A CINEMATIC VILLAGE FOR A CHANGING LANDSCAPE - AN ALPINE ROMANTIC STORY

Abstract: Climate change has already had noticeable effects on the environment. Glaciers are retreating, ice on lakes and rivers is melting earlier, plant and animal species have relocated, and trees are blooming sooner. The Alpine landscape is one very good example of these dramatic shifts, which significantly impacted its identity and the economic stability of its communities. The effects on the classic forms of alpine tourism, especially the winter one, coupled with the mismanagement of the land and the lack of valorisation of the cultural heritage of the valleys have led to two equally disruptive phenomena: on one side, mass overtourism affects the most popular locations in the mountains requiring the construction of new infrastructures and resorts; on the other, the abandonment of the smallest or less known villages threatens the disappearing of rural communities with the consequent undermining of their surrounding landscape. Addressing the recovery plan drafted by the Italian Government after the pandemic (PNRR 2021), which includes giving new life to smaller villages and their ecological environment as well as reintroducing the Italian cinematographic industry as a competitive player within the international scene, the project aims to tackle the progress/paradox situation affecting the Italian Alps, Overtourism versus Abandonment, and its consequent impact on the landscape. The design is located in the Valle D’Aosta region, due to its proximity to Turin, a scenographic city where Italian cinema was born, and to its controversial nature which sees overbooked glamorous locations juxtaposed to the abandoned small rural realities. Particularly the proposal takes the story of the hamlet of Oyace, whose abandoned buildings are currently being sold at the symbolic price of 1 euro, in order to imagine a different future for alpine communities, which includes both economic growth and environmental awareness.Thought as a continuous dialogue between reality and fiction, the project starts in Oyace, taking shape as a film director’s studio in one of the currently abandoned buildings. It then continues as a new village envisioned by the director on the nearby artificial lake de Place Moulin, chosen for its symbiotic natural and man-made environment. The masterplan, drafted as a movie unfolding on site, borrows from the narrative of a romantic novel, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, written by Italian Francesco Colonna and published in Venice in 1499, which is set in mythical and personified landscapes. The different chapters of the novel with their allegorical nature inspire the ethos of each of the buildings of the village.The architecture of the proposal, which accommodates different programs typically present in a traditional Italian alpine village alongside spaces and structures necessary to the moviemaking, borrows from alpine forms and heritage, set design and movie strategies and the landscape. The result is a series of performative infrastructures staging, re-enacting, revealing and counteracting issues currently experienced by the hamlet of Oyace, these can be environmental, social or economic, and their consequences on the alpine environment. Despite taking from the story of the book and manifesting itself as a village, the project is not limited to the novel, but rather it attempts to start an investigation into the role of architecture within the wider context of the endangered alpine environment, whilst arguing for a multidisciplinary approach and the use of narrative as critical tools for the production of impactful architecture in times of crisis.Ultimately the design aims to envision a new future for the community of Oyace and its ecological environment, speculating on a new approach towards giving new life to alpine communities based on a deeper awareness of their surrounding environment.