Inland areas, tourism and new topographies. Projects along the Amendolea river and the village of Bova. Aree interne turismo e nuove topografie. Progetti lungo la fiumara Amendolea e il borgo di Bova

The contribution proposes an overturning of the concept of marginality of the inner Italian territory through a different reading of geographical and historical identities̀ where the memory of nature and culture constitutes a dormant but not destroyed soul, ready to be extracted in an archaeological and above all dynamic sense, in order to link it to a possible territorial rebalancing. The question is how to re-propose an innovative project culture in ancient centres, far from purely conservationist dogmas and open to contemporary living needs? In this framework, we present two experiences of design research developed in lower Ionian Calabria, within a homogeneous area or rather a landscape room of the Grecanica area, which constitute two modes of intervention in a polisculare Calabrian settlement system. The first intervention identifies the design of a single artefact, a cultural monastery receptive outpost overlooking the landscape and the city metaphorically inspired by the Lecorbuserian programme for La Tourrette ‘’To lodge in the silence of men who devote themselves to prayer and study and to build a church for them’; the second is an intervention within a semi-abandoned centre - Bova in the Grecanica language - conceiving the design of the interstitial spaces as true transfusions into the wounds of the existing city. As with the medieval and Byzantine monastery complexes scattered throughout the valleys of Calabria, the new cultural monastery is located along the banks of the fiumara Amendolea, in a strongly dialectical relationship with nature and history. An attitude of renouncing intervention within abandoned historic centres is favoured, avoiding useless therapeutic overkill in order to propose an idea of innovation in strong dialectic with the existing, through the fascination of the ruin immersed in nature that characterises the historical and picturesque iconography of the great travellers of the Grand Tour in these territories as well. The urban centre of Bova is taken as a laboratory for design experimentation where the form of the ‘absence’ of the built - ruins, demolitions - becomes the regenerating element and sign of contemporary living. Starting from the recognition of a geography of abandonment that often coincides with the geography of territorial risks, the design proposal attempts to identify new value parameters and reference models based on interaction with environmental issues, heritage culture and technological innovation. It starts from a retrofitting action proposed as a powerful factor of conceptual innovation based on new intervention criteria no longer based on the principles of rigidity and substructure but on those of permeability, capable of absorbing and adapting to natural changes. The soil is configured as a dynamic porous device for collecting and recovering rainwater, contributing to the healthiness of the urban space and redesigning the interstitial spaces of the city.