The Atlas Of The Midday Fund

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 majority of maps. One hundred together with twenty-seven of them, held together yesteryear 3 brass screw-on bolts. On the difficult embrace – the dust jacket, if at that spot always was one, is lost – the words Atlante della Cassa del Mezzogiorno, 1950-1962. The majority has no introduction, together with no text exterior of a tabular array of contents, the customary brief publisher’s information together with the title, house names together with legend of each of the maps. So scant is the context that nosotros could pick out to misconstrue the discussion Mezzogiorno inward the championship together with to interpret literally, nonsensically, perchance a piddling poetically: ‘The Atlas of the Midday Fund’. And nosotros could expect yesteryear the fact that these orbit to hold upward maps of Southern Italy, seeing that they are also, together with to a greater extent than visibly, fragments of a geopolitical trunk position on a tabular array together with dissected.

This could hold upward whatever country. Above, it is a map of Calabria alongside the territory known equally the Sila together with a modest surface area northward of Locri coloured in, blotchy, equally if to illustrate the spread of a disease. Below, the to a greater extent than familiar kicking shape consummate alongside major islands is criss-crossed yesteryear ruby lines that resemble varicose veins. But what these maps document are interventions – inward this case, reason reclamations together with the edifice of novel roads. In other words, they are near the cure, non the disease.

This could hold upward whatever reason inward which such interventions had been prescribed together with carried out, for these maps are equally much an endeavour to stand upward for the territory equally a way of thinking near together with acting upon the territory. With this key inward mind, each map becomes at i time text together with context. Its explanation, its justification, its frame of reference is to hold upward found inward the icon itself, taken equally a whole together with over time: nosotros built these roads because at that spot were none; nosotros drained these marshes together with thence that the reason could hold upward farmed, together with and thence forth. The one-time territory, which is never shown, was the problem. The novel territory – the object of representation – is the self-evident, necessary solution.

But nosotros must restore roughly of that missing context. The Cassa del Mezzogiorno – which properly translates equally ‘Fund for the South’ – was an scheme established yesteryear the Italian regime inward 1950 to administer loans granted yesteryear the International Bank for Reconstruction together with Development together with the European Recovery Program (better known equally the Marshall Plan) for the purposes of a serial of ‘extraordinary interventions’ inward the economically depressed areas inward the southern together with (partly) the primal regions of the country. The Fund, at to the lowest degree inward its initial twelve years of functioning that are documented yesteryear the atlas, operated alongside a relatively depression grade of political oversight together with was rigorous inward its application of Keynesian theories of economical evolution to these depressed areas. It was inward other words a quintessentially technocratic body, a lineament of which the majority is a straight expression. Not only the infinitesimal representational precision of the maps, but also their aesthetic aspect, the fact that this is a beautiful majority to expect at, are functional to the fund’s design, which was to remake the landscape: to larn inward better, to a greater extent than productive, to a greater extent than liveable.

I’m non exclusively certain what specific information is conveyed the hydrogeological nautical chart of the river Neto together with its surroundings, above, but the lines together with the colours are real pleasing to the eye. It looks similar a house where i could settle. And doesn’t Sicily hither expect neat, efficient, modern?

If similar me you’re into legends, this majority is total of treasures. From a map of novel facilities built inward the say of Naples, I give you, 2d from the top, ‘X-ray laboratories together with tuberculosis dispensaries’.

That is the grade of especial that the projection required together with deployed. Psychiatric hospitals larn their ain symbol. So likewise practise fruit together with vegetable markets together with heliports.

Finally the atlas zooms inward onto a sample of private housing developments, which naturally all expect similar model projects. How could they not? This is the Ex Campo Ascarelli, on the outskirts of Naples.

While for the especial of the actual apartments, nosotros motion to Secondigliano.

Decent, modern housing inward decent, modern neighbourhoods: it’s what you lot larn when you lot command the agency of representation. Nowadays Secondigliano is plagued yesteryear a staggering slew of social problems together with virtually ruled yesteryear the Camorra. Pasquale Saraceno, the architect of the fund, mightiness equally good receive got been referring to it when he wrote inward 1990, at the historic menstruation of 87, that

when modernisation is only outward together with fails to invest the economical foundations, the social structures, the modes of participation inward the life of the community, it lends itself to forms of bullying together with enslavement, of loss of demarcation betwixt the populace together with the private sphere, of exchanges of protection together with personal allegiances whose roots belong instead to an archaic together with feudal past.

The great modernization projection failed, but it is non an upshot that could hold upward read inward the atlas: non fifty-fifty yesteryear its authors, similar Pasquale Saraceno, nor yesteryear its critics on the Left, who would receive got looked at each i of those interventions together with recognised its specific cloth value fifty-fifty equally they warned that the politics of the extraordinary intervention would larn the agency for the indefinite extension of the condition quo. For our South has never ceased to hold upward inward crisis together with inward the procedure of beingness modernized, at that spot simply hasn’t been roughly other utopian 2d comparable to the i that the atlas represents. Yet it remains such an appealing text, together with such a persuasive model: to recollect that yesteryear improving the landscape, yesteryear improve designing our urban environments nosotros could create the reason for social progress. And if you lot came across this book, equally I did, on the reverse side of the world, together with you lot pretended that this could hold upward whatever place, you lot mightiness simply believe the story.

Originally published at Overland