the liquid museaum by baravalle biscottini, 2013

The identity of the Mediterranean Sea could be defined as multiple

and diverse, with the coexistence of different landscapes, environ-

ments, people, cultures, and religions. This richness is what charac-

terizes the cultural heritage of the Mediterranean Sea. Its geography

conformation, with different civilizations facing its coasts, has

determined various fluxes and exchanges all along. This network and

contamination of histories and cultures allows to consider the

Mediterranean Sea not as a boundary or a barrier, but as a location

of meetings and currents. In this case, the water could be considered

as an element that connects rather then divides, considering the sea

as a liquid archive (Chambers, 2007).The aim of our design proposal is to represent this kind of contami-

nation between cultures and to express the open and multiple nature

of Mediterranean Sea, telling the stories of people and the cultural

influences between East and West, North and South. All these stories

will be the collection of a museum that has to represents the liquidity and multiplicity of the Mediterranean Sea, also with its

configuration.

The liquid museum is a mobile structure that reflects its open and porous nature, travelling in the sea and docking to the Mediterranean

coasts. It consists in a ship with platforms floating in the Mediterra-

nean Sea and bringing stories of art, music, food, literature and

architecture as vehicle for the representation of Mediterranean

hybridization. In particular we choose an oil tanker, symbol of this

world of exchanges and meetings, of trade and commerce.

The LIQUID MUSEAUM, as we called this ship, will travel on the sea

becoming an archive and a centre of research during the navigation,

and a site for performance and market when is docked. The tanker

and platforms would become site for workshops, events, concerts and

performances allowing new hybridizations.

The liquid museum would be an open system that stimulates that dialogue and hybridization between cultures. The idea to navigate around the Mediterranean Sea, touching its landsides, is a way to

represent its history of hybridization and make it know.

LIQUID MUSEAUMHYBRIDIZATION THROUGH THE MEDITERRANEAN COASTS

chiara baravalle giuseppe biscottini

HYBR

IDIZATIO

N TH

ROUGH TH

E MEDITER

RAN

EAN COASTS

LIQUID M

USEA

UM

Politecnico di MilanoFacolt di Architettura e SocietCorso di Laurea Magistrale in ArchitetturaAnno Accademico 2011-2012

LIQUID MUSEAUM

Hybridization through the Mediterranean coastsTUGH

CHIARA BARAVALLE _ GIUSEPPE BISCOTTINI

RELATORE _ GENNARO POSTIGLIONE

Il lavoro di ricerca e il conseguente progetto deriva da uno studio sviluppato allinterno del Corso Integrato di Adaptive Re-Use del prof Gennaro Postiglione le cui ricerche si focaliz-zano prevalentemente su riuso e recupero di patrimoni minori e sul rapporto tra memoria col-lettiva e identit culturale intese come azioni dif-fuse di museografia e allestimento del territorio. Lobiettivo mettere le risorse dellarchitettura al servizio dellinteresse pubblico attraverso un processo di progettazione che interpreta la dis-ciplina degli Interni come un sistema in grado di sviluppare strategie di riattivazioni sostenibili facendo cooperare tra loro persone, ambienti e oggetti.

Metodologicamente, ogni lavoro di tesi prende dunque le mosse dalla identificazione di un questione emergente o latente della nostra quotidianit, indagandone il valore strategico e le motivazioni che la rendono un tema merito-rio di attenzione progettuale. Si prosegue con lindividuazione degli obiettivi prioritari da perse-guire e la stesura di un metaprogetto e un pro-gramma funzionale da soddisfare. Da questo background nascono le risposte progettuali che si riferiscono a specifici contesti di lavoro.

I lavori sono raccolti nel data base della Ricerca Azione sviluppata con le tesi: http://www.lablog.org.uk/category/diploma-works/

Lattivit di Ricerca Azione connessa alla di-dattica trova riscontro anche nelle ricerche in corso: REcall-European Conflict Archaeological Landscape Reappropriation - possibili museo-grafie per le eredit dei conflitti del Novecento in Europa (www.recall-project.polimi.it); MeLa-European Museums in an Age of Migrations leuropeizzazione dellEuropa e libridazione delle culture come agenda necessaria nella ridefinizione del Museum complex (www.mela-project.eu); Re-Cycling Italy (sul recupero il riuso e riciclo del patrimonio inutilizzato italiano).

CONTENTS

ABSTRACT | 8

1 MEDITERRANEAN SEA | 12 history, geography, identity

2 THE STRAIT | 50 definition and interpretation experiences of straits Gibraltar, Bosphorus, Suez, Canal of Sicily NARRATIVE MAPS reflections and considerations

3 MED CULTURE | 134 melting pot, fields of hybridization LIQUID ARCHIVE

4 REFLECTIONS | 158 mediterranean sea postcolonial museum proposal 5 CASE STUDIES | 176 mediterranean research centers and museums

6 PROGRAM + VISIONS | 194 liquid museum VISIONARY COLLAGES

7 DESIGN PROPOSAL | 246 a tanker through med sea

BIBLIOGRAPHY | 298

8The Mediterranean Sea is not only situated

between continents, but also acts as a his-

torical and contemporary centre and border

zone. The social, economic and political dy-

namics of this zone are complex. In the last

century the Mediterranean has been sepa-

rated through politics, religions, fear of clash

of cultures etc. Unified by climate and the his-

tory of civilization, the Mediterranean region

has the potential to be seen as a geographic

unit, but at the same time with different reali-

ties together, as a sea that speaks with many

voices, as a mosaic of all the existing co-

lours (Braudel, 1953).

Since in the past its main role was deal-

ing with commerce, trades and passages,

we started to analyze the strait as the geo-

graphical area that represents this network in/

through the sea, in order to understand better

its role in the history as passage and place of

exchanges. In the image of the strait both the

two dimensions are present, the longitudinal

one, that connects two seas, and the trans-

versal passage coast to coast and for its own

potentiality it reminds to the image of fluxes of

people, goods, ships, cargos but also of cul-

tural, religious and ethnic hybridization.

This network and contamination of histories

ABSTRACT

9and cultures, that characterize this particular

area between Europe Asia and Africa dividing

Orient and Occident, allows to consider the

Mediterranean Sea not as a boundary or a

barrier between north and south, or east and

west, but as a location of meetings and cur-

rents. In this case, the water could be consid-

ered as an element that connects rather then

divides, according to the description of this

sea made by Iain Chambers.

