Resumen de The art-hotel Atelier on the sea in the Fiumara art park: A case of transformation from the inside out
The development of seaside tourism and building expansion have deprived most of the Sicilian coasts offree and accessible spaces, as well as altered the natural skyline such as the dune landscape and cliffs.Natural areas are a minority, the majority is occupied by infrastructures such as beaches, homes and industriesand the rest are made up of what is defined as “scattered urban”, that is, occupied in a partial anddiscontinuous way by artificial constructions. The transformations of the territory in the last thirty years haveundoubtedly changed the surroundings of Castel di Tusa, but the phenomenon that I wanted to highlighthere is the so-called soft effect of what we can define as low-impact cultural tourism linked to the presenceand the induced created by the Art-Hotel Atelier on the Sea. The hotel, built in 1969 on the wave of touristenthusiasm that saw the proliferation of accommodation facilities throughout Sicily, remained an isolatedand rarely visited structure for a long time. The rugged coastline, devoid of bathing establishments, hasmaintained its natural and wild character over the years. This very harsh character has distanced the socalledmass or family tourism. This characteristic has been maintained and amplified by the mission of theart-hotel inaugurated in 1991. The paper illustrates the transformations of the Kawarib Hotel, built in 1969 bythe architect Vincenzo Cancila. The building has been transformed into an art hotel and is one of the worksof the Fiumara Art Park. The impact of this architecture on the entire coast and its surroundings is remarkable.From an out-of-scale element it has become a symbol recognizable throughout the world. The buildinghas also been studied as part of a degree thesis of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Palermo. The difficulty of regulatory compliance has prompted Presti to close the Atelier. Although it’s included inthe cataloging of the Census of Contemporary Art carried out by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, there isin fact no provision that limits or prevents the transformations of the building. The Atelier with its heritageof works of art will therefore be transferred to another structure on the seafront of Margi Milo (Reitano),near the work by Tano Festa Monument for a Dead Poet (Window on the Sea). This new building will alsobe the headquarters of the Triennial of Contemporary Art organized by the Antonio Presti Foundation. Thework that is taking shape today at the Atelier on the Sea is very delicate and, in some ways, experimental.It involves drafting the rules for the relocation of the artist’s spaces, trying to maximize the conservation ofthe original materials, documenting the substitutions and transformations through the work file (PACTA).
