AGATHON 2008 2:AGATHON.qxd - iris.unipa.it

U n i v e r s i t à d e g l i S t u d i d i P a l e r m oDipartimento di Progetto e Costruzione Edilizia

AGATHÓNAGATHÓNR e c u p e r o e F r u i z i o n e d e i C o n t e s t i A n t i c h iN o t i z i a r i o d e l D o t t o r a t o d i R i c e r c a

2008/2

AGATHON_2008_2:AGATHON.qxd 06/12/2008 23.22 Pagina 1

Dipartimento di Progetto e Costruzione Edilizia,Università degli Studi di Palermo

Pubblicazione effettuata con fondidi Ricerca Scientifica ex 60%e Dottorato di Ricerca

A cura diAlberto Sposito

Comitato ScientificoAlfonso AcocellaGiuseppe De GiovanniMaurizio De LucaGillo DorflesMaria Luisa GermanàMaria Clara Ruggieri TricoliMarco Vaudetti

RedazioneMaria Clara Ruggieri TricoliAldo R. D. Accardi

Editing e SegreteriaAldo R. D. Accardi

EditoreOFFSET STUDIO

Progetto graficoGiovanni Battista Prestileo

Collegio dei DocentiAlberto Sposito (Coordinatore), Antonino Alagna,Giuseppe Carta, Giuseppe De Giovanni, TizianaFirrone, Liliana Gargagliano, Maria Luisa Ger-manà, Giuseppe Guerrera, Alessandra Maniaci, An-gelo Milone, Maria Clara Ruggieri Tricoli, CesareSposito, Amedeo Tullio, Rosa Maria Vitrano

Finito di stamparenel mese di Dicembre 2008da OFFSET STUDIO S.n.c., Palermo

Per richiedere una copia in omaggio del notiziario,rivolgersi alla Biblioteca del Dipartimento diProgetto e Costruzione Edilizia, tel. 091234156; lespese di spedizione sono a carico del richiedente.

Il notiziario è consultabile sul sitowww.contestiantichi.unipa.it

Il successo di Agathón presso istituzioni nazionali e ricercatori universitari, impone unallargamento del Comitato Scientifico con personalità di alto spessore culturale: per il settoredell’estetica e della critica, Gillo Dorfles, che abbiamo ospitato in Agathón 2007, con la Lec-tio Magistralis pronunciata in occasione della Laurea ad Honorem, conferita dall’Universitàdegli Studi di Palermo il 3 aprile 2007; per il settore del restauro, il Maestro Maurizio de Lu-ca, Ispettore dei Laboratori di Restauro nei Musei Vaticani; per il settore della Museografia edell’Interior Design, il professore Marco Vaudetti, Ordinario di Architettura degli Interni pres-so la Facoltà di Architettura del Politecnico di Torino; il professore Alfonso Acocella, Ordina-rio di Tecnologia dell’Architettura all’Università degli Studi di Ferrara, esperto in materialilapidei naturali ed artificiali.

In questo volume di Agathón la prima sezione, Agorá, come lo spazio centrale e colletti-vo della polis greca, ospita i contributi offerti da illustri studiosi nazionali ed internazionali,esterni all’Università o di altri Atenei, su tematiche umanistiche e scientifiche, che si riferi-scono alla letteratura, all’arte, alla storia e all’architettura. Qui sono pubblicati i contributidi Eduardo Vittoria, fondatore dell’area Tecnologica con Giovanni Ciribini e Pierluigi Spado-lini, e di Angela Mazzè sul basalto dell’Etna.

La seconda sezione, Stoá, come il portico in cui il filosofo Zenone insegnava ai suoi di-scepoli, riporta i temi presentati dai Docenti del Collegio di Dottorato, su questioni che si ri-feriscono all’ambito disciplinare di loro pertinenza; qui sono pubblicati i contributi di Alber-to Sposito, Maria Clara Ruggieri Tricoli e Amedeo Tullio. La terza sezione, denominataGymnàsion come il luogo del cimento per i giovani greci che si esercitavano nella ginnasticae venivano educati alle arti e alla filosofia, riporta dei contributi presentati dai Dottori di Ri-cerca Aldo Accardi, Federica Fernandez, Francesca Scalisi, Rosa Maria Zito e dai Dottoran-di, come estratti delle loro ricerche in itinere, Carmelo Cipriano, Golnaz Ighany, KatiusciaSferrazza, Alessandro Tricoli, Maria Désirée Vacirca e Santina Di Salvo.

In questo numero abbiamo aggiunto una nuova sezione, destinata a giovani laureati,esterni al Dottorato, che si interessano di argomenti vicini alle nostre tematiche: tale sezionesi chiamerà Sekós, il luogo della casa destinato ai giovani, come in Platone (Rep., 460c). Que-sta iniziativa e l’attività editoriale sono state possibili grazie all’impegno del Collegio dei Do-centi, in particolare al lavoro straordinario del Dottore di Ricerca Aldo Accardi e al supportoindispensabile di tutto il personale tecnico e amministrativo del Dipartimento.

