Chiese provvisorie. Identità sospesa

This book is the result of a choral participation (School of Doctorate Studies in Architecture, University of Bologna and Laboratorio “Ricerca Emilia”) in the exhibition entitled “Architetture padane”. It is also the second step of wider investigation focused on the Emilia region, which sadly it has been the centre of a serious earthquake on the May 2012. Both book and exhibition are in debt with the significant exhibition - “Architetture padane”- set by Aldo Rossi and the photographer Luigi Ghirri about some architect’s projects conceived an evident Padan character (Casa del Mantegna, Mantua, 1984). The importance of that experience laid in Rossi’s capability of entirely comprehending the main features of that territory, so that he pointed out as a merging balance with countryside and city as well as ground and water. Starting from these facets the purpose of the book is to firmly stress the key role of the identity and culture of those places in the process of reconstruction after the natural disaster. The three main sections, respectively “Landscape and history”, “Destruction” and “Emergency”, described the line of the research. The task of the author was to gather some recent projects on building new temporary churches in those fragile territories. Maquettes and drawings of the projects were displayed in the exhibition. Parallel to that, the contribution in the book underlines how the predominantly flat skyline of Padan plain has always been characterized by the presence of bell towers, that together with churches are clear expression of local identity. Few minutes later the earthquake we have lost both the buildings and that not physical entity that is the identity.