Power Stations and Petroleum Heritage in Italy. The case of Porto Tolle

Combining various streams of literature on marginal territories and “operational landscapes,” this chapter considers a particular type of petroleumscape, one in which oil is transformed into electricity. In the context of the current energy transition, oil-fueled power plants become outdated, while their physical structures may remain. They can be interpreted as the heritage of the future. Entering an area given little attention in urban, landscape, and architecture scholarship, Chiara Geroldi and Gloria Pessina investigate unused and underused oil-fueled thermoelectric power stations in Italy, highlighting architectural elements, flows of oil, infrastructure, and social conflict. The station this chapter discusses in the most detail, Porto Tolle, is located in the fragile portion of the Po River delta known as Polesine, which has been marked by contentious processes of development and heritagization for several decades. By recognizing the role Porto Tolle has played in the global petroleumscape and highlighting its specific historical, geographical, environmental, and sociopolitical features, the authors imagine a post-oil future for Polesine, aimed at reconciling the broken equilibrium between land, water, and oil and at overcoming harmful economic development models.