L'archeologia come infrastruttura del paesaggio dei Campi Flegrei

The Phlegrean Fields are configured as a very particular habitat that is possible to define as “Landscapes of ruin and ruined landscapes”. Landscapes of ruin because, in Phlegrean Fields, the dislocation of archaeological remains and traces of ancient settlements is absolutely original and is directly connected to the peculiarities of morphology, of volcanic formations that characterize the area. Ruined landscapes because several conflicting interventions of poor quality were made and they have contributed to characters changes in extended areas. In this framework to correlate archaeology and urban project into a unitary strategy has been the fundamental starting point of the research. Grasp the evident and hidden traces of the ancient means deepening at the same time the stratigraphic conditions, investigating the game of artifacts that have overlapped in time in a place, but also the topographic continuities to discover unseen relationships. In Phlegrean Fields, because of the particularities of urban and territorial configuration, this duality manifests itself in an original way, through overlapping and intertwining to be investigated case by case, within the urban landscapes and different territories. In this perspective archaeological remains have been considered as an “infrastructure” of the landscape, able to hold together different aspects which, from the specific nature of the archaeological layers, can be a core element of a strategy for Phlegrean Fields, assuming the variability of the archaeological situation in the contemporary territory, as a variable of design to be deepened and constantly point out. The archaeology interpretation as a synthesis of architectural body has an urban response: the plot of the material remains of ancient settlements can be a synthesis of the current ones, the synthesis of the urban body. Definitely, Phlegrean Fields can be read as a park not only naturalistic, but as a cultural park, whose contents are related to the complexity and to the articulation of different origin elements that constitute it. It is not simply to create an itinerary between emerging places, but to build an articulated and varied unity, that does not rule out the places of contemporary fragmentation but welcomes them as materials to be put into play in the park’s construction. The underlying design, and evident only in some points, of this park, can be defined of the widespread “archaeology”: a park that requires an overview, which is based on the Phlegrean specificity, reinterpreting and updating it. From these considerations and on the basis of overlay maps preparation of archaeological remains to contemporary settlements, it has been developed the more consistent and specific part of research, investigating cases of Cuma and Puteoli and in Puteoli, in particular the Rione Terra and the complex urban hinterland, which characterized the ancient city.