The Landscape Has No Rear - urban research for Venice Biennale Architettura 2014

Reggio Emilia, Italy, 2014

Santiago Calatrava’s station, expelled even from the small town of Reggio Emilia, stands out in an illusory empty space, where a slow and subtle life actually flows, in the heart of a rural landscape that aims to redefine its role at a European scale. Finished in June 2013 after 3 years of works, the Mediopadana Station has cost 80 million euros in tax money, starting from a budget of 30 millions. At the moment, only six trains stop at the station in each direction every day; all the others, more than sixty, pass through it without stopping. On one hand, the very high level of accessibility that it brings could provoke a crisis in the consolidated structure and in the cyclical rhythms of the Emilian countryside; on the other hand, its example may suggest new project opportunities and new ways of experiencing the agricultural landscape and open spaces. Fragments of different worlds trespass, settle and overlap into this exceptionally well-connected but extremely ordinary place. An unexpected fortunate fate offers the Italian countryside the opportunity to recover its role as a space for life. That’s an invitation to integrally redesign a new quality landscape, where empty spaces don’t represent an absence of urbanity but rather another sign of its presence, a landscape that has no rear anymore.