VALLE MAIRA

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VALLE MAIRA

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An increasing share of the
world's population today is living in cities while the number of people living
on the countryside is constantly diminishing. Compared to the rest of Europe
the over-all population-growth in the Alps is high. The trend towards urbanisation,
however, is present there as well: cities are growing, rural areas are
shrinking. Furthermore, emigration becomes an important factor.
This study is concerned with
the question of how to deal with economically underdeveloped mountain areas and
how architects can cope with the particularities of this situation through
their designs in a reasonable and sensitive way. The Maira, a Valley in the
Western part of Piedmont, is one of the areas with the highest emigration-rate
in the entire Alps. Its population has steadily decreased since 1860. In some
communities the population has fallen by a staggering 90% in a period of 150
years.

Today there are still 12,000
people living in the valley, 7300 of them in the small town of Dronero at the
entrance of the valley. The towns are characterized by an extreme dilapidation.
The villages are deserted, buildings are collapsing and the landscape is
beginning to change. The once heavily cultivated landscape lies fallow and is
eventually turning back into a feral zone. An end to this development is not in
sight.

The 13 municipalities of the
valley are subject to an analysis in terms of population, infrastructure,
economy and tourism. Therefore, a tool is presented which allows the selection
of local development potentials and describes how they can be connected to each
other.

Five potential factors could
be identified as opportunities for further development and/or stabilization.

1
local building materials
Quarries and wood processing companies are the
basis for construction activities in the valley

2
Water Power
In the valley there are 3 water plants that need
to go into public hands

3
Local Foods
Foods, such as cheese, meat, milk and bread, can
be produced locally in a highly specific way

4
Hiking trails
The trails are numerous and need to follow a
parent concept

5
Cultural and natural features
The valley has a unique
landscape and almost forgotten cultural characteristics that are worth being
preserved

In a further step these
opportunities are being transformed into a spatial localization of areas in two
nearby municipalities which are particularly worth being preserved: Marmora and
Canosio.

The author proposes in this
thesis to reduce the underdeveloped mountain areas through deconstruction and
the consistent pooling of human activities in those places worthy of
preservation. Thereby vacant spaces can be handed back to nature again.

There are, therefore, places
that are worth preserving and areas designated to deconstruction and
renaturation. All available forces are to be concentrated in the centers worth
preserving. An analysis of the remaining residents, the economic activities and
the cultural communities generates a first number of places and buildings which
can be demolished. The resulting usable building material is being recycled
into the structures worth preserving. Sites that are far away from these
villages are being handed back to nature again.
A reduction of the cultural
landscape leads to an increasing number of wilderness zones in the area but
this is the only way to preserve a part of the cultural landscape. The
management of such a large area cannot be maintained due to labor shortage. On
the other hand the wilderness can become an attraction for tourists in itself
since such landscapes are becoming increasingly rare in Europe.

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Lorenz Brugger

Diploma Thesis

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VALLE MAIRA

VALLE MAIRA

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