A Human Restoration: Architectural lessons from a border asylum
About this ebook
The comparison between architecture and psychiatry is appropriate if one is planning the repurposing of a former mental hospital, and the comparison becomes incredibly pertinent if the asylum in question is the one where, in 1961, the battle for the rights of people with mental disorders was born, leading to the "Basaglia Law" of 1978 which banished an architectural typology — that of the psychiatric hospital — that had become the symbol of the denial of those rights.
The story of this hospital, now called Basaglia Park, is marginal in every sense — one of its edges coincides with the state border — and at the same time, it is central to a troubled history involving the intersection of cultures, identities and languages, making it emblematic in light of contemporary events.
With all its complexity, this place has been proposed as the subject of knowledgeable reflection and different design practices.
About the author
Giuseppina Scavuzzo, architect, PhD in Architectural Composition at Iuav University, is an associate professor in Architectural Design, at the University of Trieste’s Department of Engineering and Architecture, where she teaches architectural design and interior architecture and is a member of the college of professors for the inter-university PhD programme of Engineering and Architecture with the University of Udine. Various examples of her research on the symbolic and narrative dimension of architecture are published in national and international magazines and books. For some years she has been studying the theme of total institutions, particularly the aspect of the relationship between rights and their location within architecturally defined forms and spatial limits.
Gianfranco Guaragna, architect, PhD in Architectural Composition at the Iuav University of Venice. He was an adjunct professor first at Iuav and then at the Faculty of Architecture in Trieste, where he ran courses on Architectural Design, Preparation, Distributional Characteristics of Buildings, Interior Architecture, and Furniture Design for Cruise Ships and Yachts. He is currently a researcher in Architectural and Urban Composition at the University of Trieste’s Department of Engineering and Architecture, and is the head of the Architectural Composition 1 course for the Degree in Architecture. He recently published Ernesto Nathan Rogers (Il Prato, 2017), and Aldo Rossi. Ora questo è perduto (Il Prato, 2017).
Sergio Pratali Maffei, architect, PhD in Conservation of Architectural Heritage (Polytechnic of Milan, Gubbio Award 1993), post-doctorate degree at the Iuav University of Venice where he was a researcher, is an associate professor of Restoration at the University of Trieste. Author of over 200 publications, he has taught at various international universities, has designed and directed important restoration interventions, including the reconstruction of La Fenice theatre in Venice and the enhancement of the Temple of Augustus in Ankara, has coordinated various research projects and collaborated on international cooperation projects in the Balkans, Asia Minor and Latin America.