Alberto Sposito

AGORÀEduardo VittoriaL’INVENZIONE DEL FUTURO: ARTE DI COSTRUIRE .............................................................................................. 3Angela MazzèIL BASALTO SICILIANO DELL’ETNA NELLA LETTERATURA ARTISTICA .................................................................... 5

STOÀAlberto SpositoDEMETRA ENNESE E I FASCI LITTORI ................................................................................................................ 9Maria Clara Ruggieri TricoliANOMALE ROVINE: IL CASO DI COVENTRY ...................................................................................................... 17AmedeoTullioFINALITÀ, METODOLOGIA E STRATEGIE DELLA RICERCA ARCHEOLOGICA............................................................ 25

GYMNÁSIONAldo R. D. AccardiINTERIORS AND EXHIBITS: NARRATIVE IN MOTION ............................................................................................ 27Federica FernandezL’AEROGEL PER IL RISPARMIO ENERGETICO DEGLI EDIFICI ................................................................................ 33Francesca ScalisiI MATERIALI NANOSTRUTTURATI DEL SETTORE EDILIZIO .................................................................................... 37Rosa Maria Zito“DENTRO LE ROVINE”: IL PERCORSO, DAL PROGETTO ALLA COMUNICAZIONE .................................................... 41Carmelo CiprianoRECUPERO E RIQUALIFICAZIONE DELL’AREA EX MONTEDISON A PORTO EMPEDOCLE: IL MASTERPLAN................ 47Golnaz IghanyEX ORIENTE AURA: LE TORRI DEL VENTO IN IRAN ............................................................................................ 51A. Katiuscia SferrazzaPROGETTARE PER IL PAESAGGIO ...................................................................................................................... 55Alessandro TricoliNELL’ALTRA RIMINI: LA DOMUS DEL CHIRURGO .............................................................................................. 57Maria Désirée VacircaI GRECI NON SONO COME GLI ALTRI: IPOTESI DI LETTURA MUSEOGRAFICA ........................................................ 61Santina Di SalvoLA LUCE NELL’ARCHEOLOGIA: UNO STRUMENTO DI COMUNICAZIONE................................................................ 65

SEKÓSSebastiano ProvenzanoRECUPERO E RIUSO DELL’EX CASSA DI RISPARMIO NEL CENTRO STORICO DI PALERMO .................................. 68Vincenzo CristinaCOPERTURA E FRUIZIONE DELLA DOMUS DI CAPO BOEO.................................................................................. 72

In copertina:G. B. Piranesi, Veduta dell’Arco di Tito,1748, acquaforte.

A G A T H Ó NNotiziario del Dottorato di Ricerca inRecupero e Fruizione dei Contesti Antichi

2008/2


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INTERIORS AND EXHIBITS:NARRATIVE IN MOTION

Aldo R. D. Accardi*

The panorama of the contemporary archi-tecture has always been the witness of

an articulated debate related to the relationshipbetween modernity and tradition. This particu-lar relationship is also visible in the evolutionof the museal institutions: in fact, it is just in therelationship with the past that the museum re-veals to make integral part of the process ofmodernization. Museums, in their main mis-sion of mediation – or for a renewal sense ofecology or exorcize a sense of guilt that hasseen an uncontrolled anthropization of the land-scape – they support the actual desire of thecommunities to find again the ‘Edenic state’, orthat of the so-called ‘origin’, in which the natu-ral context constitutes the central reassuring el-ement, in contrast with the necessary and desta-bilizing evolution. In the last times, many proj-ects focus their attention on the themes of thelandscape and environment. In the past, manyimportant characters of the museological litera-ture have put into relationship the debasementof the ‘existential landscape’ with the gradualloss of the ‘collective memory’, pointing out animminent risk.

In fact, the probability that the narrow bondbetween a community and its territory can grad-ually get weak has been feared with great ad-vance in the second half of the nineteen centu-ry1, a historical moment during which the muse-al institutions are also overwhelmed and in-volved by the economic development and the in-dustrial revolution. Nevertheless the architec-ture of the museums show a certain resistancetowards innovation, on the contrary, the exhibi-tion becomes first a drawing element toward theinnovation. Till that time the cultural messagecommunicated is tied up to a type of ‘linear nar-rative’, whose cognitive process is submitted tothe so-called ‘progressive galleries’2.

Here, the interiors adjust themselves to thelinearity of the narrated story, proposing an asmany linear moving, during which the succes-sion of the exhibits, sometimes extraordinary,produces a fruitless sense of abstraction fromthat past that wants to communicate. Yet – somedecades before – Charles Willson Peale, withthe inauguration of the Natural History Muse-um in Philadelphia (1786), enacts a primordialform of “exhibition design’ modernly con-ceived, where dioramas and false landscapescontribute to reveal a precise wish of mediationof the museum. Peale, Gary Kulik3 observes, inconceiving his museum as a place of entertain-ment for all visitors, rather than as a place ofhigh culture, turns the concept of treasurizationin favour a researched publicity, becoming aforerunner of the modern museography. Splen-did dioramas, set as background of a boundlessseries of embalmed birds, constitute the truenovelty of Peale’s exhibition system, above allbecause every animal is tightly reported to thenatural context of belonging. The goal was thatto inculcate in the fellow citizens a ‘religioussense’ of nature, based on exhibitions which in-fuse wonder and curiosity4. With the same in-tent, when Peale’s collection was still exhibitedinside his house, he built a false cave and a realpond with rocks, sand, trees, animals and natu-ral findings displaced in a most romantic andamusing manner5.

