second area of the “archive”. It configures as an open and flexible never ending space and in constant increase where objects found in the sea are exposed as memory of a story.

The Mediterranean history and identity is made by exchanges, fluxes and migrations of people that traveling around its coasts arrive in other lands carrying their cultures and mashing up them with others creating new hybridizations and contaminations. Each of these migrants can be represent by the object that assembled or simply drawn together become the collection of the museum, like the Sea Memory Musee in Zarzis *, Tunisia.

Lihideb Mohsen in his Sea Memory Musee in Zarzis, Tunisia, gathers and organizes thousands of objects that he daily gathers on the shores of the Mediterranean, making them ‘ready made’. Objects assembled or simply drawn together become the art works of the world’s biggest collector: 26.820 different objects, as certified in 2002 by the inspectors of the Guinness World Records.

* The Memory of the Sea. Objects migrating whitin

the Mediterranean, curated by Annachiara Cimoli in collaboration with MeLa Project. www.mela-project.eu www.soggettimigranti.beniculturali.it

221

M A R K E T workshop

music

/

exhibition

ition

shop work

c musi musi c

E X H I B I T I O N

performance e manc r o f r pe

opentheatre tre thea n e p o

b exhi

exhi b

ition

perf orma nce

food

market

trade

souq

exchange fruits

ine ous nc ea an err dit me rke ma t

q sou jec

ob ts

ACTION It can be seen as a centre of a city, where With Action we intend the performative and

there is the market-suq and people has the

dynamic part of the Liquid Museaum, where

opportunity to meet, join together shows, be

cultures and different identities are expressed

part of a big exchange of products, identities

through music and gastronomy.

and realities.

The action area is a platform that reflects the Mediterranean nature; it’s an open and flexible surface that could contain different activities together: from a big market and exchanges of goods that express the trades of Mediterranean, to different spaces for performances and exhibitions.

Musical exhibitions and performances will take place on the ship in kind of open theater almost on the water, showing how the Mediterranean is full of sounds that has changed and mixed during the time. At the same time we imagine close to the performance a proper market-suq, typical Mediterranean place of exchanges and meeting, of encounter and dialogue.

“The trade contributes to the urban image, and the market, in its more extended meaning, could be element of social recognition”.

Walter Benjamin

* EMPORION, the European Association of Markets http://www.emporiononline.com/

223

R E S E A R C H

DEPARTMENT The metaphorical force of the sea, with its waves, winds, currents, tides, and storms, where the earth touches the sky in the infinity of a horizon that promotes a journey, navigation, dispersal, provides a more suitable frame for recognizing the unstable location of historical knowledge than the restricted location of a landlocked world and its dubious dependence on the fixity of immediate kinship, blood, and soil

laboratories

research

reading rooms

workshops

project

books written text

lectures

conferences

RESEARCH Another main area is the Research department where people can discuss, study, experiment and make research about the Mediterranean. The research has multiple and different focus and supports the liquid archive. It’s spaces are more closed and fixed and are used by researches, students, artists and people in general that want to experiment and investigate about the Mediterranean hybridization. To support the research we imagine that conference, lectures, labs and workshops take place on the liquid museaum becoming a real system that discover and find out new contaminations.

Music and Gastronomy will be investigate not just in the action but also in a more theoretical way: for these reason there will be specific places where it’s possible to experiment new sounds like recording studios and acoustic rooms, and kitchen laboratories where it’s possible to cook Mediterranean food.

225

MIGRAT I O N / M I G R A N T S

n carava

ts migran

travel

s familie

vill age for cre w

mig ran ts

hou sin g

res ide nce s

falansterio cohousing no man's land

MIGRATION

Policing Migration in the Mediterranean *

The ship LIQUID MUSEAUM could be con-

Over recent years, there has been growing

sidered as a no man’s land, it has no a par-

concern in European countries with irregu-

ticular national identification but it belongs to

lar migration and other – supposedly related

the “Mediterranean region” in general.

– transnational challenges from across the

For that reason, taking in consideration the

Mediterranean, which have come to be seen

migratory phenomenon it could be a particu-

both as a security risk as well as a humanitar-

lar role in this context. Thus we imagine, in a

ian challenge. In response, European coun-

utopian way, to interact with this emergency

tries have been stepping up their efforts to

supposing a village inside the ship that gives

police their Mediterranean borders. This has

hospitality to that migrants that wants to work

involved both an increasing militarization of

as “crew” on the ship.

migration control in the Mediterranean, in the sense of the deployment of semi-military and military forces and hardware in the prevention of migration by sea, and an intensification of law enforcement co-operation between the countries north and south of the Mediterranean.

* DEREK LUTTERBECK, Policing Migration in the

Mediterranean, The Geneva Centre for Security Policy, Geneva, Switzerland

227

COLLAGE SHAPE

We use the depth of the oil tanker creating a slab hosting the research department inside, and the action on the top. A flexible and open structure formed by ship-containers is used for the archive, reflecting its nature of open system that could increase during the time. Finally a village for the crew and the researchers is hosted on the stern of the ship.

