“Alla moderna” fortresses are a particular type of fortification, whose characters emerged in the late 15th century mainly as a result of the innovations brought by the adoption of gunpowder in siege activities. Today it does not appear feasible to trace traditions or guidelines for intervention in the reuse of this particular type of artefacts, which present recurring needs and opportunities to which an architectural project is expected to respond: major land shaping operations outside the walls; separation between the inside and the outside of the fortress; isolation of the fortress from the urban form; inadequacy or insufficiency of the pre-existing volumes to allow processes of transformation, re-functionalization, reactivation and reuse. Starting from the critical analysis of some recent design interventions on fortifications, including towers, castles, fortresses, city walls and ravelins, selected by searching for the presence of those needs and opportunities recurring in “alla moderna” fortresses, a taxonomy of possible design attitudes is hypothesized. The proposed taxonomy defines four main approaches that can be adopted in “alla moderna” fortresses. These approaches are defined through the formal, spatial, positional and orographic relationships that contemporary additions can establish with the existing artefacts: within, below, outside, and across the walls.
DIALOGHI COMPOSITIVI CON LE FORTIFICAZIONI. UNA MAPPATURA (2009 -2024) PER LA CODIFICA DI POSSIBILI AZIONI PROGETTUALI SULLE FORTEZZE “ALLA MODERNA”.
Giuseppe Canestrino
;Roberta Lucente
2024-01-01
Abstract
“Alla moderna” fortresses are a particular type of fortification, whose characters emerged in the late 15th century mainly as a result of the innovations brought by the adoption of gunpowder in siege activities. Today it does not appear feasible to trace traditions or guidelines for intervention in the reuse of this particular type of artefacts, which present recurring needs and opportunities to which an architectural project is expected to respond: major land shaping operations outside the walls; separation between the inside and the outside of the fortress; isolation of the fortress from the urban form; inadequacy or insufficiency of the pre-existing volumes to allow processes of transformation, re-functionalization, reactivation and reuse. Starting from the critical analysis of some recent design interventions on fortifications, including towers, castles, fortresses, city walls and ravelins, selected by searching for the presence of those needs and opportunities recurring in “alla moderna” fortresses, a taxonomy of possible design attitudes is hypothesized. The proposed taxonomy defines four main approaches that can be adopted in “alla moderna” fortresses. These approaches are defined through the formal, spatial, positional and orographic relationships that contemporary additions can establish with the existing artefacts: within, below, outside, and across the walls.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