As the Philadelphia Museum, the modernmuseum institutions try to resolve the prob-lems of publicizing and give, even to the mostinexperienced visitor, the tools to individualizethe story of the ‘exhibited things’. Every natu-ralistic exhibition of the contemporary muse-ums, in a certain sense, adopts the museograph-ic techniques conceived by Peale, which, if to-day they reenter in the usual planning of the ex-

Charles Willson Peale, The Artist in His Museum, self-por-trait (oil-on-canvas, 1822, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Aca-demy of Fine Arts, Joseph and Sarah Anderson Collection).

Se fino ad un recente passato l’architettura dei musei ha mostrato maggiore attrito nei confronti dell’in-novazione – mentre è stato l’allestimento a farsi per primo elemento trainante verso l’evoluzione – oggi con-tribuisce decisamente nella definizione del contesto museale. In risposta alle nuove istanze museologiche, èpossibile produrre nuovi spazi interni, ideati per coadiuvare l’allestimento nell’esercizio di un potere evoca-tivo, simbolico ed emozionale.

Mentre alcuni musei combinano in modo creativo interni ed apparati museografici per “raccontare” lacultura e il territorio di una civiltà anche in assenza dell’oggetto materiale, in altre realtà la ricerca museo-grafica sperimenta la rappresentazione della natura negli spazi interni riproponendo oggetti e contesti inte-ramente ricostruiti, come in una sorta di “dislocazione immaginaria”. L’atavico desiderio di recuperare unrapporto più armonico tra uomo e natura impone oggi l’elaborazione di nuove strategie di rappresentazionee comunicazione del paesaggio naturale. Da tempo, sia nei musei preistorici e naturalistici, sia in quelliscientifici ed etnografici, ha preso il via un processo di ricomposizione ed interpretazione del binomio “Geo-grafia e Storia”, nel quale l’architettura degli interni assume un carattere simbolico ed empatico, connessoinscindibilmente al potere semiotico dell’allestimento che accoglie.

Ricerche


Museo de Altamira: the access to the replica ‘reveals’ theartifice.

Museo de Altamira: the replica of the Cueva de Altamira and the interactive-multimedia base allow the visitor to be acti-ve in his exploration and to hold a greater quantity of information concerning the boarded theme.

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hibitions, to that time they constituted a com-municative strategy of avant-garde: obviously,the space in which Peale’s inventions find posi-tion, is still fully traditional. The great public,today well shrewd, requests a more emotionalcontact with the museums, inducing to theplanning of more incisive and highly narrativeexhibitions. Most of the historical-archaeologi-cal museums, ethno-anthropological and natu-ralistic, employ the diorama as one of themeans mostly used to strike the sensibility ofthe visitors and to develop an environmentalconscience6, which with its reconstructions ofnatural landscapes, is conceived as a tool ofstrong communicative impact.

Substantially, modern society has discov-ered an attention to the nativist mythology,through which, systematically filtered throughthe exaltation of the ancient populations7, thewish to reconstitute in a more structured waythat lost relationship between man and nature8

has re-emerged, especially in the ancient conti-nent. It has emerged in fact a close examinationof the tipicity of the sites that has conducted thearchitectural debate towards the search of settle-ment principles capable to converse with the ref-erence contexts – therefore with the landscape –using technologies, forms and new materialsproper of the epoch in which it is born, andmaintaining unchanged the peculiarity of thenew intervention to express its content.

In general, especially in the prehistoricmuseums, it is the planimetrical organizationof the building to be invested of a symboliccharacter or a strong semantic power, since,for the most greater part of the cases, the realproblem of the communication resides in theobject of the exhibition, or in those findings ofour days, too narrow and hardly interpretable9.The same findings – mainly constituted bychert, tools for the hunting, ritual objects andtraces of rock art – are recovered in inaccessi-ble sites or inside hardly attainable caves by anon experienced public. It is therefore a prob-lem of inaccessibility. For various reasons, inthe past, the ‘inaccessibility’ has always beenone of the fundamental museographical ques-tions. In fact, the great public has never beenable to freely enjoy the objects, the documents,the collections, the archaeological findings,not only for the objective impossibility toreach the sites of their retrieval or the places oftheir custody, but above all for a more diffusedsense of possession of the collectors that haveaccumulated them.

The difficulty to retrieve properly commu-nicative objects, from which it is possible to ef-fect a complete narration of the past, forces thedesigners to a creativeness that invests both themuseographical equipments – starting from thesingle ‘exhibit’ and reaching the system of the‘exhibitions’ – and above all the museal interi-ors architecture. For this, the false conceived byPeale constitutes still today one of the most ef-fective solutions to resolve specific problems ofinaccessibility. The exhibition design has par-ticularly followed this trend and has producedmore evolved forms of communication, inwhich some complete reconstructions of naturalenvironments make their appearance, used as asort of imaginary dislocation, essential to ap-proach the sites to the visitor, rather than thecontrary. But is it really possible to displaceimaginarily whole contexts actively, integratingscientific rigor and communicative effect? Theextraordinary operation conducted for the val-orization of the ‘Cueva de Altamira’, splendidcave of the Cantabrian region, whose rockyvault preserves a great quantity of Paleolithicgraffiti, confirms the feasibility of it. Since thereare notable difficulties to reach the native site,they have sprung a series of clever strategies ofpresentation of the cave, all carried in the mostaccessible ‘Museo de Altamira’10 (1994-2000) –designed by Juan Navarro Baldeweg – situatednot too far from the real place of the recoveries.Inside, the museographic expedient of greaterrelief is represented by the replica in realisticscale of the cave with graffiti. The perfect repro-duction of the cueva mixes to a system of ex-hibits, in which an irreplaceable interactive-multimedia base introduces the places and therecoveries according to the logic of the explo-ration, allowing the visitor to be active in his ex-ploration. In the respect of the narrative truth,the museums have evolved – even if in the fur-row of their tradition – with very profitablegrafts, for example the multimediality.

