POMERIO DUCALE NATURA MEMORIA CULTURA

Italy Massa 2021

The Pomerio Ducale, built by Alberico I Cybo-Malaspina in the sixteenth century, has been the subject of changes over the centuries with a square base plant bordered by walls and towers, was characterized inside by tree-lined paths set on a geometric mesh made of orthogonal or angled lines. There were two entrances, one downstream and one upstream of the plan. Currently much of Pomario has been lost, remain visible some portions of walls side Carrara and the marble portal located tangent to Via Palestro in Renaissance style, work by the architect Bartolomeo Ammannati.
To date, in fact, as you can see from the photos inserted, the Pomario project area looks like a "void" inside what remains of the historic walls that have been largely lost, characterized only by an abandoned and uncultivated surface.
The project stems from the interpretation of the original cartography, our proposal extracts the rhythms, geometries, becoming the matrix to define the new urban park. Through this reading we study on the one hand the geometric arrangement of the material and plant surfaces, which interact with each other creating a composition of space and on a cultural level the project adds value to the city of Massa.
It is not a simplistic transposition of its traces, but a careful analysis of the historical route that starts from the memory of the place and its original forms. In this operation of redevelopment and consequent enhancement of a space that has had its own noble history, that its current conditions do not reveal, the project could be characterized between two alternative options: a) the first would have been the reconstruction of the works and the forms that history has given us, even if poorly put, with an intervention of philological reconstruction, substitution and faithful reproduction. An absolute option, however, and always present when intervening on the existing built, in the architectural and artistic restoration. Necessarily implies the caption replica in the form of a copy of works and artifacts of another time, with all the consequences that this entails: the positive value of the cultural testimony would be surreptitiously falsified by a replacement intervention not authentic but posticcio. The second option b) would instead have considered that noble history and his works for the cultural value of which they are bearers and witnesses of a segment of the history of a city and a community gathered around it. It involves knowing, understanding and caring for a place that belongs to us, regenerating it with the attention and care that an intervention thought and carried out today can give. With the thoughts of the men of this century and with the works they are capable of accomplishing.
Between the two hypotheses we have chosen the second one, more adherent to the history of the city and less subject to the risk of historical falsehood that the interventions of replica involve.
We preferred the faithful interpretation of that story and those meanings to the faithful reproduction of forms. This implies the need to intervene in this piece of the city with careful and participating attention, to take care of a part of the territory now injured.