Works of Art in Gibellina
Giuseppe Scandura
The city of Gibellina Nuova was built from scratch following the earthquake that destroyed most of the municipalities in the Belice valley in 1968. In 1970 the administration led by the mayor Ludovico Corrao chose to accompany the construction of the new Gibellina with an ambitious urban design project that would transform it into the largest open-air museum in Italy: internationally renowned artists and architects were invited to reformulate the appearance of the new earthquake-resistant city through the production of over fifty works of art, sculptures and installations to be placed throughout the fabric urban.
The works welcome the visitor as soon as he enters the city, where the Star of the entrance to the Belice made by Pietro Consagra in 1981, now considered the symbol of the territory, is located. The heart of the city is the Piazza del Municipio, a building designed by Alberto and Giuseppe Samonà and Vittorio Gregotti decorated with ceramic panels by Carla Accardi, the Civic Tower, in concrete and iron, by Alessandro Mendini, and numerous scenic machines designed for the Orestiadi by authors such as Arnaldo Pomodoro and Consagra. Great architectural works embellish the city: the System of squares communicating with each other and delimited by a long portico-enclosure by the architect Franco Purini and Laura Thermes; the Palazzo Di Lorenzo by architect Francesco Venezia which encloses in the internal courtyard, as in a casket, the facade of an ancient palace in Gibellina Vecchia and the two secret gardens of the same architect; the Mother Church, a sphere set in a cube designed by Ludovico Quaroni with Luisa Anversa; the sinuous Palazzo Meeting di Consagra.
