Urban regeneration
Architecture/Best Practices: giving new life to the urban ruins

September 14-21, Le Ciminiere di Catania, workshop “Aretè, abitare le rovine”

Six amazing sets: Catania’s urban ruins, Caltagirone’s country ruins, the “unfinished” in Giarre, infrastructures and “show factories” in Acireale and “the treasures of memory” of Militello. One hundred people from all around the world: students, professionals, architects, designers and artists. This is the scenario of “Aretè, abitare le rovine”, the international workshop promoted by the association and the foundation of Architects of Catania and Officina 21 that will take place in Catania from tomorrow to next Sunday.
According to the president of the Association of Architects of Catania, Giuseppe Scannella, the final purposes of the event are «taking the ruins and the forgotten territories of our land back, promoting urban and rural regeneration trough architecture projects and thanks to these projects give to the city a new “vision” of their ruins.
During the press conference of this morning he also declared that «for several years architects have recommended the use of architecture and design as means of regeneration, both for the city’s building heritage, yet for the city’s governance. We need new laws, rules and regulations for the regeneration of those parts of the city that are abandoned or in decay; we need new policies that would foster a new identity for those same parts. We think that the defense of the historical and cultural heritage of Catania is best way for the whole city to enhance public and private investements, to start “etical-friendly” development patterns and to measure economic and social returns of this path.
There is a distinctive feature in all of the case studies of this workshop, that is a new «way to read and change» the urban ruins:We don’t want just to restore the buildings – stated Paola Pennisi, president of the foundation of the association of architects – but to use the ruins as a piece af a regenerated city. All the projects will be published in a book that will be available for all the people that could be interested, from architects to students; from urban planners to administrations.
According to Francesco Finocchiaro artistic director of the Workshop, Aretè is an experiment, Aretè is an «essential moment for the participants, a moment in which they could experience how to work in international teams that are lead by some very important architects such as: Andrea Branzi, Ferruccio Favaron, Alessandro Traldi and Cino Zucci from Italy; Gruppo Aranea and Ignacio Mendaro Corsini from Spain.
Every team is a mixture of people with different backgrounds, designers, photographers, artists; for this reason, Stefania Marletta, president of the Association Officina 21, asserted that Aretè is an experience of contamination of different competences. Every designer, every architect, every planner has to face both the ruin and the urban fabric because -even if it could sound paradoxal- the future of our cities is indeed in their past.

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