Uccellaccio
by Barbara Rossi
portfolio special mention call 'Urbanautica Institute Awards 2023', 2023
Category: Representations of Space, Architecture, and Conflicts
Uccellaccio, or uccellaccio del malaugurio (the bird of ill omen) is an Italian locution that belongs to rural and peasant culture; the Uccellaccio is a predictor of misfortune, an omen of crops gone bad, misfortunes or nefarious news. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the raven is the bird of ill omen that announces to the god of sun the betrayal of his beloved. In Ripa Teatina, a small village located in the countryside of Central Italy, Uccellaccio is how the unfinished work that has dominated the village since 1973 is apostrophized. Nestled in the hills and surrounded by olive trees, the Uccellaccio was meant to be a public residence for the elderly, a space for mankind, which in reality has always belonged more to nature than to man. Seen from above, its very shape resembles that of a bird, as if the future of this never-completed public work was already inscribed in its original design.
The Uccellaccio also stands as a monument of a phenomenon of unfinished public architectures in Italy , symbol of economic crises, corruption and soil exploitation.
also from Urbanautica Institute Awards 2023