Il progetto dei beni confiscati: per una metamorfosi urbana e architettonica

The contribution presents the works carried out by the L_inP Landsca- pe_inProgress Laboratory of the Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, started several years ago on the existing confiscated properties focusing on the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria. Through research, teaching and some design experiments, it intends to outline a new map of architectural signs and prototypes that materialize the aesthetic, as well as social, metamorphosis of the city and places, transforming the spaces of corruption and ugliness into positive points of reference for the community, in a new relationship between ethics and aesthetics. The projects are the result of an agreement between the Laboratory and the Macramè Consortium, an important network of over thirty social and agricul- tural cooperatives operating in the Calabrian territory in the challenge for the affirmation of legality, in particular by managing confiscated properties from the mafia. Collaboration in which research and civil commitment are intertwi- ned, placing the substantial confiscated building and agricultural properties in Italy at the center of the work with the idea of developing new aesthetic and functional configurations but also of creating opportunities for re-appropria- tion of places. Metamorphosis is, therefore, understood in its ambivalence as a destructi- ve process and at the same time as a vital manifestation of reconstruction not only of the building, but also of the place and context.