The peri-urban is defined as that part of the territory between the urbanized and the non-built area, of various dimension.
The peri-urban which can become a landscape in and of transition: «a landscape in which signs of new ecologies between territory and society are emerging (…) bearers of an unprecedented proposal of sustainability and new forms of urban spatiality on which the time has come to question», wrote Pierre Donadieu.
The peri-urban is a condition of suspension, of change in progress, wastescape in possible and potential mutation.
Landscape of hope considered an innovative resource for the regeneration of territories, a paradigm shift capable of determining multiple environmental, economic and cultural results. Thinking of the suburban area as a space to be regenerated means understanding it.
The photographic campaign is aimed at identifying the characteristics of the suburban area between Naples and Caserta in Italy.
Here the urban voids, once agricultural, are now occupied by commercial areas, infrastructures of vehicular traffic and high-speed railway.
The city of Afragola houses the sinuous TAV (high speed train) station designed by Zaha Hadid, which, now far from its inauguration, is still lying in a void waiting for attention.
A few kilometers away, the yards of the fast line house, in a small patch of territory, greenhouses, cultivated fields, multi-storey condominiums and concrete walls with pending reinforcement bars intended to support the red fast train in the future.
The Acerra waste-to-energy plant and the ancient canal system of the Regi Lagni characterize the landscape of the focus area somewhere else.
At its two ends, the edges of the cities of Naples and Caserta: to the south, the residential towers of Ponticelli overlook land waiting for the improbable fences; to the north, between abandoned spaces and bowling alleys, there is a Caserta Statue of Liberty turning its back to the Royal Palace by Vanvitelli.
Architect, architectural photographer, master in Photographic representation of architecture and the environment at the La Sapienza University of Rome. PhD in Representation of architecture and the environment, he works in photographic campaigns for research about architecture, landscape and territorial contexts at the Department of Architecture of the Federico II University of Naples. He teaches Photography in public and private school and in national and international workshops.
© text and pictures by Mario Ferrara