A multimediality that, in the exploitationof the most modern technologies, it involvesevery typology of visitor, projecting him into anew virtual dimension, in which the observerbecomes the true actor, the explorer, the holderof knowledge. In the contemporary researcharound the themes of the exhibition design, theremarkable aspect is therefore mostly that ofthe ‘interpretation’ which, in parallel to the in-creasing affirmation of the new paradigms of‘museal memorization’11, is moved towardsnew models of ‘communication’, no more di-

rectly in conformity with a scientific function,but rather to the demands of ‘presentation’ tothe public12. That’s why the difficulty to use aprehistoric site, even constituting a real obsta-cle, has the advantage to produce creativeness,even if the museographical expedient that de-rives of it, conducts towards results not appar-ently consistent and for this reason objection-able13. One of these realities strongly debatedby the scientific communities is constituted byanother famous prehistoric park: the ParcPyrénéen de l’Art Préhistorique and his muse-um called ‘Les Grand Atelier’. The public pen-etrates in the obscurity of the museum, enjoy-ing of a realistic underground atmosphere. Therun of visit is enriched by sensorial installa-tions, among which projections, hologramsand groups of reproductions (cave painting,graven objects, footmarks), that prepare to theemotional meeting with the ‘Salon Noir’,place in which the replica of the inaccessibleCave of Niaux is risen. Despite this whole sys-tem contributes to the definition of a very sug-gestive atmosphere, the reproduced whole canbe perceived as an exaggerated artificial mech-anism, incapable to return the correct percep-tion of the real conditions of the representedenvironments. Nevertheless, this ‘exhibitionmachine’ communicates with immediatenessthe cultural message, arousing curiosity andgreater awareness on the value of the safe-guard of the prehistoric landscape14.

For some aspects, the project not realized byJean Nouvel of the Musée de l’Évolution Hu-maine of Burgos introduces a lot of similes withthe strategic choices of the above-mentioned‘Grand Atelier’, with the evident difference thatthe reconstruction of the site which it refers to isinserted inside an immense greenish hill, cov-ered by the traditional local vegetation. The hill,thought as an eruption of the rural geography ofBurgos, is really a great organic coverage, thatNouvel imagines perforated by a great oculus,so that the penetration of the sun rays can ampli-fy the suggestion of the false rock of Atapuerca,recalled in all of its elevation inside this cav-ernous and hyper technologic space. It is an un-likely fusion between modernity and eternity.Nouvel has wanted to suit his language support-ing the peculiarity of the site, since – as himselfwrites – the museum is an imago loci: everyplace is different and for this it always implies anew museum and therefore ‘unexpected’15.

The interest for the representation of naturalcontexts through the use of the imitation or the


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replica apparently runs over cases distant fromthe experiences until now treated, above all be-cause not referable to the criterions of composi-tion of a museal inside destined to host perma-nent exhibitions. In fact, it is also interesting tonotice as in the commercial temporary installa-tions the recall to the ‘natural shelter’ can revealitself a good communicative strategy.

You think about, for instance, the unusualexperience of the Gruschwitz planning group(Grobenzell and Munich)16, which, on the occa-sion of the Euroshop in Düsseldorf in 2005, haschosen to confer to the proper expositive stand anaturalistic image, building, in a very containedspace and in absolutely realistic way, an enor-mous structure in fiberglass in the form of cav-ern. The Gruschwitz group has thought this im-posing mass jagged for strategically transmit-ting a feeling of continuity and reliability, assymbol of stability. To this unusual selectedscenography, the public has recovered yet amore human dimension space and perceived areassuring atmosphere.

Except the Musée de l’Évolution Humaineof Burgos, the examples till now quoted, testifyan evolution of the strategies of communicationtied to the only exhibition. Only in recent times,this researched dialectics between ‘nature’ and‘architecture’ has ended with transformingdeeply even the architectural structure of themuseums, influencing in first place the criteri-ons of choice of the collections, but mainlythose of composition of the spaces destined tohost them.

As you read before, unlike the past, the exhi-bition design decidedly contributes in the defini-tion of the museal context, whose inside spacesare conceived for the exhibition in the exerciseof a figurative, evocative and emotional power.Many planners of the contemporary museumsturn to the natural panorama as inspiration, oftenfor aesthetical or pragmatic reasons but muchmore to invest their buildings of a clear identity,as for the National Museum of New Zealand (TePapa Tongarewa, 1998), planned by the JasmaxArchitects Group, whose plan and orientationassume a very deep symbolic and cultural mean-ing17. But it is inside that the symbolic recall tothe nature gets its maximum expression: the ar-chitecture becomes decorum, defines the greatsceneries, focuses the dioramas and contextual-izes the reconstructions, mixing itself to the ‘ex-posed things’.

