Back to Maddalena

Please note the course schedule below.Stefano Boeri + conrad-bercahBACK TO MADDALENAa tourist epicenter for the young at the ex US Navy base after the 2009 G8 Summit In January 2008, after a 35 years long presence, the US Navy has left the island of La Maddalena which, in turn, is preparing to host, in July 2009, the G8 Summit on its archipelago.The concept of the archipelago — open ended, both geographically and geopolitically — is in contemporary geopolitics, a useful metaphor for a possible logic of relationship between states and cultures, a logic that, if it confirms differences and tradition, it makes it possible to live a shared geographic condition. The concept becomes a formidable metaphor for contrasting close identities, ghettos and protected enclaves, but also a paradigm that enhances individual identities and, at the same time, makes value of the cultural and language differences brought about by globalization.To build upon such paradigm, using architecture as a vehicle to establish a polycentric system of excellent places that can establish a dialogue with each other can be considered a strategy for imagining a process of globalization stemming from local knowledge, networks, tradition, the local population, languages and practical cultures that are deeply rooted in the life of our world, is the option taken by the course described in what follows which is an attempt to establish a new geopolitical alphabet, one that can substitute the navy alphabet with a geopolitical alphabet and that could prove to be a significant and fruitful instant of cultural exchange between different cultures and their mutual growth, both economic and intellectual and that, last but not least, may help to establish a new relationship between \’Americans\’ and the Maddalena Island dwellers (and visitors) changing a 30+ years long interaction often disturbed by political agendas not exactly mutually tolerant. COURSE DESCRIPTIONTogether with shopping, \’tourism\’ is arguably the principal arena for the contemporary dweller, both urban and non urban. Tourism can be thought of as the essential vehicle for the implementation of the unformulated aspect of globalization, one that to be implemented cannot be openly declared: the production of \’non places\’, or protected resorts reproduced with feigned indifference of the geography in which are located the world over. At the same time, media have recently brought the spotlight on contemporary architecture, transforming real places into simulacra that assume their own life, one that is different and autonomous from the geographical one. This is particularly evident when a major event takes place, as the event itself appears to have the power to change the identity and the strength of geography itself, drawing a blanket of homogeneity and standardization on it. To discuss the relationship between architecture and events, trying to understand the autonomy of both le physique et la morale of architecture, becomes an unavoidable juncture in the meditation and debate of contemporary critique.Within this framework, Sardinia appears to be an interest case-study. Sardinia is testing a different \’tourism project.\’ The project has been launched recently: to stimulate tourists to go to Sardinia to get involved with local handicraft, music and artistic production and to try to reach an equilibrium point between such experience and the architectonic expression of the place that house it. Sardinia has many archipelagos and in one of them, the one of Isola della Maddalena, will be hosted the 2009 G8 Meeting. While the G8 summit itself will take place inside the former arsenal of the Italian Navy, some delegation headquarters will be housed by the former US Navy Nuclear submarine Base, which left the premises in 2007, after a third of a century long stay. The sta