We publish more student works selected in the preselection in the competition for press reportage on architecture. We invite you to read the text by Pawel Gala entitled. "Città Vecchia, or Old Town in Italian".
Pawel Gala - a second-degree student of Architecture at the Poznan University of Technology, is currently on a student exchange program at Politecnico di Milano in Italy, where, as part of a team of students at the university, he is collaborating on projects to inventory historic buildings, using photogrammetry and laser scanning.
Città Vecchia, or Old Town in Italian
Città Vecchia in Taranto
Photo: Pawel Gala
During my studies in Italy, one of the urban planning projects was the revitalization of the Old Town in Taranto. It is one of the larger cities of southern Italy in the Apulia region. It is located on a strip between a bay and a lagoon. It is characterized by unique city-forming extremes. On one side of the bay is a huge factory (ILVA) and a commercial port, on the other is a significant port of the Italian Navy, while the climatic Italian Old Town separates them. It is very interesting.
The central street is via Duomo. Cross streets diverging from it lead on one side to a quiet gentle walkway over the Mar Piccolo lagoon, and on the opposite side, to the cliff, over the Mar Grande bay. Mar Piccolo is famous for the one-of-a-kind mussels(cozza) grown by fishermen for centuries in this bay, while Mar Grande supports a port and countless container ships.
ILVA in Taranto
photo: Pawel Gala
The center is characterized by narrow streets ending with a view of the sea. They run through squares and squares of various sizes. On the side of the Mar Piccolo bay is located an extensive walkway along with a park and a market. Città Vecchia is also home to countless underground passageways and caves, as well as numerous terraces and squares above the buildings. It's also excellent Italian architecture and distinctive stone.
via Napoli in Taranto
photo: Pawel Gala
first walk through Città Vecchia
I start the tour from the train station, which is the beginning of the axis. It crosses a bridge and in a small square forks into three directions: the Mar Grande coast, the Mar Piccolo walkway and the via Duomo street leading to the center. I choose the last option. After a while I find myself in a recently restored square with a new unusual form in the middle. The buildings surrounding it on the side of the city are Italian stone, on the other plain plaster. In the center stands a fountain, quite simple and uninteresting, but well-kept. The old town blows cold, but it's not the cold of the dark streets - it's the image of a landscape devastated by time, almost apocalyptic compared to the quite well-preserved buildings we passed a while ago. The first church is small, but dominates the form.
piazza Fontana Città Vecchia in Taranto
photo: Pawel Gala
Moreover, it seems never renovated with its original marble, large clock face and bell tower. The form is beautiful and the material is durable. I enter a street on the right, a siesta is in progress, which has deserted the city. Intuition and memorized maps, photos and data tell me to turn right for a while more. There, another pentagonal square awaits, definitely smaller, but nevertheless interesting - together with the previous square, through a small church with a characteristic bell tower, it remains in a relationship of "coupled interior", a concept Kazimierz Wejchert wrote about. I proceeded further and this time boldly entered a narrow, dark street. Suddenly I am overwhelmed by a coldness that affects the perception of everything around me. Nothing is the same as before anymore - even the stone seems worse. The street itself is already discouraging - every now and then a beautiful lantern attached to the wall, a piece further on a broken gutter, constant extremes. I reach the next square. The road to the right shows a view of the sea. It is preceded by a simple rectangular small square, one wall of which becomes a seascape with a marina in the distance. I walk a little further with the thought of catching some sun and warming up. After a few steps I turn around. The Romanesque façade of a church (Chiesa di San Domenico Maggiore) with a rosette appears before me. The church is invisible from the street, as the entrance is two stories up, and can only be reached by a baroque staircase.
