Cale d’Otranto Beach Resort: story of a project between Italy and France. Noëlle Janet, Gae Aulenti and the Club Méditerranée (1968)

The 1960s marked the beginning of lively speculation on the Apulian coasts. In 1968, the French Club Méditerranée decided to establish a seaside tourist complex near the Alimini Lakes, in the Otranto province, located on the heel of the Italian boot. This paper aims to analyze this previously unstudied project, whose planning process is still uncertain. On this regard, the existing documentation bears the signature of two female architects: the French Noëlle Janet (1935) and the Italian Gae Aulenti (1927-2012). Starting from the genius loci of the location itself and from the local architectural typologies, the work intends to prove the contributions of two female architects, seeking to decipher and interpret their methods, visions, similarities and differences. Defined by industry entrepreneurs as the «precursor of modern tourism» (to the extent that it appeared on promotional postcards of the Puglia Region in the 1970s), the Otranto Club Méditerranée (now “Cale d’Otranto - Beach Resort”), operational since 1970, was one of the first tourist villages in Southern Italy. The coastline resort looks like a micro-city, spanning 55 hectares: more than 400 rooms enclosing the residence compound, a cove and a private beach, commons spaces, sports activities places, and a pine forest. The architectural outcome achieved features picturesque references, with a vernacular language, stemming not only from the idea of «a more intense South, almost reminiscent of the African coast» [C. Brandi, 1960], but also from subjectivity and feminist perspectives. These places’ imaginaries and their performativity from their construction to present days will be critically re-examined based on unpublished archival materials (Archivio G. Aulenti, Milan; Noëlle Janet et Christian Demonchy, Archives nationales, Paris). From the gender studies perspective, the hypothetical collaboration of the two female designers in this resort intended for an educated, middle-class tourist target, will be compared from the point of view of the conception of spaces in the continuities and differences between the design due, but also related to the choices made by male colleagues.