Rebuilding a cultural legacy in a New Town. Reshape physical and cultural continuity between Old and New Gibellina

Abstract

In one night the town of Gibellina was destroyed by the earthquake that hit the Belice Valley in January 1968. En- thusiastically embracing the urban theories/utopias that were on trend in the 1960s, with, however, excessive and in another site. The building of infrastructures, houses and services, albeit by means of goods conceived for a city meant to be a symbol of modernity, does not have be interpreted as a weay to donate life to a whole community. It was also necessary, indeed, to take into account issue like memory, the sense of belonging, the continuity of tra- ditions: it became necessary to construct a new identity. Therefore, under the visionary guidance of the mayor Ludovico Corrao, Gibellina sprung out “from the creative the distinctive signatures of Architects such as Samonà, Gregotti, Purini, Thermes, Nicolin, Ungers, Consagra, - dreds of contemporary works of art distributed en-plein- air in the urban landscape and in museums, that turned out to be creative cells for the regeneration of the social structure. Today, 50 years after the earthquake, not a few questions are raised on how to metabolize all the innovations, in many ways distant from local traditions, introduced by the most advanced urban, architectural and artistic culture.