Heritage repurposing by building landscapes | Gianluca d'Incà Levis | TEDxMestre

Highly emblematic sites now abandoned lie inert in the Landscape, waiting for man to address their reawakening, regenerate their great latent potential, and "network" them again. Without a men's responsible commitment, in fact, no resource can ever be taken up and relaunched: heritage is not enough for itself.

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For about ten years, we have started
this practice in the Dolomites,

awarded in 2009, as you know,
"World Heritage Site" by UNESCO.

So in 2009, we established
the value and status of this asset

for its outstanding universal value,

for the aesthetic and landscape quality.

Well, that's what we work on:

my job is redefiningthe concept
of heritage and landscape.

The Dolomites are "heritage",

we have defined
their value with this word,

but we live in the Dolomites.

Behind me you can see the images

of the sites we have been working on
for ten years now.

They are very important sites
in the history and in the making

of the identity of territories
and landscapes.

Landscapes, in a sense,
did not exist before man:

man must make them,
contribute to their co-generation.

These factories you see

are former factories, production plants
or former schools, former alpine colonies.

All sites introduced

by this decommissioning particle "ex",
because they are no more.

They have been trailblazers
of their territory.

People worked in them,

income, economy, sociality, culture
were generated in them;

and then they stopped.

Now you see them in a third phase:

the first phase was their making,
by those who conceived them

within the landscape around them
and along with the flow of history.

The second phase is the dismissive one,

the end of their productive
and propulsive life

within the landscape, for the territory.

The third phase is this one,
because for ten years, as I told you,

we have been facing these landscapes'
critical, unsolved issues.

I mean, these large sites

who once were of great value

and then have lost it.

They have lost their original identity.

The third phase is the awakening one.

We need to understand if we are able
to think of another functional use,

if they can be useful again
to the territory,

or if they no longer exist
because they are mere vestiges.

We knew all about them in the past,
much less so in the present;

we lost the ability to act on them,
so we can no longer imagine their future.

So what are they?

Graveyards to contemplate with nostalgia,

or a living heritage, common goods
with a regenerable potential?

Well, this was our bet:

two years after the award,

we started to investigate
these large collection of sites.

The Dolomites are certainly a heritage,

but they are also, in many profiles,

a heritage of stereotypes,
of clichés, of rather trivial ideas,

through which one can see a mountain

that either no longer exists -

that of our grandfathers
in their knickerbockers,

or anyway a mountain

that struggles a lot to look ahead,
to look at new horizons,

because it is already given.

But we are saying that landscapes
must either be generated or regenerated:

they are not given forever,
sometimes they are temporary.

In the first factories,

in the first images that you have seen,
that we faced in the first two years,

this has happened:

after working for the territory,
they were laying down,

and then someone has tried to move them:

public or even private bodies came along,

and what did they do?

A restoration.

And what came next?

They stood as still as they were
before the restoration.

What does this mean?

That the economic resources arrived,
but the real resources did not arrive!

So this heritage was "betrayed"

because of a lack of resources

that were being put
in reawakening the good.

And what was missing? An idea.

Because if you just restore a good,
with no idea of what to do with it,

you "betray" it, and do it
a bad - and expensive - service.

Well, with a cultural project
inspired by a functional logic -

because the test is also to verify

whether the culture is a didactic,
exornative apparatus,

or it can be a real activator
and a concrete driver,

a part of the codesign
of landscapes and territories,

we have addressed these sites.

They were over, yes,
but not "spent" in our opinion:

there certainly was
a great potential there.

What is this potential?

Consider that, as you are seeing,

they are extraordinary
for their aesthetic values,

for their context,

then they are certainly still,

and maybe the most important thing
is to pick the right ones:

not all sites are likely
to be regenerated and useful,

they must have a logistical "consistency",
to use this practical word,

and then there must be a functional idea

in the attitude, in the attempt
to regenerate them.

That means, some sites
are better not to address them,

you have to "ponder"
their restoration carefully;

others, if they really have much potential
but are worthless in their current state,

it is appropriate and necessary
to address them.

It is a matter of responsibility -
and sustainability, as we'll see.

Well, the sites we deal with
are just a few, not all of them:

it is not industrial archaeology,
is a restricted selection but a wide one.

Since 2011, we have worked
on about 20 sites:

sites with a certainly great potential,

but nothing in reality.

