IL TEATRO DELLA LEGGEREZZA

YEAR | 2006

LOCATION | SANT’AGATA DE’ GOTI, CAMPANIA, ITALY

ROLE | Lighting conceptor + Designer

CATEGORY | TAETRI URBANI

The projectual perspective came out from walking, listening and reading closely this beautiful ancient borough and by approaching the direct human testimony of the local people. A clear contrast emerged quite soon between the ascending shape of the magnificent tufaceus plynth, where the urban implant is nestled, the breathtaking height of most of the narrow alleys, the perpetual echoes of a glorious samnite heritage and the graveness of a population that now seems to be detached from all this, except for a nostalgic passing down of memories from a generation to another.

Lightness appeared immediately as the value to be restored, in order to synchronize both the identities of place and people and make them walk along again with each other.

The actual borough scheme was rethought to conceptually match a real theatre layout. Seven urban contexts were extrapolated from the overall implant, and reorganized in a theatre like scheme, featuring for example the crowning rocks as the WALL OF THE THEATRE, the borough entrance as the FOYER, the central axis as the MAIN HALLWAY, the alleys system as the PASSAGES OF THE THEATRE, the covered walkways as the SHELTERS, and the ancient intra moenia as the GALLERY.

A special attention was reserved to the system of squares, whose lighting design has been inspired to the world of lyrical opera. So Piazza Viscardi dances like the FAUST, Largo Ostieri stages the CARMEN, Piazza del Carmine and Piazza Trento the main scenes of the TRAVIATA, Piazza Umberto the MADAMA BUTTERFLY, Piazza Duomo the ZAUBERFLAUTE and Piazza del Toro the BOHÉME. Every match was based upon the traditional popular use that build up the history of each specific urban context.