CONOSCERE PER VALORIZZARE E RIGENERARE: IL PROGETTO DI MICHELE VALORI PER IL QUARTIERE CAPPUCCINELLI A TRAPANI (1957-1963)

Abstract

Valori's project for Cappuccinelli Social Housing district in Trapani can be considered as a forerunner of “modus operandi” that today is increasingly spreading among architects called to design new Social Housing districts (and/or to retroft or regenerate the existing ones, in formal, technological and energy terms) based on an holistic approach, "ecologically oriented". Actually, Ecology, Liveability, Sustainability are terms well suited to the original design of the neighborhood imagined by Valori and his design group, even if Cappuccinelli District has never been really designed under the aegis of these terms, today became fashionable. Through the analysis of documents found at the Values Archive preserved in the Architecture Collections of MAXXI in Rome and the archive of IACP (Autonomous Institute for Social Housing) of Trapani, the design process and the construction events that characterized the whole Social Housing District have been reconstructed by highlighting the prodromal characters of an Architecture based on the architect's desire to guarantee the well-being of users through the design of green open spaces and of different types of dwellings.