A very different case, it is the Musée dePréhistoire des Gorges du Verdon (Quinson,

2001), by Norman Foster & Partners. The muse-um responds to its context combining moderntechniques of construction with local materials,and it is inserted in the territory with an ellipticplan, defined by a stone wall, that leads the visi-tors into indoor exhibition spaces from the out-side, where a hall to double dept recalls the at-mosphere of the caverns that the museum cele-brates18. From here, a curvilinear ramp leads to-wards the various ‘displays’ of the museum, ca-denced by different levels of illumination thatframe the objects rather than the surrounding en-vironment. The element of greater attractionconsists in the reconstruction of one of the inac-cessible caverns of the Gorgeses du Verdon,sided by dioramas with scenes of life in theStone Age.

For a long time now, both in the prehistoricand naturalistic museums, and in those scientif-ic and ethnographic ones, a process of re-com-position and interpretation of the binomial ‘Ge-ography and History’ was born, in which the ex-hibition design assumes a metaphoric character,strongly empathic, strictly connected to thesemiotic power of the exhibition that it hosts.Douglas Cardinal, when he has planned the

Another view of the Musée de l’Évolution Humaine ofBurogos (Jean Nouvel, 2000).

Canadian Museum of Civilization (Ottawa,1989), addressed himself too toward the naturallandscape as inspiration. Cardinal doesn’t adoptan organic approach entirely for the plan of themuseum, whose swaying forms recall – with arefined game of joints and overlaps – the geo-logic panorama of the country19, but the organicdimension becomes an architectural leitmotivthat also characterizes the indoor context of themuseum. The building combines, in creativeway, interiors and museographic apparatuses,that, supported by a modern multimedia tech-nology, tell culture and territory of a civilizationin absence of the material object, moving the at-tention from the contemplation of the ‘things’ totheir evocation, or from the object-product tothe object-sign20. The interiors figuratively suitthemselves to the morphology of the territoryand they entertain besides the most imposingcollection to the world of totemic trees. Thetotems, some of them exhibited in the GrandHall, live in a suggestive atmosphere created bythe combination of the materials and the natura-listic forms of the interiors, conceived for re-calling the British Colombian coast, ‘wet’ by a‘sea’ in marble, along which have been installed

Gruschwitz expositive stand: a structure in fiberglass in the form of cavern, as symbol of stability (by M.M. Pegler, 2003).

The virtual perspective for the Musée de l’Évolution Humaine of Burogos, designed by Jean Nouvel (architectural design competi-tion, October 2000).


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Field Museum of Chicago: the ‘Africa section’, with a representation of nature in the interior spaces (photo by M.M.Pegler, 2003).

Canadian Museum of Civilization: the Grand Hall, whit the ‘sea’ in marble, the series of native house building and therevocation of pluvial forest.

Musée de Préhistoire des Gorges du Verdon, Quinson (planned by Norman Foster & Partners, 2001): a stone wall definesthe elliptic plan.

National Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa:the architecture becomes decorum.

Canadian Museum of Civilization: outside view.

Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, Paris: OpérationCarbone, temporary exhibition (2004/2005).


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a series of replicas of the native dwellings. Be-hind the reconstructions, the picture of thewhole is completed by a suggestive pluvial for-est, in which three-dimensional trees and a verylarge photo appear on the back. The totems andthe structural elements that alternate the greatglass-door, weave harmonically in the generalplan of the exhibition, and only with the gradualexploration of the great central room the visitorunderstands relationships and differences.

In other examples, see the section ‘Africa’of the Field Museum of Chicago21, the museo-graphical research experiments the representa-tion of nature in the interior spaces proposingobjects and contexts entirely reconstructed, butthis time tightly connected to the architectureof the interiors and no more conceived asshowcases in series or as fluctuating elementsin the space. The interior space is plasmed toreceive the single exhibits, that melt in theframe of the whole expositive context. The ar-chitecture assumes forms and evocative mate-rials and progressively prepares, with the sup-port of lights, sounds and perspective fore-shortenings, with the ‘emotional meeting’ withthe nature ‘boxed’22.

Same situation for the Newark Museum ofNew Jersey, which, adopting the same criteri-ons of the Field Museum of Chicago, has pro-duced a perfect integration between architec-ture and exhibition, and for the ‘Hall of Biodi-versity’ of the Natural History Museum in NewYork, designed by the Ralph Appelbaum Asso-ciates group (1998)23. The ‘Hall of Biodiversi-ty’ introduces the wealth of the biodiversity andthe extinguished animal and vegetable kinds. Ina very limited space, the équipe Appelbaum hascontained a complex theme in only two ambi-tious exhibits: a replica of the ‘Forest of centralAfrica’ and the ‘Spectrum of Life’, an extraor-dinary glassed wall 30 meters long, that intro-duces plant and animal kinds. While, the ‘Habi-tats Wall’ and the ‘Resource Center’, make partof an interactive area in which the visitors canapproach themselves to the ecological sciences.Also here, the mise en place of the tropical For-est originates from the museal tradition of thedioramas. A system of projectors completes thebackground of the great diorama, while soundsmade by animals, smells and projections video,creates a suggestion that makes the space preg-nant and narrative24.

