Architectural Languages and Visual Communication During Years of Italian Economic Reconstruction. The Case of the Fiera del Mediterraneo in Palermo

Retracing the history of the Fiera del Mediterraneo in Palermo through images of its pavilions and equipment, means retracing the evolution of our society over the last seventy-five years. A story of development and growth that sometimes accompanies and sometimes precedes contemporary themes. In this context, some of the architecture built in the 1950s will be analyzed, buildings of great expressive power, in the rapidly expanding exhibition center in those years. This development phase of the Fiera del Mediterraneo clearly marks the encounter between different architectural cultures and traditions, a meeting which identifies the founding vocation of the fair itself, reaching out to the center of a Mediterranean spirit, which is not only geographical, but also cultural, economic and political. The projects were studied, and taken from the documents found in the extensive photographic documentation, found in the catalogs and in what remains of the Ente Fiera archive. In many cases these pavilions have now been heavily altered, tampered with or destroyed and replaced by anonymous sheds. An accurate graphic documentation created in digital and printed in 3D will be shown, supported by research of the artistic apparatuses and advertising billboards of the time, with references to contemporary cultural and exhibition movements in Italy and Europe. The desire to know, discover and understand architecture passes through the drawing which in this case is used for documentation, for surveying and for comparison with the original projects, to carry out a critical analysis on the morpho-typological aspects and on geometric-figurative proportions.