La Repubblica publishes an interview by Alessio Gemma with Stefano Boeri following the collapse of a balcony in one of the structures of the Vele di Scampia, which resulted in fatalities and injuries.
The article focuses on the architectural history of the Vele and similar experiences worldwide, born from an ideal of community but often disillusioned.
“I first visited the Vele around 1994, with photographer Francesco Iodice and architect Rem Koolhaas. We were escorted by the Camorra’s motorbikes, feeling like we were in a guarded area. The Vele, like other concrete dinosaurs of those years, represent a dramatic metaphor for the relationship between architecture and politics,” states Stefano Boeri, emphasizing this aspect.
“We are talking about the late Sixties to the early Eighties. Starting with the Fanfani Plan, there were investments in social housing that architecture often translated into solutions combining Le Corbusier’s ‘housing machines’ with Japanese metabolist culture, all with the presumption that architecture alone could generate spaces of social self-sufficiency.
In a single large building, low-income families were provided with educational, health, cultural, and commercial services. However, this applied the wrong concept of urban community with concrete, concentrating families with similar backgrounds and expectations in one place, far from urban life, avoiding the mix of cultures, incomes, faiths, and ambitions that truly make a city. A community dimension was forcibly created that was more akin to a ghetto, the opposite of a city, which is instead made up of high-density building neighborhoods inhabited by diverse cultures and histories,” explains Stefano Boeri.
To read the full article: La Repubblica