Eventi

International Conference 22 May 2024

The conference promotes a transdisciplinary and transcultural reflection on the complex relationship between architecture and contexts of fragility, with particular attention to coastal areas. The objective of the conference is to shed light on new studies regarding the architectures and urban transformations that have impacted and altered coastal territories from the 1960s to the present.

By contextualizing the selected examples within economic, political, and social geographies, the event also aims to discuss the possible future developments of these places and their current value in relation to the urban and territorial scale. Despite the numerous “failures” in territorial planning, there are, however, multiple cases of significant public and private architectures in the field of critical architectural studies.

The initiative will adopt a dual approach, first considering the historical study and theoretical and design debate on tourist architecture that reached its climax between the 1960s and 1980s. Simultaneously, the focus will be on the transformations that have affected architectural and landscape heritage, through the possible identification of critical, theoretical, and design models capable of addressing the evolution of the built environment in relation to coastal territories. From this perspective, reinterpreting and rediscovering projects developed by 20th-century architects from their archives would be especially appreciated to reflect on new architectures and built landscapes.

The conference, promoted by ABC Department of Politecnico di Milano and Polo Territoriale di Mantova, advocates a comparative methodology from both thematic and disciplinary perspectives. The research subject will be considered within a geographical scope encompassing both major and minor Italian, European, and non-European urban realities, through a multidisciplinary approach. To this end, we highly encourage intervention proposals related to case studies from broader geographies, not confined to the Mediterranean coast.

Finally the symposium invites scholars and researchers from around the world to share their works and ideas according to the following areas of investigation, but not limited to:

1) Mass tourism vs. elite tourism;
2) Tourist architecture between tradition and fiction;
3) Coastal areas and controversial constructions: cultural and political debate;
4) The attractiveness of vulnerable and marginalized contexts;
5) Narrating the coast through design processes and profitable tourism dynamics.