Arcipelago Italia: Western and Eastern Alps

The first itinerary goes from the Colle di Cadibona mountain pass (the border between Alps and Apennines) to the Pizzo di Gino in the province of Como (the border between Western and Eastern Alps). The built surroundings are a dialogue with history and a mediation of unfavourable conditions for contemporary living. The Cabanon hut in the town of Garessio reinterprets the rural shed. The parking lot in Badalucco tempers the site’s severe morphology. In the Piedmont region, mountain culture is being preserved in Paraloup, a hamlet known for Resistance soldiers during World War II. In Ostana, renewal is aimed against depopulation. From Borgiallo, where a new component enhances a traditional group of row houses, we descend toward Brianza, where the Velostazione bicycle station is a new amenity and the ancient Torre di Villa d’Adda is a revamped has become a library. Away from the city, the house by Passo del Cavallo gives the landscape a domestic embrace.

At Pizzo di Gino, we enter the Eastern Alps, where the diary cooperative in Postalesio conducts business in a modern setting, while in Comano Terme, a hydropower station mimics a pair of erratic boulders.
At Molveno, drainage of the lake became an opportunity to display art. Architecture serves the disabled in San Martino in Passiria; it serves culture in Laives, and rescue work in Brennero, where a fire station is inserted into the foot of a landslide. In Fortezza, history has come alive. Crossing the Dolomites, the Fratelli Fanton mountain cabin is almost finished. Descending toward the valley, we come across the former holiday village for employees of the Eni power company, while a forestry cabin in the “Violin Forest” has been taken apart and remounted in a more hospitable way. Our final Alpine stop is Villorba, where the Cantina Pizzolato winery has renewed an agricultural area, saving it from industrial use.