Publication Date:
2008
abstract:
The December 1908 earthquake wrought serious damage to the architectural patrimony of Reggio Calabria, but did not damage the rational, regular idea of the city. This idea had been conceived immediately after the 1783 earthquake by progressive exponents from the court of Ferdinand of Bourbon in the conviction that a rational re-foundation of the Calabrian cities destroyed by the earthquake could become the symbol for a re-birth of the poorest, least developed region of the Bourbon sovereignty. Reggio, in particular, which was neither as big as Messina (a city also much damaged by the earthquake), nor as small as many of the other towns of the province, was selected by Francesco Pignatelli, the authority responsible for the Calabrian re-construction, as the ideal site to experiment a radical urban change to contrast with the irregular form of the antique city and with the possibility of its integral conservation which was strenuously defended by the city’s inhabitants.
The plan for re-construction, which was approved in 1785, was the fruit of a dialectical rapport between the will of Pignatelli to completely transform the city and the less invasive proposals of the architects Francesco La Vega and Antonio Winspeare, the major protagonists of the first phase of the grand re-construction of the southern Calabrian cities. Thanks to the adoption of many of the suggestions of La Vega and Winspeare, which were inspired by the most up-to-date European urban theories, the plan of Reggio elaborated by Giovanni Battista Mori, represents a case of extraordinary interest, both from the point of view of urban planning, as well as from the aspect of the experimentation of particular architectural typologies which range from traditional to those featuring anti-seismic technical innovations. Notwithstanding the slow realization of the plan due to economic difficulties and the traumatic events which engulfed the Borbonic reign leading up to the unification of Italy, it was possible to implement these valuable innovative projectural characteristics even into the modern era, thanks, also, to the work of little-known personages such as the architect Stefano Calabrò a native of Reggio, responsible for the re-construction of the city after the earthquake of 1908.
The plan for re-construction, which was approved in 1785, was the fruit of a dialectical rapport between the will of Pignatelli to completely transform the city and the less invasive proposals of the architects Francesco La Vega and Antonio Winspeare, the major protagonists of the first phase of the grand re-construction of the southern Calabrian cities. Thanks to the adoption of many of the suggestions of La Vega and Winspeare, which were inspired by the most up-to-date European urban theories, the plan of Reggio elaborated by Giovanni Battista Mori, represents a case of extraordinary interest, both from the point of view of urban planning, as well as from the aspect of the experimentation of particular architectural typologies which range from traditional to those featuring anti-seismic technical innovations. Notwithstanding the slow realization of the plan due to economic difficulties and the traumatic events which engulfed the Borbonic reign leading up to the unification of Italy, it was possible to implement these valuable innovative projectural characteristics even into the modern era, thanks, also, to the work of little-known personages such as the architect Stefano Calabrò a native of Reggio, responsible for the re-construction of the city after the earthquake of 1908.
Iris type:
2.1 Contributo in volume (Capitolo o Saggio)
List of contributors:
Manfredi, Tommaso
Book title:
28 dicembre 1908. La grande ricostruzione dopo il terremoto del 1908 nell’area dello Stretto