Following his theory that considers the sea

as a liquid archive (Chambers, 2007), all the

arts such as music, food, art, poetry, literature,

architecture with their histories of contamina-

tion and hybridization, are able to express this

particular characteristic of the Mediterranean

Sea, as if they were suspended in a mutable

and dynamic ecosystem.

The aim of our design proposal is to represent

this kind of contamination between cultures

and to express the open and multiple nature

of Mediterranean Sea, telling the stories of

the people who have inhabited its land sides

and the influences between different cultures,

from India to Egypt, from China to Italy, from

Bisanzio to Venice, from the Arabian world to

the occidental Spain. All these stories will be

the collection of a museum that has to repre-

sents the liquidity and multiplicity of the Medi-

terranean Sea, also with its configuration.

In the era of a liquid modernity where the

difference between far and near has lost

its importance (Bauman, 2002) and the in-

stantaneity and quickly connections has re-

duced the distances, the final configuration

of the design proposal could be a liquid mu-

seum, a mobile structure that travels in the

sea and docks to the Mediterranean coasts,

in particular we choose an oil tanker, symbol

of this world of exchanges and meetings, of

trade and commerce. The Liquid Museaum,

as we called this ship, will travel on the sea

becoming an archive and a centre of research

during the navigation, and a site for perfor-

mance when is docked. This continuously

contact between the archive and the main-

land, between different sites, will allow new

kind of hybridizations, that will become part of

the archive enriching it.

The visitor will travel through the exposition

of these stories as in the unknown island

of Jos Saramago, bringing with himself

the willingness to discover the other story

of the Mediterranean Sea because this liq-

11

uid museum would be an open system that

stimulates that dialogue and hybridization

between cultures, that has always been the

principal characteristic of that sea. The idea

to be a liquid museum, with the intention

to navigate around the Mediterranean Sea,

touching its landsides, is a way to represent

its history of hybridization and make it know.

Reference list:Matvejevic P., Breviario Mediterraneo, Garzanti, Milano, 1991

Braudel F., Il mediterraneo, Lo spazio la storia gli uomini le tradizioni, Bompiani, Saggi tascabili, 1994.

Braudel F., Civilt e imperi del mediterraneo nellet di Filippo II, tr. It. Einaudi, Torino, 1953.

Chambers I., Paesaggi Migratori. Cultura e identit nelle-poca postcoloniale, Costa&Nolan, Genova 1996.

Bauman Z., Modernit liquida, Editori Laterza, 2002.

Chambers I., Le molte voci del Mediterraneo, Cortina Editore, Milano 2007.

Saramago J., Il racconto dellisola sconosciuta, Einaudi, 13 ed. 2012.

1. MEDITERRANEAN SEA

what is the Mediterranean sea?

16

Its an area that is identified with three cultural

communities, three civilizations of great vital-

ity and extension, with three special ways of

thinking, believing, eating, drinking, living ...

Three characters with an endless fate, pres-

ent from centuries and centuries. These are

the Western civilization, which can also be

identified with Christianity or Roman: Rome

has long been the centre of the world, the

capital of an empire extended to the ocean

and to the North Sea, to the Rhine and the

Danube.

The second world is Islam that, from Ma-

rocco, arrive over the Indian Ocean. The third

civilization is Greek Orthodox, which includes

at least all the current Balkan Peninsula, Ro-

mania, Bulgaria, almost all of Yugoslavia and

Greece itself, full of memories where it reap-

pears the ancient Hellas.

To understand the true nature of the Mediter-

ranean is necessary to look to these three

Il mare Interno senza dubbio carico di ricor-

si storici, di telestorie, di luci che gli vengono

da mondi in apparenza defunti e che tuttavia

vivono ancora 1

BRAUDEL, 2010.

HISTORY

17

great civilizations; to their misunderstanding,

contempt and execration of others, but also

sacrifice, irradiation, accumulation of cultural

and heritage intelligence.

Se alle civilt delle sue sponde il mare ha

dovuto le guerre che lo hanno sconvolto,

stato loro debitore anche della molteplicit

degli scambi (tecniche, idee, credenze), non-

ch della variopinta eterogeneit di spettacoli

che oggi offre ai nostri occhi 2.

In the Mediterranean history has played a

key role the economy, without it the countries

would have been helpless bodies and it is

only through the economy that civilizations re-

main and flourish. The most valuable assets

coming from the sea, which is the center of

transportation, and only those who can mas-

ter it, can be considered the master of wealth.

Throughout history the sea has seen sev-

eral owners, people who, thanks to the skill

in shipbuilding and thanks to a good dose of

courage, could reach distant destinations sail-

ing against storms and bad weather.

The innovation is the introduction of capital-

ism that, through colonialism, extends his do-

minion over the Mediterranean; France, Great

Britain, and then Italy control the soil, subsoil,

finance and commerce. With capitalism the

Mediterranean enters in the world economy,

arise new city next to the ancient cities, or-

ganized with new architectures, new zoning,

and new ways of living.

The traffic in the Mediterranean knows a great

impulse that will not slow down over and feed

the first port cities 3.

Il mediterraneo continua a vivere sotto i nos-

tri occhi, a combattere le proprie guerre, ad

industrializzarsi e a migliorare il proprio livello

di vita, cercando di liberarsi dagli ultimi stras-

cichi di un colonialismo finalmente espulso.

Nel Sud laltro Mediterraneo, dal Marocco alla

Turchia e allIraq, si sforza di riguadagnare il

tempo perduto, che anchesso, si accumula4.

18

DIFFERENT SEAS

According to the Belgian historian Henri Pi-

renne, the end of the ancient civilization has

not occurred at the time of the barbarian in-

vasions of the fourth and fifth centuries, but

at the time of the Islamic conquests in the

seventh and eighth centuries. Then began a

laceration that will extend to the present day.

The Arab conquest of the Mediterranean in

the seventh century, transformed the Roman

lake into a Muslim lake and caused a crisis of

trade, the disappearance of the city and the

presence of an entirely agricultural economy.

(Pirenne, 2007)

This is the time of fracture between East and

West, Rome and Byzantium, fractures be-

tween the Mediterranean Christian-Byzantine

world and Muslim world.

The Byzantine Mediterranean

The Byzantine Empire, the pars orientis of the

Roman Empire, was spread over three con-

tinents.

