THE VALUE OF ABANDONMENT: THE GIACOMINI PARK IN ITALY

Abstract

​An abandoned disposal site for Municipal Solid Waste (Environmental Facility for Separate Collection - EFSC) located in a town of approx.10.000 inhabitants provided an opportunity for requalification of an open space and regeneration of a neglected woodland with restricted use, in accordance with EEC Regulations 2052/88. Both these elements were deemed strategic for different reasons. A juxtaposition of “natural”/artificial both requiring intervention. Two critical elements, two issues subject to ongoing debate by public administrations striving to identify an equilibrium in an attempt to proactively support this type of area. An open space, of value in its own right due to uninterrupted availability, multifunctional and readily organizable but burdened by a need for control and management, and the vegetation and its importance as an environmental vector, a symbol of strategic needs encumbered by maintenance and governance issues. An obsolete area conveys a double value: it both contains and constitutes the neglected object, two separate conditions featuring an active subject in the first case and in the second the object of the action itself. The “non-use” may be referred either to a container and/or to the context of space, terrain vagues or volume. The term “to abandon” is linked to a negative concept corresponding to synonyms such as to give up or desist from doing something, to leave definitively  forever implying a surrendering of control and responsibility, terms and concepts indicating varying degrees of awareness, time frames and modalities. Each is associated with an indisputable innate and deep-rooted hostility towards an interpretative vision according to which mankind is the ordinator architect of all things mundane, a maintenance technician and supervisor aware of all that goes on before his eyes. On losing control (by choice or necessity) and thus leaving something behind, this position however assumes a lesser role, being somehow ill-suited to cover an active role in a routine setting.