Maredolce-La Favara, Palermo

public presentation at Palace of Charles V in the Alhambra, Granada

Friday 9 October 2015, from 19:10-19:10

On Friday 9th October, in collaboration with the Alhambra in Granada, the Palace of Charles will host a public presentation of the 2015 Carlo Scarpa Prize: the event will explore the theme of the Mediterranean landscape, especially its Sicilian expression, which originates in the fertile confluence and coexistence of Arab and Norman civilizations and which continues to be a vital part of the urban context of suburban Palermo. The place to which the Foundation’s Scientific Committee has this year dedicated the XXVI Prize is Maredolce-La Favara in the heart of the district of Brancaccio, a place which conserves the memory and physical evidence of the landscape created jointly as an expression of Arab and Norman culture in the wider context of an area to which history has given the name “Conca d’Oro”.

The public meeting will be opened at 6 pm by Reynaldo Fernández Manzano (Director of the Offices of the Council of the Alhambra and of the Generalife Palace) and will include a presentation of the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, by Marco Tamaro (Director of the Fondazione Benetton) while Luigi Latini, the Chairman of the Foundation’s Scientific Committee, will talk of the twenty-six annual awards of the International Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens (1990-2015); a lecture entitled La Favara e il paesaggio arabo normanno in Sicilia (La Favara and the Arab-Norman landscape in Sicily), will be given by Giuseppe Barbera (University of Palermo and member of the Foundation’s Scientific Committee); this will be followed by Archeologia e interventi di restauro a Maredolce-La Favara (Archaeology and restoration activities in Maredolce-La Favara), by Stefano Vassallo (Superintendency for the Cultural and Environmental Heritage of Palermo and member of the working group presented with 2015 Carlo Scarpa Prize).

The meeting will finish with a round table Paesaggio, cultura, acqua: La Favara e l’Alhambra (Landscape, culure, water: La Favara and the Alhambra) bringing together various experts and representatives of the Spanish and Italian cultural institutions involved.

The programme will also include a presentation of the dossier Maredolce-La Favara, edited by Giuseppe Barbera, Patrizia Boschiero and Luigi Latini (published in Italian and English editions by the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, Treviso 2015; distributed by Antiga/Terra Ferma Edizioni) and of the documentary film of the same name, directed by Davide Gambino and produced in the framework of the awareness-raising campaign associated with the Prize.

After the events organized in Treviso (8th and 9th May), Paris (18th September, in collaboration with the Institut du Monde Arabe) and Granada, the campaign will continue in Palermo of Friday 6th and Saturday 7th November (with Palermo University, the Superintendency for the Cultural and Environmental Heritage of Palermo and various schools and associations of the city).