Byzantium considered the Mediterranean, as

did the Romans, an inland sea that was sup-

posed to control a vast empire.

CHRISTIANITY

ORTHODOXY

ISLAM

19

however, was irradiated in the Mediterranean.

The Latin Mediterranean

The Latin area, around the XI century, in rela-

tion to the degree of civilization attained by

both the Islamic world and the Byzantine,

appears not so evolved. He had, however,

a period of political expansion and progres-

sive economic growth that allowed the area

doubling. The awakening of the West also in-

volves the religious sphere so that the Church

of Rome stands at the head of a general re-

form of Latin Christianity (Gregorian reform).

From a political point of view the Latin area

presents extremely fluid borders and organi-

zation.

Constantinople was the center of cultural

production and the most important in the

Mediterranean but just when it seemed at the

height of his greatness, there appeared the

signs of a rapid decline for several reasons:

the process of feudalization and the subse-

quent disintegration of the political and social

structures.

The eleventh century is the century of the

Eastern Schism (1054), and the rivalry be-

tween the two religions, Christian and Muslim

caused an irreparable rift between the Latin

and the Byzantine world.

The Islamic Mediterranean

The Islamic World did not represent a unitary

space; around the twelfth century it was divid-

ed into three large areas: the first was Persia,

which was the one that gravitate less around

the Mediterranean. The second region was

formed by Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Sicily,

and his heart was in Cairo. The third region

was that of the Maghreb and Muslim Spain,

and in this area there were more important

centres such as Cordoba, Fez and Tunis, all

centres that allow you to control the passage

of ships on the Mediterranean Sea.

Through Spain and Sicily, the Arab culture,

21

V, the greatest enemy of Christianity, the Ot-

toman Empire; the Western military campaign

had shown that the two powers, the Spanish

and Ottoman, were equal and how difficult it

was undermine the supremacy of the Turks in

the east and of the Spanish in the west.

Because of the commitment of different na-

val fronts of Spain, Philip II adopted as naval

strategy the goal of the preservation of the

fleet, so as not to be outnumbered.

In the battle of Lepanto (October 7, 1571), the

Christian fleet, consists of Spanish and Vene-

tian, destroys the Turkish fleet. The battle was

one of the bloodiest in the naval history.

The Christian victory should be considered a

victory more symbolic than real, but it had a

huge resonance in the Catholic world.

After the battle, the league fell apart and holy

Venice and Spain stipulated two different

treaties of peace with the turkish enemy.

Spain, at the end of the Reign of Philip II, re-

gress from being a great strength in Europe to

a marginal, backward, isolated country.

THE MEDITERRANEAN

IN THE AGE OF PHILIP II

After the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, Charles

V decided to divide his dominions between his

brother Ferdinand and his son Philip. Philip II,

during his reign, created a highly centralized

monarchy and he, the prudent king, embod-

ied the figure of the Christian prince, defender

of the Catholic religion. Through the Spanish

Inquisition that was founded in 1478, the king

exercised a control action on religion, politics

and culture.

The events related to the reign of Philip II can

be summarized in three steps:

. 1559 - 1565 Philip II is devoted more to solve

problems within the peninsula

. 1565 - 1580 the Turkish threat become more

dangerous and, in this period, there is the

resolution of the conflict with the Netherlands

. 1580 - 1598 Philip II has different plans for

expansion, but the defeat of the Invincible Ar-

mada in 1588 and the coming to the throne

of France Henry of Bourbon in 1594, decreed

the arrest of the expansionist ambitions in

Europe.

Philip II had to face, as did his father Charles

* Battle of Lepantoin Presciuttini P., Coste del mediterraneo nella

cartografia europea 1500-1900, 2004.

22

THE LOSS OF CENTRALITY (1600-

1650)

After the final bankruptcy of Philip II, also

his successor Philip III was forced to declare

bankruptcy of the Spanish crown. The king-

dom, in recent years, was going through a

period of inactivity and passive national con-

cern.

According to contemporaries view the causes

of the decline of the country have to be ex-

plained by the cultural and religious history

of Hapsburg Spain; for others, to determine

the end of an era, were the defeats suffered

due to French and the armed insurrections

against Spanish domination. To this was add-

ed the weakness of trade and industry.

The Ottoman Empire

At the end of the sixteenth century also the

Ottoman Empire, like the Habsburg Empire,

passed through a period of decadence, due

to several financial crises that hit the entire

empire.

The military campaigns were in fact become

less profitable than in the past. To find the

necessary financial resources to military ex-

23

Algiers, Sal.Thus began the golden age of

the Barbary pirates that, around 1620, they

possessed about 150 ships and infested with

their raids throughout the Mediterranean.

THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA

IN THE XVIII CENTURY

In 1700 the Mediterranean has again a cen-

tral role, it is in fact crossed and criss-crossed

by a number of ships from both Mediterra-

nean and further afield. Venice, due to the

presence of Russians, Austrians, French and

English in the Adriatic, is in crisis and his equi-

librium is upset. Trieste and Ancona become

free ports and attempt several times to weak

the Serenissima but, despite the crisis, it can

remain the main port of the Adriatic, thanks

to a long period of peace labeled as a period

of decline.

Venice, however, in this period is much more

directed towards the East with whom it has a

strong dependence. The city is imbued with

Orientalist culture, is the intellectual capital

and also has the role of protecting Europe

against Ottoman Turkey.

The Ottoman Empire

The 1700 characterized two aspects of the

peditions, the government resorted to a num-

ber of devices such as the regularization of

extraordinary contributions and the hoarding

of land. This situation is accompanied by a

strong inflation that affected the population in-

exorably making this as a very chaotic period

in history.

Dutch and English

The difficulties that invested the Mediter-

ranean countries at the end of the sixteenth

century had resulted in the appearance of the

Dutch and English ships in the waters of the

inland sea.

Around the middle of the seventeenth cen-

tury, the Dutch, for their Mediterranean trade,

employed regularly around 200 vessels of av-

erage tonnage of 360 tons.

The British, for their part, pushed deeper into

the Mediterranean by setting up the first com-

pany in Russia and in 1581 the Society of the

East, preparing the leadership that led them

to be the first power in the Mediterranean in

700.

