Building landscape and organising territory: (re)thinking Pontine Marshes architecture

The former Pontine Marshes, extending to the southeast of Rome in between the Volscian Mountains and the Tyrrhenian Sea, became a fertile plain because of “integral reclamation” implemented during the Fascist period (1928-1935). However decisive this recent phase plays on today’s character of the region, our paper focuses on its landscape and architecture before the seemly imposing final reclamation. Looking at this context from an architect’s point of view, we shall consider the Pontine Marshes as a repository of projects. Through this diachronic palimpsest reading it is important to stress that history for architects, in reality, is the sharing of problems within a deep understanding of the issues at hand in order to shape informed perspectives for today´s demands and not for simple quotation or archival portray. Along this line of thought, we shall focus on Leonardo da Vinci’s ingenious proposal and on the pre-Enlightenment scheme promoted by Pope Pius VI in 1777. The present relevance of these two projects lays in the interplay of different levels: a territorial vision entailing vestiges of antiquity as a “latent order,” the technicalities and related architectural landmarks in a distant dialogue along the Appian Way. In this context, the problem of heritage shift in perspective. Questioning relevant precedents to discover which elements of the historical palimpsest could still play a part in a new scheme, may greatly contribute to an operational understanding of the vital relationship between landscape and architecture.