Chiesa di San Domenico Maggiore
Photo: Pawel Gala
I turn around and walk past the church block, the street is really narrow, climbing up a long flight of stairs. I am surrounded by stone everywhere - just reach out to touch it. Maybe via Duomo would be wider without it? I'm just coming out onto another piazza, extraordinary in its form - tiny and narrow, but with a wide opening. I climb a few steps and come to the edge, which overlooks the wide landscape of the Mar Piccolo bay. It is a unique opening because it is above the city, at my feet I have the roofs of the old town houses, behind my back the walls, and in front of me is the wide landscape of the bay of Mar Piccolo. This view is breathtaking. However, after a while the delight is combined with another sense of extremity and awfulness
How dirty it is here, but it's dilapidated, why these bars, where do these stairs lead?
The enchantment fades, but the view remains - to my eyes the everyday life of a part of Città Vecchi falling into disrepair. I think to myself - maybe this is the perfect place for some survivalist, urban game, paintball, or a setting for a movie. The staircase leading to the lower level beckons, while posing a difficult challenge. I give up. I intend to follow the designated path. I wonder about the next element of the città. The difference in levels, the old city - on the map one area, and here there is a fault through the very center, and not a small one, about eight meters, which translates into two or three stories.
Bella, what a city this is!
via Duomo, Città Vecchia in Taranto
Photo: Pawel Gala
I keep walking. Things are different now, though. I hold my course and descend lower and lower. Suddenly a divergence appears. I remember from the map that I should turn right, so I do so and walk between tenement houses. I pass overhead an arch, and after a few meters the sequence of supports begins to be filled in and resemble cradle canopies. I turn and after a while I come out onto a regular street. Although the passage seemed to be part of a building, like an entrance to someone else's corridor, or to some palace tunnels, it turns out to be a street, and quite romantic. Now the way is straight. The balconies above me almost meet, every now and then you can see laundry hanging in the air. Although it lacks sunshine and is cramped, perhaps social ties are deepening.
Vicolo S. Martino, Città Vecchia in Taranto
photo: Pawel Gala
Now something else is taking place - the street is getting nicer and nicer. Through the narrow, diverging streets we can see the sea; on one side the bay of Mar Grande, and after a few steps on the other side - Mar Piccolo. This is just called urban planning! A dark street and every now and then a delightful opening, mostly gaping, very narrow, but with what a landscape in the distance. I pass several cross streets like this, until I notice another extremity - on the right is a wide sea with a harbor area and container ships, and on the left is a quiet fishing bay. I walk another bit, siesta passes, and I come across more and more well-kept streets, more pubs, pizzerias, bars, B&Bs and stores. This is where life is just beginning. This is how I emerged from the dead part of Città Vecchi into another square, quite a large trapezoidal one. I pass the town hall, walk out into the middle and look back
Yes, this is the famous cathedral.
The current 18thcentury facade is cut horizontally by a broken Baroque architrave. On the stumps are two angels looking up at the rectangle of the central window with a stone statue of San Cataldo. Below is a large portal bearing the coat of arms of Archbishop Giana Battista Stella.
Basilica Cattedrale di San Cataldo, Città Vecchia in Taranto
Photo credit: Pavel Gala
I am standing in the very center of the old town. The face has changed - the condition of the buildings is getting better, the streets are no longer plain walls, every now and then you can see some store or cafe. This time I go a little to the side, pass some streets, go down and reach the entrance - the entrance to the cave, the underground. There, of course, I discover a beautiful, restored section of underground corridors and halls, where I find another dissonance: the underground and above-ground worlds of this city. I return to my via Duomo. Only now can you feel the throng and noise of the city's main street. I reach the gates of the university. Inside, a completely different world - most of the halls are beautifully restored, arcades, wooden roof and ceiling construction, stone walls.
via Duomo, Città Vecchia in Taranto
Photo: Pawel Gala
The only thing left is to go out in front of the last stage - the castle. I arrive at the second square located on the opposite coast and am amazed - lots of greenery, and instead of a monument in the center of the square there are two ancient columns, dominated by the block of the castle - Castello Aragonese.
Pawel GALA
Alufire was a partner of the competition
