Il muro. Concetti e tecniche

The aim of this research is to investigate the role of the wall in the mediterranean architecture. In this geographical and cultural area, the wall gains qualities which go beyond the strictly structural and constructive function, becoming a structuring and qualifying element for settlements and living spaces and also the expression of local identity. The research, by “interpreting” the wall as a conceptual category, wants to give an answer to the deep need of improvement of the urban habitat architectural quality within a more proper relationship between identity characters and contemporary project. If we observe villages and rural settlements in the Mediterranean basin, we will inevitably identify some primitive elements which characterize, build, structure and distinguish public from private spaces. Courtyard, wall, basic elements (the cell) and road are “particles”. When they combine organically, they model settlement patterns and determine spatial perception, both partial and global. Through its mass and continuity, the wall contains all these basic elements of the Mediterranean architecture and it does not have merely a building function. It is structuring rather than only structural, it defines architectural space, it is a border and a continuum in stereotomy. As a conceptual category, it acquires complex meanings and conveys ideas like a precise living culture, to stay and relate to other people. Actually, the wall is the concrete expression of introversion, it is a border, an enclosure, it defines and creates spatial hierarchies, it protects and gives an order, it is a presence/absence, permeability, gravity, light and dark. Thus exploration, that is the theoretical and practical study of its meanings as a conceptual category, as well as the study of spatial phenomena and spatial organization, is aimed at finding a new interpretation and giving a new impulse to wall construction in these places. In the course of the last century, the cultural impoverishment has threatened these areas and it has undermined the basis of their identity. This is leading to the loss of their original peculiarities.