So the Norse began to roam the waters of the

Mediterranean as both traders and pirates as

making the Mediterranean unsafe for the local

fleet. They settled in cities like Tripoli, Tunis,

25

THE MEDITERRANEAN IN THE AGE OF

REVOLUTION

In 1796, General Bonaparte undertook the

Italian Campaign with a series of victories

in which he defeated the Austrians and

the Piemontesi giving rise to the Republics

Transpadana and Cispadana and then, once

concluded a peace treaty with Austria, he

unified the two Republics formed together

the Republic Cisalpina. In the same year

the French occupied Venice and the Ionian

Islands, and in the same period also Genoa

fell for the pressure of Bonaparte, and so the

Ligurian city was therefore closely linked to

France.

The Treaty of Campo Formio put an end to

the rivalry with Austria: Austria had to give

Belgium but get Venice.

Napoleon, to threaten the interests of Brit-

ish colonial, decided to take the Campaign

of Egypt who also appeared as the country

that would have given France the keys of the

Asian trade. The French defeated the egyp-

tian military forces in the Battle of the Pyra-

mids but were themselves totally destroyed

by the English fleet in the bay of Aboukir.

Ottoman state: on the one hand, the conflict

with Austria and Russia create instability with-

in the empire also bringing strong devaluation

of peoples, on the other hand it was realized

that reforms were necessary starting from

army and navy.

The Arab provinces began to lean toward

autonomy, both in Syria and Egypt and other

provinces of North Africa.

Despite the attempt of the Grand Vizier to re-

main in peace and prevent further mishaps,

the Ottoman Empire was dragged into more

wars.

Russia in the Mediterranean

Catherine II had ascended the throne with

great ambitions of reform and with a strong

interest in the Mediterranean. The Russians

launched a violent attack against the Turks by

sending a fleet to the Mediterranean with the

aim of raising the Balkan peoples under the

rule turkish. The latter suffered a huge defeat,

which reinforced the idea of the Empress of

Russia striving for an empire from the Baltic to

the Mediterranean, from Greece to the Cas-

pian Sea.

His goal was realized with the annexation of

the Crimea (1783).

* Map of Mediterranean Seain Presciuttini P., Coste del mediterraneo nella cartogra-fia europea 1500-1900, 2004.

26

From the domain on Europe in Waterloo-

in1799, Napoleon became First Consul and

immediately increased personal power and

political and administrative centralization of

the state.

In 1804, Napoleon became Emperor of the

French and taken immediately a very active

policy in Europe and the Mediterranean. The

British tried to damage the French trade not

only in the Mediterranean but also in the Bal-

tic Sea, the Atlantic and the North Sea.

After a series of wins and losses against the

British and the Austro-Russian army, Napo-

leon became king of Italy in 1805 decreeing

the end of the state of the Church and annex-

ing Liguria, Tuscany, Lazio, Umbria, Marche

to the French.

Napoleon suffered a defeat at Leipzig in 1813

in the Battle of the Nations by the coalition

forces of Russia, Prussia and Austria that to-

gether invaded France and forced Napoleon

to abdicate and retire on the island of Elba

in April 1814, while the Congress of Vienna

dismantled the Great Empire.

Fleeing the English surveillance Napoleon

returned to France on March 1, 1815, and in-

augurated the 100 days when had again the

power for a brief moment.

27

The Italian Renaissance

Between 1849 and 1860 in Italy began to

form new liberal and democratic forces that

marked the period of the Italian Risorgimento

that led to independence and then unification

of Italy in the form of progressive expansion

of Piedmont Savoy through successive an-

nexations.

The first step in the process of unification of

In 1859 there began the War of Indepen-

dence, which saw operations under the com-

mand of Napoleon III.

Giuseppe Garibladi started an expedition to

Sicily to liberate and annex the South to the

State of Savoy. He left Quarto and landed to

Marsala with about 1,000 volunteers; Fran-

cesco II of Bourbon could not handle the

difficult situation. Garibaldi in fact taken the

island easily and went up the peninsula and in

Teano gave the territories annexed to Vittorio

Emanuele II.

March 17, 1861 Victor Emmanuel II was

proclaimed King of Italy, and ten years after

Rome became the capital of Italy.

Mediterranean colonialism

The main features of the new colonial system

are: the different geographical axis of colo-

Finally, beaten by the Seventh Coalition at

Waterloo in June 1815, he was deported to

the island of Saint Helena where he died.

NATIONALISM AND MEDITERRANEAN

COLONIALISM IN THE XIX CENTURY

The Mediterranean back to the center of the

world with the construction of the Suez Canal

in 1869

The Suez Canal, the hegemony of England,

gave another meaning even at the Rock of

Gibraltar: passenger ships, merchant ships

and gunboats direct to the Indies, from now

should no longer circumnavigate Africa or

simply stop in Alexandria .

At the expense of these newfound centrality

of the Mediterranean there was the Ottoman

Empire. In 1878 the Congress of Berlin took

place precisely to decide on the distribution

of the fragments of the Ottoman Empire and

on the reorganization of the Balkan question.

This period also saw a major modernization

and Westernization of Islam Arabic for work

and for the contribution of French and Eng-

lish.

28

nization, the different role of the European

powers, and especially the different system

of domination. The new colonization of the

early nineteenth century was directed to Asia

and the Indian Ocean and was driven by the

strong nationalism typical of this era.

WINDS OF WAR

The accident that is recognised as the cause

of the outbreak of the First World War, took

place in June 1914 in Sarajevo where, the

heir to the Habsburg throne, Franz Ferdinand,

was killed with his wife by the hands of a Ser-

bian student, providing a pretext to Austria for

a new interference in the Balkans. The Austria

knew that Germany was on its side and in July

23, 1914 gave an Ultimatum to Serbia alerting

all the Mediterranean powers. The complex

interplay of alliances in the conflict drags all

the European powers in this massive conflict,

where are used military advanced technology

and where vast territory are involved.

The first phase of the conflict was as a theatre

in Western Europe. Italy entered the war in

the spring of 1915 and made the Covenant

secret of London with France, England, Rus-

sia.

29

and of Grain Britain, in Normandia and in

German); the oriental Europe (the aggression

of Hitler in Poland, in the U.R.S.S.) and the

Pacific with the Allies and the Japanese. Eu-

rope was seen as in the middle of the conflict

between the two great blocks powerful, the

Russian and American.

