Ortigia, what an incredible and timeless place! Ortigia is the oldest part of the city of Syracuse and one of the UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2005, it’s also the super exclusive location of the Ortigia Sound System Festival, one of the best festival in Italy where the Sicilian tradition is mixed with the new contemporary music and club culture. If you have some free time between the sea, beach and good music you must visit this 6 architectural hotspots near Ortigia.
The Sanctuary of Madonna delle Lacrime in Syracuse.
Designed by Michel Andrault and Pierre Parat and built in 1957, this concrete Basilica is an example of brutalist architecture from the late 1950s. This place is amazing, especially due to the dizzying height of the ecclesiastical structure. The story of the name of the church is very curious: it’s August 29th, 1953 when Antonina Iannuso, freshly married to Angelo and unfortunately blind, stars to see again in front of this Madonna statue that they have in their living room. This Madonna starts to cry in front of Antonina, from there it is said that she will cry for 58 days this is why it’s called “Madonna delle Lacrime”. The statue is now preserved in this church.
The Regional Archaeological Museum Paolo Orsi, Syracuse.
Between the end of the 60s and the end of the 80’s Franco Minissi, one of the first and most talented Italian museographic architects, designed the Archeological Regionale Paolo Orsi, a masterpiece perfectly contextualized with the magnificent Sicilian landscape.
Hangar for airships
If you have time to visit the province of Syracuse you have to go to Augusta where the engineer Antonio Garboli has built these incredible hangars for airships. It’s all concrete, this building made in 1920 was an airship of the aeronautics house.
Le Ciminiere
Le Ciminiere is a fair complex in Catania made by Giacomo Leone, a great Sicilian post-war architect. There’s also a theater that looks like a stone just came from Etna volcano.
National Laboratories of the South
Also by Giacomo Leone is the National Laboratories of the South (LNS) of the National Institute of Physics, the union of science and architecture.
Palazzo Bernini
For people who like abandoned architectures, in Catania there’ s Palazzo Bernini, an unfinished complex in an abandoned state and occupied by homeless, it’s also an area subject of study in the Sicilian architecture Faculty.
Where and when:
Ortigia, Syracuse. (Italy)
24 July – 28 July 2019
Text by Bianca Felicori
