Building culture
Abstract
The landscape of South Tyrol is characterized by a Baukultur, a building culture of its own, a concept which refers to a recognizable common heritage, capable of having a conscious or unconscious influence on architectural shapes and ideas. Materials, colours, morphology, climate and seasonal changes of this territory are all part of a common legacy and determine human work in a given context. This is a condition meant to last in time, a series of interventions nowadays defined as tradition which strongly unite human work, history and land in a single entity. These expressions constitute a South Tyrolean language, always alive in time yet continuously transforming: authentic expressions from the past are enriched with contemporary interventions. Architecture too is at the same time connected to its past and in evolution. In this sense, it is fair to say that building means to assimilate the history of a certain context to project it towards the future; it means to work with past, present and future to grasp and reveal the identity of the place.
