lablog

“ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences/School of Architecture”

This year the Course for Diploma ‘Adaptive re-use’ (Facoltà di Architettura e Società/Politecnico di Milano) will focus its interests on specific topics connected with the on-going research project MeLa (European Museums in an Age of Migrations) investigating the new role Museums and Exhibitions could/should play in a multy-cultural society where questions such as Identity and Citizenship are strongly impacted by phenomena like the Europanization of Europe and the massive presence of permanent migrants in what we consider to be ‘our’ Europe or ‘our’ Nation or ‘our’ City or even ‘our’ territory. Here you can download a brief project presentation.

Another object of interest is the European XX Century Conflict Heritage – tangible and intangible legacies wars left behind – with a special focus on the Atlantic Wall and WWII period. Here you can download a brief presentation about how we think to approach this difficult theme.

Students at POLIMI (Italian or Foreigners) interested in developing their Diploma in such a field, could take contact with me (Gennaro Postiglione) using contact blog-mail in the ‘about page’.

What should be done with a complex of such enormous proportions as the Atlantikwall (German Atlantic Wall) that stretches from the North Cape all the way to the Bay of Biscay? What meaning should be assigned to this cultural heritage? In which way can and will the Atlantikwall affect spatial planning, both on a regional and national, and on an international level? And last but not least, are there opportunities for use in recreation and tourism?

Gennaro Postiglione has been invited to partecipate as Moderator at one of the three workshops planned within the Atlantic Wall Expert Meeting in Amersfoort and Middelburg on September 2 and 3, 2010. The final speakers of the day presented a demo-version of the web site www.atlantikwallplatform.eu.

External links:
http://atlantikwallplatform.eu
http://www.atlanticwall.polimi.it/
http://en.atlantikwall-denmark.net/
http://www.kystfort.com

Following the Research project delivered at MIUR (Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca). The Research Unit New Museography (Luca Basso Peressut, Gennaro Postiglione, Imma Forino, Mariella Brenna) edited a proposal concerning the question to give answer at the diffused presence of emerging memories (ancient but also modern) both in our daily Urban context and in our Cultural Landscape.

PRIN 2008

Traces of war present in the urban foundation of cities as in landscapes represent a patrimony difficult to manage and have a relationship with because they are linked to unpleasant memories, which are often traumatic.  They raise issues of primary importance, such as the ones connected to collective identity and collective vs personal memory.
On one hand, people would like to obliterate all these traumatic places and memories, but at the same time there is the fear of losing part of one’s history and identity, which is partly comprised of these scars. There must be a third possibility, a “third space”, as H.K. Bhabha would call it: a space to develop a different design process regarding the tangible and intangible patrimony generated by the conflicts that can combine to have a therapeutic effect and be a catalyst for the emergence of museums.  This is the direction that the museography of “20th Century Conflict Archaeological Heritage” is going to.

And this is the design task we propose to Domus Academy students for this year: a challange to work on some WWII voids in the city centre of Milan. To change for our present and their future.

ws_fillingvoids-presentation