A further case of contemporary indoor muse-um, that tries to conjugate the regret of the pastwith the desire to propose it as an authentic expe-rience – through new forms of communicationdominated by the natural sciences – is establishedfrom the recent Vulcania Theme Park (St. Ours-les-Roches, Auvergne, 2002)25, planned by HansHollein. The Vulcania Park is a site of scientif-ic exploration put into the volcanic primordialpanorama, to which it connects both physicallyand metaphorically. The museum has material-ly been graven in the ground with a strongly sym-bolic and pertinent gesture, able to reduce to theleast the impact of the work on the landscape andnot to create a clean demarcation between inte-riors and the surrounding country. The structurealmost entirely develops itself in the subsoil, andit opens to a helical run along the perimeter ofthe great rocky cavity, the so-called Caldèra.At the end of the slope the public is involvedby original systems of exhibition, among whichthe space of experimentation of the ‘RumblingChamber’. The ‘Galerie des grondements’, at thesecond level, is a suggestive run surrounded by

audiovisual projections, eruptions and explosionsof lava. An elevated number of interactive post-ings, with animations video very accurate, allowthe visitor to deepen every kind of matter con-nected to volcanism, terrestrial and spatial geol-ogy. The scientific precision is very rigorous, butthe spectacularity of the special multimediaeffects make the exploration other than boring.This refined system of exhibition produces a totaleffect of immersion, for which results impossi-ble to distinguish the ‘content’ from the ‘con-tainer’. To widen this feeling of absolute inte-gration, contributes the chameleonic effect of the‘construction skin’, strengthened through the useof the local volcanic stone. The breadth use ofmaterial dug in situ increases and renders explic-it the dialogue between nature and architectureprimed by this project, to the research of the equi-librium between the site and the construction.The visit is concluded by ‘le Jardin Volcanique’,a great pavilion-greenhouse that contains somebotanical kind of tropical environments and asystem of artificial vaporization of the water thatcreates, to intermittence, a fog effect very sug-

gestive. This garden is entirely prepared withtechnological solutions similar to the techniquesused in the ‘Biosphere’ of Postdam Museum26 (ofBarkow Leibinger Architects, 2001) – where ani-mals and vegetation coexist, true e/o in replicas– and in the great temporary exhibition called‘Opération Carbone’27 by the scenographer SergeBrisset, built in the Cité des Sciences et del’Industrie (Paris, 2004/2005), planned to sen-sitize to the maintenance of the Amazonian for-est and the exploitation of the clean energy.

In conclusion, Maria Clara Ruggieri Tricoli,in Il richiamo dell’Eden28, reports that in the mu-seums an inversion of tendency is still inprogress that abandons the abstract and rationaltassonomy, and it receives a more empathic nar-rative, conforming to the events. For understand-ing the actual situation, it is useful to replace therelationship between culture territory, perceptionof nature and naturalistic collection; in fact therelationship with nature concerns the origins ofthe Museum, of any kind it is29. In differentepochs and according to the dominant culturaltide, the relationship among man, nature and arti-

Natural History Museum in New York: plan of the ‘Hall of Biodiversity’, designed by the Ralph Appelbaum AssociatesGroup, 1998 (by M.M. Pegler, 2003).

The ‘Hall of Biodiversity’ of the Natural History Museum in New York, with an extraordinary diorama ‘in motion’ thatintroduces the wealth of the biodiversity and the extinguished animal and vegetable kinds (by B. A. McKee, 2002).


‘Biosphere’ of Postdam Museum (planned by Barkow Leibinger Architects, 2001): animals and vegetation coexist truee/o in replicas.

Vulcania Theme Park, St. Ours-les-Roches, Auvergne(planned by Hans Hollein, 2002).

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fact has always been perceived in different way:sometimes in an inseparable dialectical relation-ship, other times in complete dissonance. Themuseal architectures had to conform themselvesto the different socio-cultural attitudes, con-cretizing themselves from time to time in spatialstructures composed, thought ‘to perform’ thecultural message to exhibit.

Today, in the wake of the past practice, the‘interpretative’ gesture can go back to the Edenicstate and recall feelings and atmospheres to itconnected. This way of representing the naturalcontext inside certain museums, also throughobjects variedly dramatized and adapted, if notentirely fake, confirms the importance of the‘objectual memory’ and of the individual and col-lective reinforcement in ‘objective contexts’ eveninvented30. The exhibition spaces are evolved notonly in direction of the already mentioned re-composition of the relationship with the nature,but mainly to move the attention from the ‘mate-riality’ towards the ‘immateriality’. In this con-ceptual interstice are all the contradictions, over-lap and interferences among the concepts ofnature, landscape, territory and identity31.

The museographic techniques until nowoften analyzes lead towards the hyper technol-ogy, the inauthenticity and, paradoxically,towards the renouncement to the naturalness32.The traditional fields of the exhibition designhave been contaminated, so that the contempo-rary museums are turned to objects and contextsproduced by real scenotechnical and mnemotech-nical, or they aim to the so-called ‘cyberneticmuseum’ that, as Tomislav Sola writes, feels theneed to abandon the academic attitudes and con-servatory to go forward on the ground of themetamorphosis33.

