On Preservation: Reinventing the Cave: Competing Images, Interpretations, and Representations of Matera, Italy

Matera, Italy, is currently the subject of a municipal tug-of-war over image and significance. Infamy resulting from poor living conditions in its extensive cave dwellings led to the expansion and recasting of the city in the 1950s as a modernist utopia. This was followed by decades during which these areas, known as the Sassi, were allowed to deteriorate. Today, renewed interest in the historic city and an internationally visible preservation program are allowing Matera to pursue a program of tourist redevelopment as a cave city. However, tension is emerging among residents on how and what to preserve, and even whether or not to preserve. The present conflict has taken form according to a rhetoric of tradition versus modernity, but both arguments and results represent modern interpretations of the past influenced by outside perceptions. The southern Italian region of Basilicata is home to numerous treasures that stand witness to millennia of political and cultural change. Here can be found, for example, Greek temples and theaters, Roman, Norman and Islamic towers and towns, a Jewish diaspora cemetery, and stupendous Byzantine and Romanesque churches. The only site currently singled out for UNESCO World Heritage Monument designation, however, is the historic sectors of the city of Matera: a concentration of thousands of grotto structures called the Sassi (figs.1 , 2). This recent honor has brought Matera, which had been forgotten by the world for half a century, both national and international fame. Matera's old quarters are composed of a breathtaking, Piranesi-esque, vertical labyrinth of part-cave, part-constructed homes carved from the soft tufo limestone of a steep ravine (fig.3). These extraordinary dwelling formations, infused with human creativity , are an architect's paradise. But what is equally compelling, and what is key to Anne Toxey is a doctoral candidate in architectural history at the University of California, Berkeley. She directs the Arc Boutant Historic Preservation Program in Matera and Paris.