Postcolonial Mediterranean

Since the middle of XX century processes

of decolonization started in the territory of

Mediterranean Sea. For example the de-

In the following years the war moved and in-

volved several countries and the budget at its

end was terrible. In 1919 there was a confer-

ence in Paris for establishing the Peace.

The Second World War

The Mediterranean area was centre of im-

portant operations: in Nord Africa, in Balkans

and in Italy. There were also airsea battle in

Creta, North Africa, Sicily, Greek, Anzio and

Provence. The principal fronts were the oc-

cidental Europe (the aggression of France

* Detail from a Genoese world map in UCLAs

30

colonization of Maghreb, with the long fight

of liberation of Algerian people, but also the

affirmation of neo-colonial project in Morocco

and Tunisia (Marconi, 2003).

Iain Chambers study on the postcolonial

Mediterranean (2008) suggests a new way to

rethink European, Arab, Middle Eastern and

North African identities as intertwined, inviting

us to see and think the world differently.

If we think to the Mediterranean in terms of

postcolonial region, we found a polarization of

identities and differences, that is the result of

the colonization. In fact in the logic of coloni-

zation, it requires a clear distinction between

settler and colonized, between subject and

object. The geographical boundaries, to-

gether with the historical ones, have to be

clear: here is the distinction built, according to

colonial logic, between Europe and regions of

the southern Mediterranean. Looking instead

from a postcolonial point of view, the bound-

aries are not anymore so clear: we discover

that the obligation to belong to one side or the

other of the sea dissolves; it can be more than

one thing at the same time, you can have mul-

tiple memberships, coexisting different roots,

many voices living together.

Also the boundaries are mixed. With this ap-

31

proach it could be possible to express the

complexity of humans identities, pressed by

the logic of colonization 5.

1 See Braudel F., Il Mediterraneo, Ed. Tascabili Bompiani, Milano 2010 pg 105

2 Ibidem pg 112

3 Vedi A. Nouschi, Il Mediterraneo Contemporaneo, Ed. Besa, Lecce 1999

4 Ibidem pg 121-122

5 Iain Chambers, Transiti mediterranei: ripensare la mo-dernit, Universit degli studi di Napoli lOrientale, 2008, pg.16.

Marconi S, Reti mediterranee Le censurate matrici afro-medioreintali della nostra civilt, Gamberetti, Roma, 2003.

HISTORICAL MAP OF MEDITERRANEAN SEA

ENGLISH AND DUTCH SHIPS

ENTER IN MEDITERRANEAN

SEA FROM XVII CENTURYPOSTCOLONIAL

APPROACH

XX CE

NTUR

Y

DECO

LONIZ

ATION

OF MA

GHREB

GIBRALTAR IS DOMINATED

BY ENGLISH ARMY

RUSSIAN SHIPS ENTER

IN MEDITERRANEAN SEA TO

CONQUER BALCANIC PENINSULA

BATTLE OF LEPANTO

1571

COSTANTINOPLE centre of cultural production

x century

GARIBALDI'S "1000"

SUEZ CANAL

CONSTRUCTION

1867

FRANCE ARMY INVADED EGYPT

TO BE CLOSER TO ASIATIC TRADES

NAPOLEON FOUNDED

CISALPINA REPUBLIC

AT THE END OF XVIII CENTURY

VENICE'S INTERESTS

TOWARDS THE EAST

END OF MEDITERRANEAN UNITY

VII - VIII CENTURY


VII - VIII CENTURY

ENGLISH AND DUTCH SHIPS

ENTER IN MEDITERRANEAN

SEA FROM XVII CENTURYPOSTCOLONIAL

APPROACH

XX CE

NTUR

Y

DECO

LONIZ

ATION

OF MA

GHREB

GIBRALTAR IS DOMINATED

BY ENGLISH ARMY

RUSSIAN SHIPS ENTER

IN MEDITERRANEAN SEA TO

CONQUER BALCANIC PENINSULA

BATTLE OF LEPANTO

1571

COSTANTINOPLE centre of cultural production

x century

GARIBALDI'S "1000"

SUEZ CANAL

CONSTRUCTION

1867

FRANCE ARMY INVADED EGYPT

TO BE CLOSER TO ASIATIC TRADES

NAPOLEON FOUNDED

CISALPINA REPUBLIC

AT THE END OF XVIII CENTURY

VENICE'S INTERESTS

TOWARDS THE EAST


VII - VIII CENTURY


VII - VIII CENTURY

34

The Mediterranean sea has an extension of

2.505.000 sq.km and it is composed by two

basin, the occidental and the oriental.

Its coasts of 46.000 Km, from the 10.500 in

Greek and 8.800 in Italy, only 3 Km in Mo-

naco, are very different: from the very irregu-

lar with numerous plateau, to the more linear

with plains; from highlands to desert.

HIGLHAND AND MOUNTAINS

The Mediterranean Sea can be defined a

sea between lands but probably its better to

say a sea between mountains.

It is entirely situated in the area of folds and

fractures of the Tertiary, across the ancient

world, from Gibraltar to Insuland. The moun-

tains are the backbone of the Mediterranean:

a cumbersome, huge, omnipresent backbone

that pierces the skin anywhere. For this rea-

son the mountains are everywhere present

around the sea except for a few small gaps:

the Gibraltar strait, the passage of the Rhone,

the straits leading to the Aegean and to the

Black Sea; there is just one big lack of moun-

tains in the territories from Tunisia to Syria for

thousands of kilometres where the mountains

give way to the Sahara desert that reaches

GEOGRAPHY

37

the coast.

The Alps, the Pyrenees, the Apennines, The

Dinaric alps, the Caucasus, the mountains of

Anatolia, the Libani, the Atlas are high moun-

tains, endless, wide and powerful: some for

their heights, other for their compact forms or

for the inaccessible, deep, recessed valleys.

They turn towards the sea with grim and mas-

sive faces. A clear and understandable defini-

tion of the mountain is almost impossible in

itself 1.

Normally the mountains are considered the

poorest regions of the Mediterranean, but

many are the exception to this rule of poverty

and emptiness: many are favoured by nature

and relatively densely populated; many are

favoured because of the rain and others for

the rich subsoil and mineral wealth.

The mountain population is lost in a space too

large where movements are difficult, similar to

the new centres of the New World, also sub-

merged in an area abundant, mostly useless

and hostile, and therefore devoid of contacts

and exchanges, out of which there is no re-

newed civilization. Society, culture, economy,

everything has a character of archaic and in-

adequate.

