Ungers after all: Fragments of a project for Gibellina, edited by Elena Catalano, Alessandro Iannello, Tommaso Mola Meregalli, and Costanza Zeni, recovers a little-known chapter in the work of Oswald Mathias Ungers — his largely unrealised proposal for the civic centre of Gibellina Nuova, the Sicilian town rebuilt from ruins after the catastrophic 1968 earthquake.
About This Book
After the 1968 earthquake destroyed Gibellina, the Italian government planned a total reconstruction of the town on a new site, initially drawing on models derived from the English New Towns. Mayor Ludovico Corrao took a different approach, inviting international architects and artists to participate in the redesign. In the late 1970s, Ungers was called to design the still-undefined central area. His Civic Centre proposal — formally rigorous, attentive to the relationship between built and public space, between city, monument, and history — was only partially realised. With texts by Pier Vittorio Aureli and Winston Hampel, this slim bilingual volume reconstructs and examines that project in detail, restoring it to its proper place in Ungers's body of work and in the broader history of post-disaster urban reconstruction.
Key Features
- Texts by Pier Vittorio Aureli and Winston Hampel
- Produced by Fondazione Studio Rizoma
- Bilingual edition — Italian and English throughout
What You'll Discover
- Ungers's approach to civic space, monumentality, and urban history in the context of post-disaster reconstruction
- The broader cultural and political context of Gibellina's reconstruction as a site of artistic experimentation
- How a partially realised project illuminates the ambitions and constraints of Ungers's architectural thinking
- The relationship between Ungers's Gibellina proposal and his wider theoretical positions on city form
About the Author
The volume is edited by Elena Catalano, Alessandro Iannello, Tommaso Mola Meregalli, and Costanza Zeni, and produced by Fondazione Studio Rizoma. Essays are contributed by Pier Vittorio Aureli and Winston Hampel.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 80
- Dimensions: 19 x 12 cm
- Language: Italian / English
- ISBN: 9791281790353
- Publisher: Viaindustriae Publishing
- Publication Date: 2025
Perfect For: Architects and historians with an interest in post-war European architecture, Ungers scholarship, post-disaster urbanism, and the intersection of art and reconstruction in twentieth-century Italy