The town - Gibellina
A new town...
On January 15th 1968, a violent earthquake struck the Belice area. Gibellina, rural centre of medieval origin, was completely destroyed. The only thing to do was to rebuild everything. Long-lasting and hard years passed by but, after all, few kilometres from the past, they began to plan the future.
Gibellina is a very particular place: a museum under the open sky, the only example of environmental art, a space where architects, sculptors and painters tested an outpost of “modern” by which to give life and fit to lost hopes again. And that is how it rose the big Star, created by Pietro Consagra, symbol of good wishes and rebirth: already visible from a long distance, it acts as a gate of a new town. This rose according to the scheme of a garden city, made of big streets and wide spaces, with an elliptic and centrifugal plan.
Inside, strewn rather everywhere, there are example of modern art and architecture: the Sistema delle Piazze (The Squares System) by Thermes and Purini, the Giardino Segreto (The Secret Garden) by Venezia, The Meeting by Consagra, the Chiesa Sferica (Spherical Church) by Quaroni, the Contrappunto (the Counterpoint) and the Sequenze (the Sequences) by Melotti, the Labirinto (the Labyrinth) by Franchina, the Sacrario ai Caduti (the War Memorial) by Uncini, the Scultura (the Sculpture) by Rotella, and many more.
The most famous of all is the gigantic Cretto planned by Alberto Burri: to make the time not obliterate the memory of what happened, a white cement flow, its splits corresponding to the lay-out of the streets of old Gibellina, immortalized the past.
The plan, quite interesting, yet suffered the little esteem on population culture and habits, running the risk of changing Gibellina into a surrealistic atmosphere town. Where it was possible, they tried to regenerate the old buildings. In this way they acted about the Case di Stefano (Stephen’s Houses), an ancient farm restored by Marcella Aprile, Collovà and La Rocca. Inside the town museum are collected paintings presented by famous artists as Schifano, Capogrossi, Sanfilippo, Scialoja, Corpora, Pomodoro and many others, creating an important collection of contemporary art.
The Orestiadi - Every year, the Teatro dei Ruderi (the Theatre of Ruins) gives hospitality to a series of theatrical, musical, opera, prose performances, musical and visual tests, symbolizing the attempt of renewal of the town.
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