So there is a large measure to fill.

Because if we all say
that a site is worth 100,

here we are in Borca di Cadore,
a former ENI village

that Mr. Enrico Mattei made
in the fifties,

with architects Edoardo Gellner
and with Carlo Scarpa in one part,

if we say it's very worthy
but not anything in reality,

we are doomed to fail
in awakening the potential of this site.

And whom is its potential for?

For the legit owner?

No, all the sites have a legitimate owner,

public or private,

but as you are seeing, now you are seeing
the Monte Ricco fort in Pieve di Cadore,

then you will see the Vajont.

The sites we choose are so strong,
formidable and exceptional,

that either they recapitulate themes
that are larger than themselves,

Or you really have to be blind
not to see their potential.

So their value, as a heritage asset,

belongs to us all, not just the body
who owns their walls.

And that's what we work on:
with a project of responsibility and reuse

we strive to resume
the cultural heritage value,

for the benefit of us all!

What can these sites become again?

It depends.

In the first cases, the factories
you saw in the first images,

they have returned to being factories.

What have we done?

We approached them.

They had failed.

We built a series of relationships.

We have almost 500 partners.

Who are these partners?

They are territorial
and extra-territorial partners,

public and private, companies, businesses,
scientific or research partners.

Basically, there is a great moment

of activation of territorial
and extra-territorial networks

and we try to show again
the appeal and potential of the sites.

It's a bit like having a large basket
of fantastic fruit in the kitchen,

but the light is off.

Nobody eats spoiled fruit,
but turning the light on is enough.

It's not easy to "enlighten" a site
that's been abandoned for years or decades

where, let's say, the particular society
in that particular context

has lost hope.

Everyone would lose it:

first it worked,
then it didn't work anymore,

then we restored it
and it still hasn't gone.

Is it a damn resource sink?

No, it's an asset to be networked again.

But how can you create a network,
if you don't turn on the nets?

We used to talk about dopamine,
remember this morning?

There is an essay from 1974, I guess,
by neuropsychiatrist Oliver Sacks,

called "Awakenings", "Risvegli".

It's about disease, lethargy and cure.

I am a curator.

Dolomiti Contemporanee is a project
of landscape, assets curation.

An injection is needed
of cultural dopamine,

a neurotransmission is needed.

Confidence needs to be instilled
in the territories that have lost it,

to rekindle themselves.

These sites belong
to the land around them,

but then they are so important,
you see the Vajont,

that they far exceed
their geographical location

within the territory.

Fact is, they are excluded
from the flow of history.

Do you know what happened in Vajont
on October 9, 1963?

Not only 2000 people died,

all the men of the Earth died a little.

So that place is there
and it is also not there.

It belongs to the whole humanity.

It is an emblematic place,

it is at the same time a particular place
placed in a point of space-time,

and a universal place.

So turning the school back on,

the old Vajont's elementary school

and making it a center
for contemporary culture

of the landscape and the mountain,

means facing a terribly
decommissioned site -

Because Vajont is in a sense
the land of the living dead:

there is a dam there

that attracts thousands upon thousands
of people every year,

who tend to see a gravestone,
a wall of tears.

To face this landscape,
without acknowledging the fact

that it can coincide
with the landscape of tragedy,

is a betrayal:

landscapes are for those living people
who must build them.

There is a definition of Edoardo Gellner,
who built the former Eni Village,

namely Enrico Mattei's
social welfare program,

and many other things.

Gellner says that

"the landscape is the sum
of natural environment and human action.

Good action, good landscape;

bad action, bad landscape,
no place for man".

So the Vajont can't be a forgotten,
backward-looking landscape,

hostage to a tragedy that once was
and is no longer there,

or paralyzed in memory,
which can also act as a pathogen,

because it does not allow,
if you don't elaborate upon it,

to conceive another landscape,
projected in the future.

In Vajont they're in need
of a projective situation,

so if you come and see
what the new space of Casso is,

it is a cultural device
that opposes the predatory hegemony

of a tragedy that cannot be
the identity of those living today.

There is no forgetting,
there is no absence of memory.

There is a vision that wants to return
these sites back to the men,

to those who made and then lost them.

Well, all this gets done
the way I'm telling you:

in each site you make a residence,

artists come, even architects,
designers, landscape specialists,

economists of culture,
scientists, philosophers.