In the Mediterranean there are mountains

physically closed, with impassable borders,

like those that are common in the middle east,

China, Japan, Indochina, India and even in the

peninsula of Malacca, and that no communi-

cations with the plan, must constitute itself as

many independent worlds. These mountains

have many resources: arable land sometimes

cultivated in terraces, olive, orchards, mul-

berry trees in the lower slopes and pastures

in the highlands. Cultures are added to the

gains of farming rams, sheep, goats, cattle.

Thanks to these animals, the mountain is also

the domain of dairy and cheese, fresh butter

and meat.

PLATEAU

Alongside the high mountain there is the low

mountain, the one of plateau, hills and rev-

ermonts.

Plateaus are large and high uncovered plains

with dry and hard ground and with few inter-

ruptions river; the streets settle there with

relative ease and lead to narrow strips of well-

established and prosperous life. Flowing from

the mountains the water allows irrigation and

skilled horticultural crops, that are the beauty

of these small regions.

38

PLAIN

Austerity, harshness, poor life and sparse

population refers to the mountain. Abun-

dance, wealth, easiness, sweetness of life

refers to the plain 2.

The man immediately took possession of the

tallest and prominent points, the river ter-

races, the edges of mountain, and there he

founded large compact villages, sometimes

even city. On the contrary, the very bottom of

the basin, which is threatened by the waters,

the dispersed town remained often the rule.

More the plains were large and vast, more the

man has had more difficulty in their conquest.

For a long time it was occupied by man in im-

perfect and fleeting way.

In plain water does not always flow easily into

the sea. This is due to the weak inequalities

of the relief of the plain, to the slowness of

flows, to the powerful line of dunes that acts

as a barrier along the coast. If the water is

still, it forms immense marshes, full of reeds

and rushes.

DESERT

Sahara fits within limits close to the Mediter-

ranean and within other located at immense

* Orographical map higland

* Orographical map plain

highlands

2000 km 3000 km1000 km0 100 3800 kmplain

2000 km 3000 km1000 km0 100 3800 km

40

distances from it. It s an immense area, very

wide where you can walk four months with-

out being able to get out 3. Along its endless

paths peopel have to orient with the com-

pass and the astrolabe, as in the sea. The

overabundance of empty spaces condemns

societies and economies to a perpetual mo-

tion, more expensive than elsewhere. The ex-

treme mobility of men, range of motion pasto-

ral, the old caravan and powerful action, the

activity of the city, everything responds and

tries to respond to this imperative. It a poor

region without water where cities do not ex-

ist. Springs, rivers, plants and trees dont exist

and the presence of forests is very rare. The

houses are made of clay and one another to

form an endless row of centers that closely

resembles a vast field of mud. The stone

buildings, where they exist, are an excep-

tional masterpiece: they are built according to

a special technique that overlaps the stones

without the aid of a wooden framework. In the

desert of Sahara the dromedary is the pro-

tagonist and the man is the parasite. The man

could not live, move and work without the help

of the camel.

* Orographical map plateau

* Orographical map dunes

plateau

2000 km 3000 km1000 km0 100 3800 kmdunes

2000 km 3000 km1000 km0 100 3800 km

41

space for the warmer seasons when the trees

bloom and the nightingales sing.CLIMATE

Above the Mediterranean of land and water,

there is a Mediterranean of air, unattached or

almost the landscape below, truly indepen-

dent from the local physical conditions. It s

the result from the influence of the Atlantic

Ocean from the west and of the Sahara from

the south .

The Sahara is the bearer of drought, bright-

ness, and blue open sky, the Atlantic, there

spills galore as gray fog, dust the water typical

of the winter semester.

Every winter the rivers overflow the levees

breaking, and the cities are victims of the

horrors and flood damage. In winter flows At-

lantic triumph. The anticyclone of the Azores

lets the Atlantic depressions, which, one after

the other, in long processions reach the warm

water of the Mediterranean.

This time of year the weather is very unstable:

rain and winds constantly torment the sea,

under the blows of the mistral, the Noroit and

Bora, it often becomes so white foam to look

like an immense plain covered with snow.

Towards the spring equinox, everything

changes and also quite suddenly, leaving

1 Braudel F., Civilt e Imperi del Mediterraneo

nellet di Filippo II, Einaudi 1949 Paris.2 Braudel F., Civilt e Imperi del Mediterraneo

nellet di Filippo II, Einaudi 1949 Paris pag

463 A. Sprenger, Die Post- und Reiserouten des

Orients, Lipsia 1864

ALBANIA

ALGERIA

CIPRO

EGITTO

FRANCIA

GRECIA

ISRAELE

ITALIA

LIBANO

LIBIA

MALTA

MONACO

MAROCCO

SPAGNA

SIRIA

TUNISIA

TURCHIA

EX JUGOSLAVIA

400

1200

700

1000

1700

10500

190

8800

--

1900

190

3

50

2093

188

1250

--

6166

COASTS LENGHTS KILOMETERS

COASTS LENGHTS KILOMETERS

2,500,000 sq km

44

Che cos il Mediterraneo? Mille cose in-

sieme. Non un paesaggio ma innumerevoli

paesaggi. Non un mare, ma un susseguirsi di

mari. Non una civilt, ma una serie di civilt

accatastate le une sulle altre

Braudel, 1985

The famous historical Braudel conveys very

well the complexity of the Mediterranean Sea.

Its difficult to give only one definition for this

particular sea. A sea inland or in the middle

of the land from the latin mediterraneus (from

medius, middle and terra, land).

Since centuries it is represented as a multiple

reality, inhabited by different cultures and

crossed by various people. There could be

different interpretations as many people who

are facing it. It was called Mare nostrum by

the Romans or Mare internum, Ak Deniz the

white sea in Turkish, Mittelmeer in German.

Thus they are all different way to define this

liquid continent, and for each there is their

own cultural and historical meaning, a differ-

ent view of this territory depending on wheth-

er you look at it, from Beirut, Marseille, Tunis,

Athens, Cairo, Barcelona, or Istanbul1.

