To see the city of L'Aquila is a joy for the eyes, for the heart, for our self-esteem. It is not only a construction site, but also a site where the ancient and the historic are being resurrected with the help of the most advanced technology, creating a grand symphony where the true past is vibrantly current. I witnessed an evacuation drill, from alarm signal to completion, as I might have imagined it in other similar situations… with great professionalism from the "yellow vests" and discipline from employees, visitors, and politicians, as they cleared a Regional Palace. I saw a historic centre holding its head high, with much that has been done and much that remains to be done, secured, and with life returning everywhere, a noble and vibrant city with fascinating architecture, reacting to the damage suffered with a surge of pride, without the pretence of the glass being half-full or half-empty. History shows no instances of simply a full glass, of everything being all right and all done, but rather workshops of effort, of design, of construction, which is often reconstruction, as it is here, but with both eyes open and well-focused.
An example. Palazzo Ardinghelli has become a museum of the present and future, with Nunzio and Spalletti acting as competing architecture, integrating spatially with the building's style, and then Boetti, Paolini, Garutti, Maria Lai, and many others, creating surprises in every room of its fantastic reality circuit. It all comes from the Maxxi in Rome... and a budding offshoot is fine, but it's worth hoping it becomes a Maxxi.
L'Aquila, by name and by deed, is autocephalous, because it must be so, for children who cannot remain so for life but must become fathers in turn; otherwise, one falls into counter-culture, without haste, with the necessary time, but inexorably, to avoid the risk of being a product of the supply chain, of repetitive minority. Meanwhile, high up, high up, in Maxxi.
KLESSIDRA | EDITED BY FRANCESCO GALLO MAZZEO
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English (UK)