Statement In Opposition to Buren Project

Clancco received this statement (below) from a group of Italian citizens, artists, architects and academics who are opposed to the installation of Daniel Buren’s art project, to be installed in the coastal town of La Spezia, southeast of Genoa, in one of the main squares, Piazza Giuseppe Verdi.

The battle of the citizens of La Spezia is a civil battle, in defense of the common good and of the historical shape of an Italian “piazza”, which belongs to the cultural heritage of the Country, especially in a town that has lost part of its artistic heritage and which should focus on the preservation of the residual part through a restoration, respectful of local identity, without venturing into questionable, worth millions, “façade” transactions, which are completely out of context.

The architect Alessandro Mendini, who led the jury that awarded Buren with the redesign, has circulated a petition against the ministry’s u-turn.

The entire statement in opposition follows, below.————-

“Appeal for the defense of Piazza Verdi, La Spezia, in compliance with the citizen’s constitutional rights and the rules in force about conservation

We join the appeal launched by different sectors of the population of the town of La Spezia, who claim a fundamental right to transparency and to participation in the territorial transformation processes related to the project of renovating the central Piazza Giuseppe Verdi.

In more than 70 years, the square has maintained the same structure, albeit with some intervention that has not substantially altered the initial features, and preserves the historical-architectural original design. Piazza Verdi has also survived the bombings that battered La Spezia in World War II.

The City Council ignored the monumental constraint (which the square is submitted to) by providing the authority of protection (the Superintendence for the Architectural and Landscape Heritage) with a wrong dating of the site, and intends to operate a restructuring that is, in fact, a remake: the project, which is not including the restoration of the original materials, contemplates instead an abundant use of cement on a fragile site, located a short distance from the sea, and insisting on a delicate water balance.

The procedure that led to the approval of the project also contains significant procedural deficiencies that forced the Superintendence to suspend the execution of the project, and start the procedure of “cultural interest assessment” required by the Code of Cultural Heritage.

It is an intervention that hopelessly distorts the identity of the square, irreversibly erasing its historical memory, and that dismantles the site by inserting at the place of the existing trees various foreign elements, of questionable architectural quality, such as portals and pillars of light, squared sinks, and other interventions that do not harmonize with the surrounding buildings.

One wonders how it is once again possible to think of disrupting the core of a town without involving the citizens, i.e. the legitimate owners of the rights on the town, thus encroaching a right enshrined in our Constitution, and ignoring the Community provision which provides EU co-financed projects be shared with the population.

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