The Mediterranean world is a unique geo-

graphical reality but also a place richness of

IDENTITY

sun

buoy seafishing

lighthouse cargo boat

rain

yacht hot-air balloon cloud

bordervoulcan

waves

windsurf

45

tural and commercial exchanges. This liquid

continent that firstly could appear as a barri-

er, with problems linked to the navigation and

distances, has been indeed place of material

and immaterial exchanges and migrations

also in the past. The presence of islands and

peninsular systems allows an easier naviga-

tion, reducing the distances between lands,

and this network allows to consider the

Mediterranean sea not a as barrier but a pas-

sage, not as a boundary but a coexistence of

different cultures.

MIGRATION AND HYBRIDIZATION

The history of the Mediterranean Sea is

signed by the migration of people.

The first and most important flux of migration

is the Indo-European one, that consisted in

two phases: the first was from East to West,

between the II and III millennium b.C towards

the Anatolia, Italy and Gallia: the second

phase was at V century when Franchi, Lon-

gobardi and Slavi came on the territory of the

Empire.

Arab represents the second consistent move-

ment, with the occupancy of Spain, Sicily and

other incursions on Italian and French coasts.

interpretations and representations.

As we see also the geography has some ele-

ment contradictory. If the mountains and the

highlands stands out against the seascape,

from the Pyrenees, to the Alps and the Apen-

nines, from the Balkans to Tauro, and could

be found indifferently from one side to the

other of the Mediterranean, they are not the

only element of this territory. For example the

long expanse of the Sahara is an exception,

which contrasts the extended liquid surface.

Thus the sea of water and the sea of stones

and sand, mountains, plateau and plains are

all elements of the Mediterranean territory.

Maybe the uniform element is the clime, the

same from one side to the other, that unifies

landscapes2 or the agriculture and cultivation

of olive.

But in order to understand the Mediterranean

identity what is more interesting than its veg-

etation, climate, and geographical elements is

the network of relations and exchanges that

has characterized it all along. That maritime

and terrestrial routes of its commerce is the

force of its unity and the root of the Mediter-

ranean (Marconi, 2003).

Thus to understand its identity is important to

consider the fluxes that has promoted the cul-

47

accept foreign elements.

MULTIPLE IDENTITY

Thus the Mediterranean is not a monolithic

identity but a multiverse that trains the mint

to the complexity of the world, to the hybrids,

the mixtures4 . There isnt a unique Mediter-

ranean. The identity of the Mediterranean

Sea is this multiplicity ad diversity, the coex-

istence of different landscape, environment,

people, cultures, and religions. This richness

is what characterizes the cultural heritage of

the Mediterranean Sea, that laps three conti-

nents and separates and unifies Orient and

Occident under the same geographical area.

Finally the third flux is the Turkish migration.

They occupied Anatolia from the ninth cen-

tury.

According to Braudel, The Mediterranean is a

mosaic of all the existing colours, composed

by people with different origins, religions and

cultures. But the richness and potentiality of

the Mediterranean is given by the exchanges

and the relationships between different eth-

nics. In fact in the past people moves from

one side to the other without taking in consid-

eration the borders or the different religious.

As L. Godart says, the moments of greatest

development of Mediterranean regions were

always coexisted with the moments of most

openness towards the others cultures, be-

cause they were able to accept and improve

the experiences of others. This hybridization

is richer in consequences as much as there

are many groups of civilizations3.

There were the Arab, the Greek and the Latin

civilizations. Sometimes these civilizations

remain strictly separated one from the other

sometimes they are mixed. It is interesting

what Braudel considers as civilization, as the

only one that is able to export their goods

away, to spread out. But a big civilization

could be also recognized from the refusal to

1 See Introduction in Consolo V., Cassano F., Lo sguardo italiano. Rappresentare il mediterraneo, Mesogea, Mes-sina, 2000.

2 See Nehemia Levtzion, Lo spirito del Mediterraneo: scambi culturali tra commercio e guerre in Domus 813 Marzo 1999, pg. 4-5.

3 F. Braudel, Civilt e imperi del Mediterraneo nellet di filippo II, vol.2, Piccola biblioteca Einaudi, 1982, Torino. pg. 806.

4 Consolo V., Cassano F., Lo sguardo italiano. Rappresen-tare il Mediterraneo, Mesogea, Messina 2000.

48

Su una carta del mondo il Mediterraneo non

che una fenditura della crosta terrestre,

uno stretto fuso che si allunga da Gibilterra

allistmo di Suez e al mar Rosso.

Braudel, 1985.

The idea of Mediterranean given by Braudel

as a fracture, a cove of the earths crust is

evocative of a world that is really different

from the ocean. Often the Mediterranean

Sea is called closed sea, in contrast to the

open waters of the ocean. In some places it

becomes thin as a river, a maritime doors,

and a corridor of salt water as defined by

Braudel.

CONCLUSIONS

* Narrowest passages in the Mediterranean Sea.

49

a as barrier but a passage, not as a boundary

but a coexistence of different cultures.

These places where the distances are re-

duced more are defined straits, areas with

their own particular geographical conditions.

The straits are figures of a connection be-

tween two different worlds and cultures. For

this reason we started to investigate the Med-

iterranean crossings from these particular

sites rich of meanings: the straits.

1 Braudel, Il Mediterraneo, Lo spazio la storia gli uomini le tradizioni, Bompiani, 1985, pg. 51.

The distances in the Mediterranean Sea are

reduced by its geographical nature, by the

presence of islands and peninsular struc-

tures. In the West, the Iberian Peninsula and

the African coast are divided by the Strait of

Gibraltar, only 14 km; on the centre the Ital-

ian Peninsula with its big islands (Corsica-

Sardinia-Sicilia) and the minor archipelagos

and Malta. In the East there is the Balkan

Peninsula, with its Adriatic Ionian Aegean is-

lands, with Crete and Cyprus and the strait of

Bosphorus-Dardanelles.

These realities reduce the difficulty in the

navigation allowing the migrations of people.

Since the past a relevant network of fluxes,

people, goods, food, sounds and cultures

characterized the Mediterranean Sea.

Thus this liquid continent that firstly could

appear as a barrier, with problems linked

to the navigation and distances, has been

indeed place of material and immaterial ex-

changes and migrations also in the past. The

presence of islands and peninsular systems

allows an easier navigation, reducing the

distances between lands, and this network

allows to consider the Mediterranean Sea not

2. THE STRAITS

The strait is a limited stretch of sea(La Cecla, Zanini, 2004)

54

The straits are figures of connection between

two different worlds and cultures. In the

Mediterranean Sea there are different kind of

straits: the strait of Gibraltar marks the bound-

ary between Europe and Africa; the water of

Bosphorus laps a transcontinental city, Istan-

bul, from one side of the bridge Europe, on

the opposite side Asia. Finally the division

between Africa and Asia follows the Red sea

and the imaginary line (until the construction

of the canal of Suez) that connects it with the

Mediterranean Sea and divides the territory

of Egypt, a transcontinental country between

Africa and Asia.

