Marco Casamonti
The assignment you have been entrusted by the 10th Architecture Biennale of Venice, concerning the issue of the South, still appears too recent to ask you to anticipate the contents; however, this forthcoming task is a recognition of your work and interests over recent years, focused on seeing the Mediterranean in a wider sense, as a heritage of extraordinarily interesting and valuable experiences. But does it make sense to speak of a southern issue also in relation to architecture?
Claudio D’Amato
if we consider the negative associations that the expression “Southern issue” has acquired with reference to the historical, social and productive difficulties of Southern Italy, I would say that yes, it makes sense to use the term also in relation to Italian contemporary architecture, because the aggression against the special character of the historical cities and the landscape on the part of the so-cried modem culture is more evident and violent in the South than it is in the center and North of the country. But the Southern issue is more complex; it transcends its geographical sphere as it refers to a cultural model that opposes the modernistic one, and this is the true target of this rejection and aggression.

MC
Perhaps the readers of Area may be interested to know about your insistence on the opposition between cultural areas and construction models as sign of different identities. Do you think that it still makes sense, in a reality that is as “globalized” like the present one, to speak of areas with an elastic-ligneous traditions and areas with a plastic-masonry tradition?
CD’A
There have always been globalization phenomena throughout history
— as witnessed by those from the Hellenic, Roman and Byzantine periods — but the use of a koiné diálectos has not necessarily entailed the cancellation of the numerous regional cultures. Indeed, I would say that the shared sentiment was a prerequisite for the recognition of the difference. On the contrary, a standardized world that wants to impose a sole cultural model, is merely a stupid globalized world. Architectural civilizations are formed slowly, over a long period, and they are transformed slowly; the building methods often represent the substratum that allows change, but also ensures that the “character” of a cultural architectural area is preserved. Consequently, not only does it make sense to speak of this distinction
— that in any case remains concretely verifiable whether we like it or not — but above all, it is in our interest to exalt these differences. The abandonment of research on masonry architecture is only a transient cultural datum, that is part of the paradigm of the culture that is dominant today, the one that accepts the distinction between shell and structure.

MC
To what extent, and how, do you plan to insert your work in the Italian Pavilion, that will for the first time be entirely and solely dedicated to the valorization of contemporary architecture?
CD’A
I will try to highlight the projects whose authors have not only refused to make a clean slate of memory, but who have continued to design believing in the disciplinary unity of architecture.

MC
Your interests have also, for years, been oriented towards antiquity, even towards archaeology how may this distance in time be bridged? Or perhaps I should rather say, how can these experiences of yours be useful for contemporary architecture?
CD’A
It is a well known fact that “those who know the past possess the future”. Knowledge and study of antiquity is — should be
— an essential part of the education of an architect; this does not mean that the links between research and design must per force be banally explicit. For an architectural culture that wants to stay in touch with its roots and that believes that differences are valuable, the study of history is essential, not just as an intellectual affectation, but in the more strictly operative sense of knowledge of the history of forms and the relative building techniques. For an architecture in stone
— for instance — to escape the banal use of stone as a facing material, it is indispensable to study stereotomy, both with regard to its historical development and its application.

MC
A lot of debate centers on the dialogue between South and North, on the diversity and divergences that separate the country through political and cultural forces that would like to go as far as to divide it, proposing improbable separations. As curator of this section, do you intend to insist precisely on these differences, on the peculiarities that make the South unique; do you plan to underscore the character and the force, or will you on the contrary present an image aimed at uniting the two different poles?
CD’A
I will strive to assure that this difference appears with great clarity; but as I mentioned a moment ago, in architecture the difference between North and South is not geographical, but cultural. As we know, the so called “Modem Movement” initially featured a “masonry” variant that was subsequently defeated by a complex intertwining of factors of various kinds - economic, historical, ideological and others — that was expressed not only in countries such as Italy but — I am for instance thinking of Germany — in the very heart of Modernism.
One may think in plastic masonry terms also when living in the North, when architectural ideas center on that particular form of rationality that is rooted in the Greek civilization, in the unitary and dialectic way of reasoning that, proceeding from logos, for the first time gave rise to the concept of the organic nature of a work of art.

MC
Taking stock of what has happened in the last few years, how much has been realized and how much can still be realized in terms of construction in the South of Italy?
CD’A
As to the future, it is not for me to reply:
an exhibition observes reality, analyzes it, takes stock of it, and contributes to make even its less visible parts known; but then the task of planning investments and deciding territorial strategies belongs to the world of politics.

MC
But what expectations, what opportunities, what pressing issues or suggestions can be obtained from this completely new reconnaissance?
CD’A
I hope to contribute by identifying problems, suggesting solutions, giving visibility to as yet unexplored territories of intelligence, that may contribute to the construction of architecture and to a reappraisal of the Mediterranean cities in a world that today seems to be dominated only by the cult of image, of technology and of rapid transformations.

MC
And from a wider point of view, let us say a European context, the entire Italian territory is South. To what extent, from this viewpoint, does our architecture compete and relate with that of the rest of Europe?
CD’A
Even if most architects seems to have forgotten it, Italian architecture is deeply rooted in Mediterranean culture: only if they stop producing bad copies of Dutch architecture, only if they prove themselves able to rediscover their roots and interpret our tradition with intelligence, may Italian architects — after a long and thorough reflection — once more become competitive in Europe and in the world.