Aspects of Architecture and Urbanism in the Reconstruction of Disaster: Comparison of L’ Aquila (Italy) with Kolontar/Devecser (Hungary) and Corbeni (Romania) in the Context of Participative Reconstruction

Abstract

This paper proposes to analyse the architectural and urbanism aspects in two different recent cases and one historic one related to the second recent case of reconstruction after disastrous events: 1. the progetto C.A.S.E., which created a series of new neighbourhoods around the city of L’Aquila, Italy, affected by the earthquake from 6th of April 2009. The old city was temporarily protected by means of propping, with the inhabitants evacuated, while new buildings, following the highest standards of seismic protection with base isolation, were built at a certain distance from the city, lacking services and public transport. The new architecture of the progetto C.A.S.E. is put in the context of similar developments of “Zeilenbau”. “Zeilenbau” is an urbanism approach typical for the edges of the city, rejecting tradition. 2. Reconstruction in Kolontar and Devecser after the chemical catastrophe from Ajka, Hungary, in 2010 as well as in Corbeni after floods on the Argeş river in Romania, in 1942. Unlike in L’Aquila, here the houses damaged by the red scum had to be demolished, and completely new buildings were erected in their place. Much of the design was done for free by star architect Imre Makovecz. Unlike in L’Aquila, it follows the vernacular tradition in architecture and in an urban setting. Building the village of Antoneşti in the settlement Corbeni not far from the highest mountains of Romania an architect of the style of Functionalism, trained in Italy, designed peasant houses. In both cases of traditional architecture the new architecture will be put in context as well. Common to all projects is that the building times were short, in about half a year the inhabitants were able to occupy the new houses. In L’Aquila prefabrication was used for this purpose. Timber was employed in all cases often along with reinforced concrete. All developments will be judged from a point of view in which a disaster is a force flattening a city, and the reconstruction produces a new striation, if we were to follow the philosophy of Deleuze as a research method of “the flat and the striated space”. This again will be put in connection with historic examples of restructuring a city after a disaster, investigating when striation followed the old pattern and when not. Another research method from the philosophy employed here will be deconstruction of the term “modern” and “tradition”. The article features images taken during the site visits at the analysed settings one year after the disasters for the recent ones, archive images and contemporary views for the historic one as well as 3D modeling approaches, along with images of the comparison objects.