VILLAGE CREW

SLAB

FLEXIBLE AND OPEN STRUCTURE

A R C H I V E

The archive is located inside the slab with the multimedia library and rises with different floors as a never-ending building in a structure of ship-containers.

The archive tries to represent the “migrating histories� of the Mediterranean Sea through two different parts.

A Multimedia Library collects in a digital way of narration all the information about histories of hybridization in the fields of music, food and performative arts.

A Sea Memory Museum collects objects found in the water during the navigation, as the unconventional museum of Mohsen Lihidheb who has been collecting objects brought by the sea to the Tunisian coasts. With the physical presence of the objects the collection is a way to represent metaphorically the migratory phenomenon of Mediterranean.

231

S L A B

EXHIBITION / MARKET

S L A B

R E S E A R C H / L A B S

The tanker, with the depth of its hull, has the possibility to host inside a lot of activities.

Our proposal is to divide the research program from exhibition and performative place.

Considering the hull of the ship as a slab, all the activities linked to the research, such as laboratories, workshop, lectures, are below the surface of the slab and take place either when the ship is in movement either when it is dock.

The research department is an open space where people of different studies could interact and collaborate each other in order to discover new materials and realities present on the Mediterranean territory.

Instead the roof is designed as an open air land that is occupied when the ship stops in the ports. It hosts the activities linked to the performances and exhibition and become a common ground for a sustainable food market where people could find goods related to that particular place.

237

VILLAGE CREW

The village is situated in the stern of the ship,

students or the researchers.

and it consists in two “building�: the super-

Between the two buildings there is a big patio

structure present in all the oil tankers that

recreating the typical Mediterranean architec-

from the level of the stern rises in six floors,

ture.

and an other building in front of it, that we designed in order to have more apartments; it starts from the first level of the slab and ends at the level of the hull.

The village is thought for all the people that work or study in the Liquid Museaum and that for this reason need to stay on board more than one day. Moreover we decided to have a village on the boat trying to interact, maybe in an utopian way, with migration phenomenon typical of the Mediterranean area, and so to give hospitality and work to all the people that need to travel in another country.

We decide to redesign the interior of the superstructure keeping intact the extern. It is divided in six floors (four flats each floor); this building is thought for migrants’ families and for this reason the apartments change from 70 to 100 sqm.

The second building is divided in 6 floors, three below the level of the surface that take lights thanks to the presence of a patio, and three up from the water. The apartments are single or double unit, and are thought for the

243

7 DESIGN PROPOSAL

The slab is characterized by the presence of numerous patios with different characteristics and different shapes, as in the Mediterranean architecture.

Some of them with fluid shapes, host trees and vegetation, evoking the medieval “hortus conclusus�. These enclosed gardens are a way to bring light and air inside the slab.

PATIO AIR/LIGHT/GREEN

250

* Assonometric view_ Green Patio * Picture Maquette _ Green Patio 251

Others have the function to bring salt water inside the ship; in this case the hull of the tanker is perforated at the bottom allowing the passage of water.

WATER

254

* Assonometric view_ Water Patio 255

In some cases thick walls surround the more regular patios, hosting market activities.

And in others the thickness of the roof is shaped in order to become open theatre for performances and concerts.

MARKET/PERFORMANCE

258

* Assonometric view_ Light-Market Patio * Picture Maquette _ Light-Market Patio 259

260

* Assonometric view_ Performance * Picture Maquette_Performance 261

262

* Assonometric view_ Patio without performance barge * Picture Maquette_Patio inside the research center 263

264

* Assonometric view_ Performance on the sea * Picture Maquette _Performance on the sea 265

TECHNICAL DRAWINGS

We chose to reuse an oil tanker as symbol of tradeness and exchanges. It is the main vehicle that crosses the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The oil tanker we chose is 324 m long, 50 m wide, and has an hull of 25 m.

We kept the external hull of the tanker and its structure, and we decided to redesign all the interior part.

All the elements we added belong to the naval world such as the cranes used in transfer operations inside the ship, a LNG tank used as theatre and a scaffold structure for the ship-container archive.

Also the materials we used refer to the original characteristics of the ship, keeping intact its marine engineering.

