FULL SS 2021 #4
Unfinished ruins have become a key urban theme since the 2008 financial crisis, when thousands of constructions remained unfinished in countries like Spain, Ireland and Iceland. However, the phenomenon in Italy dates back to a few decades earlier, and such a historical framework has led the group of artists Alterazioni Video to refer to these spaces as a new architectural style: ‘Incompiuto’. The artists’ objective is to put incompletion back on the agenda by viewing it from a cultural perspective, envisioning different ways of dealing with it: to finish the works, to demolish them, to leave them as they are, or to opt for an ‘active’ arrested decay. This presentation will review each of these approaches, connecting them with recent, non-orthodox approaches to conservation, and disentangling the creation of new heritage meanings.
