Raibl
by Massimo Crivellari
portfolio shortlisted call 'Urbanautica Institute Awards 2024', 2024
Category: Representations of Space, Architecture, and Conflicts
Raibl, beyond the Iron Curtain in the Alps of skiing
Raibl is a village in an Alpine area of naturalistic and tourist interest, on the Italian border with Slovenia and Austria. It developed around a mining site, known since the time of ancient Rome. The mine closed in 1991 and today has become a museum. Only some forgotten infrastructures and the workers’ houses can still be seen. The latter are small apartment buildings in a pure socialist style, identical to those which, in the same period, were built in Yugoslavia, beyond the Iron Curtain. They have always been modest and now, although they continue to be inhabited, look abandoned.
The snow softens them, while it also emphasizes their characteristics. It accentuates the contrast between the mining town and the rich ski resorts not far away, between the modest homes of the workers and the glittering hotels. Raibl appears, thus, disconcerting: a communist village of the Seventies surrounded by the wellness of contemporary tourism, an island forgotten by time.
also from Urbanautica Institute Awards 2024