Monesteroli, 16 houses and 1200 steps
Michele Porcelluzzi
Michele Porcelluzzi is an architect and PhD candidate in Architectural, Urban and Interior Design at DAStU, Politecnico di Milano. His research activity is focused on the concept of collectiveness in architectural and urban design. Since 2020, he is a member of ILA&UD – International Laboratory for Architecture & Urban Design and in 2021 he contributed to founding the collective research Assume there's a landscape.
The most prominent element in Monesteroli, a village located within the Cinque Terre national park in Liguria, is a staircase of 1200 steps which constitutes its only infrastructure and its only public space. The sixteen houses in Monesteroli are mostly abandoned; only three are still used, but those are only inhabited for short periods during summer by families who permanently reside in La Spezia. Some of these temporary inhabitants, gathered in the association "Per Tramonti", have begun to reflect on a new possible future for the village, with the idea of a non profit accommodation facility that enhances the territory without altering its characteristics.
The first phase of the project - co-funded by FAI, the Municipality of La Spezia and the Cinque Terre Park and carried out with the technical support of the DAStU/Politecnico di Milano - involved the restoration of a section of the staircase, which was in an advanced state of decay. In Summer 2023, the planning phase and the search for funds for the recovery of the buildings in the village will begin.
The photographic project aims to show the natural and anthropic elements (steep terrain, lack of space for vehicles, limited possibility of implementing new services) which characterize the Monesteroli area, and which suggest the possibility of a type of interaction with the territory that is possibly different from the mass tourism of the nearby Cinque Terre area.
