Il significato dei luoghi: la colonia alpina Dalmine come caso di studio

Built between 1931 and 1933 on the design by architect Giovanni Greppi, the Colonia Alpina Dalmine is located in a dominant position on a hill above Castione. The imposing building marks the highest point of the Clusone plateau landscape and its boundary towards the Presolana pass and the Val di Scalve. This location and the monumentality of its form give – despite its state of abandonment and decay – an immediate representation not only of the specific value of the Colonia as an artefact, but also of its complex significance as a place with a strong iconic value for its territory. Two main aspects determine the particular significance of the Colonia Alpina: the first concerns the precise relationship between architectural form and landscape form, in which an idea of landscape as a constructed form is expressed, as a composition of natural and artificial elements that together define a space with a clear cultural identity. The second derives from the fact that the Colonia Alpina, as a collective housing project, represents a place that paradigmatically reflects the metropolitan culture of the 20th century, introducing a place with an essentially urban character into the rural context of the plateau.