TAG Talk #32: For an Inheritable City & not just a seemingly sustainable one by Ettore Maria Mazzola

TAG Talk from Thursday 19th of September 2024. Abstract In his urban regeneration projects for the Rome’s Corviale & Palermo’s ZEN neighbourhoods, and many other urban regeneration projects developed with his students, Ettore Maria Mazzola was able to demonstrate that, by simply taking back in hand the extraordinary urban, economic, social, political and environmental lessons inherited from the 1908-1926 Rome, those can constitute a really valuable inheritance to be bequeathed to the next generations, in all aspects. Not only the socio-urban-architectural-economic lesson of those years is fundamental for an inheritable future, but also the techniques and building materials used by designers and builders of the time, i.e. those reported in the extraordinary handbooks of Carlo Formenti dated 1909. In this TAG Talk, Ettore Maria Mazzola will show us how to apply that extraordinary lesson from our recent past to achieve a better future, demonstrating that, the lesson, properly adapted to the current needs, can be considered internationally valid, not only for Italy. In fact, unlike a post-enlightenment or "modern-technicist" approach, we cannot think of having an universal solution for the whole planet, but only valid general rules, that have always to be applied in accordance with the local customs and traditions. There is a necessity to recover the 'sense of belonging’ or better said, the respect for the ‘genius loci’, meaning that the problem must be approached using a methodology, as a flexible instrument to be adapted case-by-case, to each of the different situations encountered. Prof. Mazzola will share with us this methodology that he developed and it’s teaching to his graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture. Arch. Ettore Maria Mazzola is an architect, urbanist, restorer, painter and author of several essays and books. Blog Virtutem Forma Decorat: https://www.picweb.it/emm/blog/