Marc Augé himself came,

we brought him to the Vajont,
as well as in Borca di Cadore

to reflect on these places, not no-places!

But are we able or not
to effectively project them in the present

We are, I think, at a time
when we can't charm an audience,

but to convince the territory
that stuff belongs to them,

that it can be useful again.

In Vajont you have to live:

the former Eni village of Borca di Cadore
can be used for many things,

not for itself.

They are not enough for themselves,

it does not matter how beautiful
or important they were.

They are not enough.

A bold man action is needed,

Action is deliberate:
no one has forced us to do it.

I work with about 30
young people from the territory

who want to do something
for the territory,

and then we deal with the sites

through the strategies of the networks
we activate the territory,

of which we are the reactor, let's say.

Let's have the territory regain confidence

in a relaunching venture.

That's why we have 500 partners,
both indigenous and coming from afar.

There are many international, national,
many local, large and small,

All of them are essential,
because we have no money.

Do you remember before?

Money had come without ideas.

It wasn't heritage, it wasn't resource.

Then we arrive without the money
but with a wealth of ideas,

and the sites start again.

The first sites are already restarting;

commercial, productive activities
have also joined,

because they rediscovered
the intelligent logistics of those sites,

they were not dead at all.

Some sites count more than others
because they "weigh" more,

physically, historically,
aesthetically speaking and so on,

as the former village Eni,
where we will return shortly.

More structural platforms
are activated there, much like in Vajont.

You don't just go
and start a business in Vajont,

We had to live in Vajont for two years
and get understood by the residents:

we could have been the last fools,
or jackals, but we weren't.

For what I said before

we reason in a logic of public,
not private functionality.

There is no selfishness
by the curators or artists' side:

everyone contributes and bring a piece
of the relaunch program,

and this does not betray the art,
that is always itself.

Except, the artist is intelligent,
sensitive, ingenious,

one may say enzymatic,
as it triggers processes,

he is not satisfied
with definitions or judgments,

so the site is not dead for him:
they help regenerate it.

Sites become workplaces
of artistic and cultural production

where networks are triggered,

also because we bring a lot
of diverse people together.

There are scientists of the forest.

Do you know what Vaia storm is?

October 2018, 14,000,000 trees
torn down by the wind.

If you come to these sites,

particularly in Casso
and at Monte Ricco fort,

you will find group exhibitions
of contemporary art

with 30 artists working on themes of Vaia,

together with climate scientists,
forest scientist, biologists, chemists.

So art does not make a little somersault,
it is not a mere exornative apparatus;

it is part of the mechanism
of the regeneration strategy.

Sites then restart

and we also put them
in the available platforms.

Back to Borca, you know
that for some time now

we won the contest
for 2026 Olympics, Milan-Cortina.

It is said, they have to be sustainable.

And they can only be sustainable
if you don't build new architecture,

and responsibly detect
what's already available.

Borca Eni village
is 100,000 square meters wide;

that were built very well,
as Mattei and Gellner were behind it.

There were no budget limits
but above all ingenuity limits.

That is a space

where serious considerations
should be spent on.

Shall we take it back?

It's done so well, it's not a ruin.

It's near Cortina,

it's not an antagonistic logic,
either Borca or Cortina.

The Olympics, after all,
are not the 2026 ski races,

they are a chance for development
in the territory, here to there.

And so it is still necessary

to take this assets,
and rediscover, revive it.

And also, if we speak about sustainability
and low land consumption,

see what's there
before doing something new.

It's that easy.

Mr Mattei said one thing,

"The ingenuity shared
by scientists and artists

is the ability to see things
where others fail to".

You have to be blind not to see
the potential of these sites, I think.

So it's not enough to see them,

and actuallty Mattei
didn't just see, he did a lot.

If these sites are really worth
a lot in potential as we say,

they must be seen
and then they must be done.

We have to build
the landscapes of the present,

that's the contemporary gaze:

as I told you, it's not nostalgic,
it's not retroverted.

It tries to project forward
its own potential,

aware of its past, but forward.

That's something one must consider,

we must understand if we are actually able

to awaken this heritage

or it's enough for us to say

that the Dolomites
are World Heritage Sites,

without entering the territory

to see what we can really do
with the tools at hand -

culture, sensitivity and intelligence,

to restart these sites
for the benefit of us all.

(Applause)