•  
  •  
 

Palermo, Italy: The Coast Road

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/m90q-dx39

Publication Date

2019

Abstract

This paper proposes a re-reading of the work of Roberto Collovà dedicated to Palermo and its coastline. It interprets, in a perspective paper, the arguments contained in his research as suggestions for the construction of landscape research to condition, through their appearance, a new way to see and interpret places and their potential.

Rereading his studies, his drawings and his observations suggests the construction of a method of recognition of the existence of a landscape, in this case of a greenway and its potential, within an existing urban fabric. The historical center, the fragments of urban spaces, and the fragments of green that can be read as hidden parks, gardens, and third landscapes: a sequence of places described, recognized and reconnected in a single story proposing a new urban geography.

The previously unrecognizable resources are recomposed in a design that brings out invisible opportunities that are proposed to draw the character of the city of Palermo in the coming decades. Along the coast line is the story of a possible linear park as a new structure of urban infrastructure and the development of a new urban ecology that is confronted with the themes of pollution and the deterioration accumulated over time in the history of the city.

The fate of cities is entrusted to urban planning, a discipline that decides the fate of cities, but perhaps by thinking differently about existing spaces, we can find a new potential city. Cities are also full of spaces that are clippings, remnants of activities, empty spaces in the city. Forcing the definition of park as something not necessarily only green, but as a system of green urban spaces linked together, allows urban spaces to connect and hold together different parts of the city. This is possible through the recognition of a new form that must be recognized and named for it to exist. The way of conceiving this urban greenway suggests ways and perspectives of reading the existing city aimed at constructing linear urban spaces that can renew its meaning and future prospects.

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS