Norcia, multipurpose center seized and its author, architect Stefano Boeri, investigated

The Norcia Multipurpose Center, the structure built after the earthquake that struck central Italy in 2016, has been placed under seizure.The building, which opened last June, was built thanks to funds raised by Tg La7 and Corriere della Sera as part of the Un aiuto subito campaign. The center, which has an area of 450 square meters, has become the headquarters of the new Municipal Operations Center but also has spaces for associations in the area, as well as rooms for various initiatives. The seizure was ordered by the judge for preliminary investigations in Spoleto at the request of the prosecutor’s office. The charges brought against the construction: the fact that the Multipurpose Center insists on an area subject to landscape protection without having obtained the necessary permission of the Superintendence, and the permanent nature of the structure, in derogation of the regulations for the management of the emergency that provides for the construction of temporary structures. As part of the investigation, notices of guarantee were also served on the mayor of Norcia, Nicola Alemanno, and architect Stefano Boeri, who designed the building, lending his services free of charge.

Obviously to no avail was the fact that the center was considered by the inhabitants of Norcia a symbol of the city’s rebirth and the fact that it immediately stood as an indispensable structure for the citizens, who immediately found there a safe point of reference, a place of aggregation. In essence, the judge equates the construction of the Center to a building abuse: the order issued by the gip reads that the work “was referred to as a ’permanent multipurpose wooden structure for social use,’ contrary to the legal discipline of the administrative procedure followed, the application of which is limited to temporary works,” and that “the building abuse committed is bound to have a negative impact on the various environmental matrices and an impact on an area subject to special protection.”

Architect Boeri, reached by Corriere della Sera, spoke of a “misunderstanding,” since the building is made entirely of wood and can therefore be disassembled piece by piece: from a technical point of view it would therefore be a temporary work. “It is a structure made entirely of prefabricated wooden panels,” said Stefano Boeri, “assembled with bolts and drywall screws. Even the window frames and fixtures were made with special technical arrangements to be removable. It is all demountable and self-propelled.” Prosecutors also challenged the concrete base. Boeri’s retort: “You have to be serious here. That is an area where there was a devastating earthquake. The municipality asked us for a safe structure where people who were left sleeping outside during the earthquake without knowing where to go could find shelter. We, to be careful, made a much lighter base. With concrete curbs and beams, and an aerated crawl space that is easily removed. But if it doesn’t go well, I wonder: will they also seize all the cottages (emergency housing solutions) with concrete slab?” As for the fact that the building insists on an area under protection, Boeri responds by stating that the area on which the Multipurpose Center stands was identified by the municipality following an ordinance of the mayor consistent with the Civil Protection orders, and that the constructionprocess was followed by the archaeologist of the Superintendence.

The Spoleto prosecutor’s office was thus challenged (on the 8 p.m. edition of La7 news yesterday, director Enrico Mentana used very harsh words: “it is a shame that we have to say that if, as we imagine, all this will end in nothing, it will be us who will have to resort to the judiciary to have to see, in some way, morally compensated for the harmfulness of this situation, the reputational damage that all of us and all of you, by giving money to build this structure, are suffering from this improvised initiative of the Spoleto investigating magistracy”). However, the prosecutor, Alessandro Cannavale, sent a statement in recent hours to defend his actions. “Identifying in the magistrates of the Spoleto prosecutor’s office the scapegoat to be pointed at the inhabitants of Norcia as a target for resentments and fears,” the note reads, “is unjustified, even disregarding the final assessment of the merits of the accusation, which will be up to the judge.” Going into the merits of the measure, it states that “neither in the aftermath of the seismic events of 2016 nor in the aftermath of previous earthquakes, the emergency legislation has never even remotely assumed that mayors, civil defense or other authorities were allowed to authorize new constructions by derogating in a general and unconditional way from the ordinary urban planning rules. The seizure of the structure cannot cause prejudice or delay to the work of reconstruction, nor to the assistance to populations in case of future earthquakes.”

Pictured: the Norcia Multipurpose Center. Copyright Stefano Boeri Architects

Norcia, multipurpose center seized and its author, architect Stefano Boeri, investigated

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