NOTE1) A. R. D. ACCARDI, “I beni archeologici ed etno-antropologici, strumenti per il recupero dell’identitàterritoriale e di riscatto socio-economico”, in A.SPOSITO (cur.), Agathòn 2006, DPCE, Palermo 2006,pp. 33-35.2) M. C. RUGGIERI TRICOLI, I fantasmi e le cose. Lamessa in scena della storia nella comunicazionemuseale, Lybra Immagine, Milano 2000, p. 74 ss.3) M. C. RUGGIERI TRICOLI, “Luoghi, storie, musei. Imusei del luogo dalla storia all’attualità” in IDEM e S.RUGINO, Luoghi, storie, musei. Percorsi e prospettivedei musei del luogo nell’epoca della globalizzazione,Dario Flaccovio Editore, Palermo 2005, pp. 11-64.4) E. P. ALEXANDER, “Charles Willson Peale and HisPhiladelphia Museum: The Concept of Popular Muse-

um”, in IDEM, Museum Masters: Their Museums andTheir Influence, AASLH, Nashville 1983, p. 53 ss.5) Ibidem, p. 61.6) David C. Ward defines this kind of museum as me-dicinal office of the mind; cfr. D. C. WARD, CharlesWillson Peale. Art and Selfhood in the Early Republic,University of California Press, Berkeley 2004.7) Regarding the ‘territory’ interpreted as ‘collectivememory’, cfr. E. DE FONTENAY, Le silence des bêtes.La philosophie à l’épreuve de l’animalité, Fayard,Paris 1998.8) M. C. RUGGIERI TRICOLI, Il richiamo dell’Eden.Dal collezionismo naturalistico all’esposizione muse-ale, Vallecchi, Firenze 2004.9) A. R. D. ACCARDI, “I parchi preistorici: esperienzeinternazionali di “presentazione” del paesaggio comeriscoperta delle valenze immateriali”, in P. PERSI (cur.),Recondita Armonia. Il paesaggio tra progetto e gov-erno del territorio, Proceedings of 3rd InternationalConference (Urbino 5-7 October 2006), Istituto diGeografia, Università di Urbino “Carlo Bo”, Urbino2007, pp. 174-183.10) J. J. LHUERTA, “Juan Navarro Baldeweg. The Al-tamira cave Museum”, in V. MAGNAGO LAMPUGNANI,A. SACHS (eds.), Museums, for a New Millennium,Prestel, Munich, London and New York 2001, pp.188-193.11) Cfr. M. C. RUGGIERI TRICOLI, “Mitogenesi del ter-ritorio ed epistemologia del museo: dalla PlimothPlantation a Wigan Pier”, in IDEM e S. RUGINO, op.cit., pp. 171-192.12) E. NARDI, Musei e pubblico. Un rapporto educati-vo, Franco Angeli, Milano 2004.13) See the case of Archéodrome in J. DAVID,“L’Archéodrome de Bourgogne. Comment parlerd’archéologie au public non spécialisé”, in R. FRAN-COVICH, A. ZIFFERERO, Musei e parchi archeologici,Firenze, All’Insegna del Giglio, 1999, p. 465.14) M. ELIADE, Mito e realtà (1963), trad. it. di G.Cantoni, Milano, Rusconi, 1974.15) The concept of imago loci is used by Jean Nouvelin J. NOUVEL, L’inattendu museal, Le Festin,Périgueux 2001, p. 34.16) Cfr. M. M. PEGLER, Designing the world’s best Ex-hibits, Visual reference Publications Inc., New York2003.17) C. MCCARTHY, Exhibiting Māori: A History ofColonial Cultures of Display, Te Papa Press, Te Papa2007, in part. p. 102.19) ARCH. & PLAN. GROUP, National Museum ofCanada. Architectural Programme Synopsis, Nation-al Museum Canada, Ottawa 1983, p. 2.20) N. MERRIMAN (ed.), Making Early Histories inMuseums, Leicester University Press, London andNew York, 1999.21) S. L. JOHNSON, Timepiece. The Field Museum of

Natural History, Chicago, “Historic Illinois”, 26 (3),October 2003, p. 2.22) R. F. BACH, The Field Museum of Natural History,Chicago, “Architectural Record”, 56, July 1994, pp.1-15.23) M. M. PEGLER, Designing the world’s best Ex-hibits, cit.24) B. A. McKee, How Ralph Appelbaum built a mo-nopoly in the field of exhibition design, “Architec-ture”, february 2002, pp. 62-65.25) L. HOURSTON, Museum Builders II, Wiley-Acade-my, London 2004, p. 71, or “L’Arca”, n. 200, febbr.2005, pp. 47-55.26) T. SCHRÖDER, Changes in Scenery: ContemporaryLandscape Architecture in Europe, Birkhäuser,Boston 2002, pp. 51-53.27) Opération Carbone. Une expérience pilote enAmazonie, Dossier de Presse, Exposition du 18 mai2004 au 2 janvier 2005, Cité des sciences et de l’in-dustrie, online.28) M. C. RUGGIERI TRICOLI, Il richiamo dell’Eden.Dal collezionismo naturalistico..., cit, p. 26.29) M. ELIADE, Miti e misteri (Parigi, 1957), trad. it. diGiovanni Cantoni, Rusconi, Milano 1976, p. 71 ss.30) E. P. ALEXANDER, Museum masters. Their influ-ence, Altamira Press and Sage pbl., Walnut Creek,London and New Deli 1995.31) About the theme of a process of re-compositionand interpretation of the binomial ‘Man and Nature’,strictly connected to the semiotic power of the exhibi-tion spaces, to see the exhaustive article by Aldo R. D.Accardi, in which the author focuses the relationshipbetween this new attitude and the consequent plan-ning of new museal interiors; see A. R. D. ACCARDI,Natura e Artificio negli interni museali, “NuovaMuseologia”, n. 19, Dic. 2008, pp. 4-8.32) M. C. RUGGIERI TRICOLI, Luoghi, storie, musei...,cit., p. 50 ss., in part. 52.33) T. SOLA, Essay on Museums and their Theory. To-wards a cybernetic museum, Caalisari e Pekkanen,Serajevo 1997.

