Abstract

The Italian Mezzogiorno and particularly Calabria looks like a 'green desert' where the environmental degradation proceeds with the marginalisation of many small communities, whose survival is at risk. Santa Caterina dello Ionio, 450 meters above the Ionian Sea is among the most valuable settlements founded in the Middle Age on the Gulf of Squillace, a particular model of defended enclosure fully combined with the site, rich in cultural and environmental values. The project 'Territori in Circolo', promoted by the association Pheozemia with the local parish, aims to engage the neighbourhood in discovering the relationship between natural resources, urban forms and community life, on this Mediterranean edge of Europe. The project concerns a territory of 2.000 residents, whose profile, stretching from the mountain to the coastline, presents a significant cross-section of this extreme part of the peninsula. The idea of linking different objects and places along this section of Ionian Calabria finally aims to introduce advanced actors and shapes in a declining rural area of the Italian Mezzogiorno.

How to Cite:

Vadala’, D., (2009) “Territori in Circolo': Architectural Praxis for the Survival of Rural Communities in the Italian Mezzogiorno”, field 3(1), 75–112.