Démolition controversée, entre revendication et droit d’auteur

Abstract

The discourse on demolition is generally characterized by emotional tones and conflicts. This is particularly evident in the debate on social housing districts. A debate that is particularly influenced by stigmatizing images and on which symbolic investments are particularly high, both for residents and for public institutions. In the case of a « signed » architecture, the controversy may be even more intense, because the conflict between different values is explicit. On one side, the values of comfort and habitability, supported mainly by the inhabitants. On the other side, the cultural value that recognizes an artefact as a collective heritage, supported above all by intellectual elites. This is what emerges from the case examined: a demolition hypothesis concerning a housing complex built in Bollate, near Milan, by the architect Guido Canella between 1974 and 1980. The architect’s mobilization, which replaces the lack of collective recognition with the claim of a “copyright”, is an interesting specificity of this story.

Keywords

• Social Housing
• Urban Project
• Demolition
• Conservation Of Modern Architecture
• Copyright