* Aldo R. D. Accardi, architetto, è Dottore di Ricerca in“Recupero e Fruizione dei Contesti Antichi” e professorea contratto di “Musealizzazione dei siti archeologici”,presso la Facoltà di Architettura di Palermo, e di “Ar-chitettura degli Interni e degli Allestimenti”, presso laFacoltà di Lettere e Filosofia di Palermo.


Febbraio 2008 Galatea Ranzi, Luca LazzareschiAttoriTeatro e Teatralità*

Marzo 2008 prof. Emilio FaroldiPolitecnico di MilanoCostruire l’Architettura. Teorie, Progetti, Tecnologie

Aprile 2008 prof. Giuseppe GaetaUniversità degli Studi di CataniaRistabilimento Strutturale per i Beni Culturali

prof. Amedeo TullioFacoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Università degli Studi di PalermoFinalità, Metodologia e Strategie della Ricerca Archeologica, Oggi

Maggio 2008 prof. Alfonso AcocellaOrdinario, Università degli Studi di FerraraL’antico e il nuovo. La continuità della tradizione

prof. Giuseppina BaroneUniversità degli Studi di PalermoLa ricerca archeologica nei contesti urbani

prof. Mosè RicciOrdinario, Università degli Studi di GenovaL.E.D. - Landscape, Environment and Design

prof. Roberto PietroforteWorcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachussets, USAInnovazione Tecnologica e Management

arch. Salvatore TringaliEsperto di Restauro ArchitettonicoLa rinascita della Cattedrale di Noto

Giugno 2008 prof. Giuseppe De GiovanniOrdinario, Università degli Studi di PalermoTavola Rotonda: Valorizzazione e Fruizione del Sito Archeologico di Agrigento*

arch. Carmelo CiprianoDottorando in “Recupero e Fruizione dei Contesti Antichi”Aree dismesse a Barcellona, Torino, Milano, Genova e Napoli, OSDOTTA 2007

Settembre 2008 prof. Aldo NorsaOrdinario, IUAV di VeneziaIl Mercato delle Costruzioni

prof. Maria Clara Ruggieri TricoliOrdinario, Università degli Studi di Palermo“Ghost structures” e “Lining out”

prof. Giuseppe GuerreraOrdinario, Università degli Studi di PalermoTemi di architettura urbana

prof. Oscar BelvedereOrdinario, Università degli Studi di PalermoCittà antiche, topografia, storia e tessiture

Ottobre 2008 prof. Alberto SpositoOrdinario, Università degli Studi di PalermoNanotecnologie per la Conservazione dei Beni Culturali

prof. Eugenio GaldieriUniversità “La Sapienza” di RomaTerra Cruda nel Patrimonio Architettonico: realtà e tutela

prof. Maria Luisa GermanàUniversità degli Studi di PalermoConvegno Nazionale: Architettura in Terra Cruda nell’Italia del Sud*

prof. Francesco AstaUniversità degli Studi di PalermoIl Restauro del Teatro di Cefalù

prof. Paolo PortoghesiOrdinario, Facoltà di Architettura “Valle Giulia”, Università “La Sapienza”, RomaRecupero del Quartiere latino a Treviso*

prof. Salvatore NicosiaOrdinario, Università degli Studi di PalermoLo Specchio della vita: La Ceramica Greca

Novembre 2008 prof. Sandro PittiniFacoltà di Architettura “Aldo Rossi” di CesenaEsperienze di recupero archeologico in Romagna

dott. Andrea StellaPresidente dell’Associazione “Lo spirito di Stella” ONLUSProgettare e realizzare per tutti

DOTTORATO DI RICERCA – CALENDARIO DEI SEMINARI ANNO 2008 – AULA BASILE – D.P.C.E.

ISBN 978–88–89683–18–7

* Seminari in altre sedi: “Teatro e Teatralità” e “Recupero del Quartiere latino a Treviso” presso la sala Consiglio della Facoltà di In-gegneria di Palermo; “Valorizzazione e Fruizione del Sito Archeologico di Agrigento” presso la Casa S. Filippo del Parco Archeologi-co di Agrigento; “Architettura in Terra Cruda nell’Italia del Sud” presso la Sala delle Capriate di Palazzo Steri, Palermo.

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