The co-cathedral of Taranto represents the work that for fame and interest is placed among the most relevant architectures of the entire work of master Gio Ponti
The great Mother of God, in its conception and design, represented the highest moment of a project that saw it at the center of an urban composition that would have interested a wider area than the current one.
Letter by Gio Ponti to Gugliemo Motolese, 1964
The architectural project according to Gio Ponti‘s intentions was sustained and enhanced by the urban design, the enhancement of the peripheral urban context in which the intervention was taken out, should “sustain” its architectural work over time.
TOWN PLANNING
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- Urban proposal, 1971
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- Parco della Pace, 1970
The proposal for the area was characterized by the provision of the lower buildings (not exceeding 19 meters) arranged in an exedra around the co-cathedral , a solution that would have allowed to create a unified atmosphere around and with the co-cathedral.
The co-cathedral would have been defended by neighboring buildings but not isolated from social life. The plan, indeed, provided for the construction of schools, houses, cultural centers and restaurants, functions that together with the vast garden, would have favored, according to the designer, the social life in and around the area.
GREEN SYSTEM
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- North side and rear side
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- Colorings and handwritten notes
The construction of a large garden and the growth of vines on the facades and on the sail, represented for Gio Ponti another key point of the project.
In the proposed urban layout of the whole area, the two perimeter roads were eliminated in favor of a garden that surrounds the walls up to climb the walls of the church.
The idea that nature prevailed over architecture, enriching it and giving it luster, was an idea supported also in the arrangement of the planting around the tanks. This had to be located in a natural way and not at a constant distance as is done along the municipal roads.
REBUILD ABSENCE
Planimetry of the surrounding area, 2012
Over time all the expectations of Gio Ponti would have been disillusioned. The urban design was never carried out, preferring to it the current one.
Rebuilding absence means shifting one’s gaze from the presence, represented by the architectural artefact to the absence, represented by the unrealized part of the master’s project.