The suburb will save beauty. From unvolumetric architecture to undervolumetric architecture

The idea of perfection and circularity contained in the etymology of the word periferia (suburb) is the foundation of the latest trends in the field of urban regeneration: where the role of positive energy reservoir capable of rising up to new aesthetic values is conferred upon the suburb. It is in the will to recognise the seed of beauty hidden in the newer parts of the building and amplify the not only symbolic charge, but also social and economic one, which has its roots in the Project for beauty that the entrepreneur Brunello Cucinelli is implementing in Umbria at the foot of the village of Solomeo, where “he has enacted a fantasy of beneficent feudalism” (so as noted by The New Yorker). The idea is as simple as it is effective: an area of about 11 hectares, compromised from a landscape point of view because occupied by six major industrial warehouses of a mediocre nature (for a total of 240,000 cubic metres), was purchased by the “Brunello and Federica Cucinelli Foundation” in order to restore to the territory its identity by demolishing the industrial buildings that have fallen into disuse and will leave space for a system of three urban parks aimed at restoring a green belt suited to clearly mark the insurmountable barrier between the city (where one can build on existing buildings) and countryside (where a natural landscape can be reconstructed). This article aims to investigate the case study of Solomeo, putting this business operation in the context of theories on urban regeneration with zero volume by recognising the utility of demolition/reconstruction work: an urban regeneration strategy condemned by negative judgments with which historical criticism, perhaps too hastily, censured the interventions of rarefaction building perpetrated during the Fascist period.