LEGEND 1 engine rooms 2 village 3 performative place 4 market 5 theatre 6 archive 7 sea memory museum 8 workshop 9 lab 10 office 11 temporary exhibition 12 reception 13 kitchen lab 14 foyer 15 video projection 16 area pc 17 coffee break 18 conference room 19 musical space 20 toilet 21 lift/stairs 22 storage 23 patio green 24 patio water 25 patio light 26 technical space

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LEGEND 1 engine rooms 2 village 3 performative place 4 market 5 theatre 6 archive 7 sea memory museum 8 workshop 9 lab 10 office 11 temporary exhibition 12 reception 13 kitchen lab 14 foyer 15 video projection 16 area pc 17 coffee break 18 conference room 19 musical space 20 toilet 21 lift/stairs 22 storage 23 patio green 24 patio water 25 patio light 26 technical space

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LEGEND 1 engine rooms 2 village 3 performative place 4 market 5 theatre 6 archive 7 sea memory museum 8 workshop 9 lab 10 office 11 temporary exhibition 12 reception 13 kitchen lab 14 foyer 15 video projection 16 area pc 17 coffee break 18 conference room 19 musical space 20 toilet 21 lift/stairs 22 storage 23 patio green 24 patio water 25 patio light 26 technical space CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA DI UN PRODOTTO AUTODESK

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LEGEND DETAIL: 1 HORIZONTAL PARTITION: .sandwich panel ALU: two cover sheets and a honeycomb core of aluminium 15 mm .steel sheet H85 .beam IPE 200 .main beam HEA 1000 .suspending ceiling for air-system 700 mm 2 MAIN BEAM HEA 1000 3 CIRCULAR BEAM HEA 1000 4 ALUMINIUM DOUBLE GLAZING UNIT 5 CURTAIN TRACK : CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DI UN PROD .doubleDIDATTICA strip curtain 6 LIGHTWEIGHT INTERNAL WALL: .prefabricated panel 120 mm .air 60 mm .wood panel 20 mm .soundproof panel 7 UNDERWATER WINDOW: .laminated tempered glass 8 STEEL TUBOLAR PROFILE: .led light strip .market tent

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LEGEND 1 engine rooms 2 village 3 performative place 4 market 5 theatre 6 archive 7 sea memory museum 8 workshop 9 lab 10 office 11 temporary exhibition 12 reception 13 kitchen lab 14 foyer 15 video projection 16 area pc 17 coffee break 18 conference room 19 musical space 20 toilet 21 lift/stairs 22 storage 23 patio green 24 patio water 25 patio light 26 technical space LEGEND DETAIL: 1 HORIZONTAL PARTITION: .sandwich panel ALU: two cover sheets and a honeycomb core of aluminium 15 mm .steel sheet H85 .beam IPE 200 CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA DI UN .main beam HEA 1000 .suspending ceiling for air-system 700 mm 2 MAIN BEAM HEA 1000 3 CIRCULAR BEAM HEA 1000 4 ALUMINIUM DOUBLE GLAZING UNIT 5 CURTAIN TRACK : .double strip curtain 6 LIGHTWEIGHT INTERNAL WALL: .prefabricated panel 120 mm .air 60 mm .wood panel 20 mm .soundproof panel 7 UNDERWATER WINDOW: .laminated tempered glass 8 STEEL TUBOLAR PROFILE: .led light strip .market tent

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WEB SITES http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/PreHaberBultenleri.do?id=10736 (POPULATION) http://www.moroccanembassylondon.org.uk Porto of Algeciras handbook http://www.apba.es Porto of Gibraltar handbook http://www.gibraltarport.com http://www.suezcanal.gov.eg http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Maritime_ports_freight_and_passenger_statistics http://www.marinetraffic.com/

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LIQUID MUSEAUM

The identity of the Mediterranean Sea could be defined as multiple and diverse, with the coexistence of different landscapes, environments, people, cultures, and religions. This richness is what characterizes the cultural heritage of the Mediterranean Sea. Its geography conformation, with different civilizations facing its coasts, has determined various fluxes and exchanges all along. This network and contamination of histories and cultures allows to consider the Mediterranean Sea not as a boundary or a barrier, but as a location of meetings and currents. In this case, the water could be considered as an element that connects rather then divides, considering the sea as a “liquid archive” (Chambers, 2007).

The “liquid museum” is a mobile structure that reflects its “open” and porous nature, travelling in the sea and docking to the Mediterranean coasts. It consists in a ship with platforms floating in the Mediterranean Sea and bringing stories of art, music, food, literature and architecture as vehicle for the representation of Mediterranean hybridization. In particular we choose an oil tanker, symbol of this world of exchanges and meetings, of trade and commerce.

The LIQUID MUSEAUM, as we called this ship, will travel on the sea becoming an archive and a centre of research during the navigation, and a site for performance and market when is docked. The tanker and platforms would become site for workshops, events, concerts and performances allowing new hybridizations.

The “liquid museum” would be an open system that stimulates that dialogue and hybridization between cultures. The idea to ‘navigate’ around the Mediterranean Sea, touching its landsides, is a way to represent its history of hybridization and make it know.

HYBRIDIZATION THROUGH THE MEDITERRANEAN COASTS

The aim of our design proposal is to represent this kind of contamination between cultures and to express the open and multiple nature of Mediterranean Sea, telling the stories of people and the cultural influences between East and West, North and South. All these stories will be the ‘collection’ of a museum that has to represents the liquidity and multiplicity of the Mediterranean Sea, also with its configuration.