The strait is more than a particular geographi-

cal area that facilitates commercial trades

or settlement of industries and ports. It is an

exchanging place of cultures and identities. In

the fist part we describe through its history,

geography and commercial trades, the cha-

racteristics of Mediterranean straits. Adding to

the natural and artificial straits, Gibraltar, Bo-

sphorus and Suez, also the narrowest point of

Mediterranean Sea (138 Km) between Sicily

and Tunisia, the strait of Sicily. This last strait

marks the boundary between two basins cle-

arly identified: the western and the eastern

INTRODUCTION

55

one of the Mediterranean Sea. It has always

been important during the history, as Braudel

says: The complicity of geography and histo-

ry has created an intermediate boundary of

coasts and islands, from north to south, divi-

ding the sea into two hostile worlds 1.

1 Braudel, Il Mediterraneo, Lo spazio la storia gli uomini le tradizioni, Bompiani, 1985, pg. 51.

56

* Strait of Gibraltar . where Europe (Spain) meets Africa (Morocco).

1 Enciclopaedya Treccani

2 F. La Cecla, P. Zannini, Lo stretto indispensabile. Storie e geografie di un tratto di mare limitato, Bruno Monda-dori, 2004, pg.2.

3 Ibidem

A narrow passage of water between two areas of land, usually connecting two seas. 1

the strait is mirror and clepsydra be-tween two coasts and two worlds 2

The straits are strong presence, sin-gularities in the broken coast of the world. [] They are figure, as the mountain tops, where the geogra-phy is prevalent because they are a unique experience2.

DEFINITIONS

58

The figure of the strait is a particular place not

only for its geographical characteristics. As

we discovered tanks to the work of La Cecla

and Zanini, the strait is also a place rich of

meanings: as they said it changes meaning

depending on whether you cross it. It is rich

of possibilities, linked to the idea of passage,

gap or crossing and could be described only

giving many interpretations of it.

Thinking to the crossing as a passage the

strait is considered in-between a terrain

vague, a threshold, a connection between

two different bodies of water. Its also a device

where local and global stay together because

it could be crossed in both the directions: a

linear one, crossing from sea to sea, and a

perpendicular dimension, from coast to coast.

It is a clepsydra, where coming near means

going away and closing refers to the open-

ing. A place where two sides of the same coin

exchange values each other. Double view,

double vision: what you see from a coast is

different from the things watched by the other

one. Finally a membrane, a kind of exchang-

ing filter that regulates the passage between

two spaces of different nature and density.

The floating part of the strait, the water, is

what makes it work as device.

INTERPRETATIONS

59

THE STRAIT AS DISCONTINUITY

PHASE CHANGING

Two bodies of land with defined contour lines draw a minimum interval, linking two different bodies of water, two diverse pair of spaces

DIREZIONE 1

due corpi distinti di terra due dierenti corpi dacqua

LO STRETTO COME DISPOSITIVO LO STRETTO COME INTERRUTTORE

LO STRETTO COME TERRAIN VAGUELO STRETTO COME DISCONTINUITcambiamento di fase

DIREZIONE 2

passaggio mare-marelongitudinalegrandi navi

passaggio costa-costatrasversaletraghetti

GLOBALE LOCALE

tra le due sponde conne largo e uido

DIREZIONE 1




DIREZIONE 2



GLOBALE LOCALE


THE STRAIT AS TERRAIN VAGUE

Between the two sides, containing the idea of border, but a fluid and wide border that could be passed through and not only crossed. The strait is in-between, a terrain vague, a threshold, thinking to the crossing as a pas-sage

two bodies of land

two bodies of water

DIREZIONE 1




DIREZIONE 2



GLOBALE LOCALE


60

THE STRAIT AS DEVICE

A particular place that changes meaning

depending on whether you cross it. It is rich

of possibilities, linked to the idea of passage,

gap or crossing. Its a device where local and

global stay together.

GLOBAL LOCAL

DIREZIONE 1




DIREZIONE 2



GLOBALE LOCALE


61

GLOBAL

passage sea-sealongitudinal

cargo, cruise

LOCAL

passage coast-coasttrasversal

ferries

DIREZIONE 1




DIREZIONE 2



GLOBALE LOCALE


DIREZIONE 1




DIREZIONE 2



GLOBALE LOCALE


62

THE STRAIT AS CLEPSYDRA

The strait is a clepsydra, or a shape which ta-pers at the centre, where coming near means going away and closing refers to the opening. A place where two sides of the same coin ex-change values each other

ltro scambiatore, una membrana porosa che regola il passaggio tra due spazi, che non possono diluirsi luno nellaltro perch di natura e densit dierenti ma luogo di scambio

LO STRETTO COME MEMBRANA-FILTRO

dove avvicinarsi signica allontanarsi e il chiudersi rimanda allaprirsi

LO STRETTO COME CLESSIDRA

doppia vista, vista doppia: le cose viste da una costa non sono quelle viste dallaltra; lo sguardo darrivo non uguale a quello di partenza

LO STRETTO COME DOPPIO IMBUTO

63

THE STRAIT AS DOUBLE VIEW

Double view, double vision: what you see from a coast is different from the things watched by the other one; the arriving view is not the same as the leaving one

THE STRAIT AS MEMBRANE

A kind of exchanging filter, a porous mem-brane that regulate the passage between two spaces of different nature and density. The floating part of the strait, the water, is what makes it work as device.













64

THE STRAIT AS BORDER

The strait can also be considered as border

area. Its sides infact can face two different

countries, two different cultures with various

thoughts, religions and traditions. Sometimes

its sides belong to different continents defin-

ing it as a frontier.

Infact, the border can not be represented by a

line, but its a band, an indefinite zone where

everything blends and mixes. Its edges are

not fixed or written in the soil, are not well-

defined and waterproof. After crossing the

border, there is a land that is located in the

middle, between the margins of two countries

or of two different spaces. This figure could

be identified with the sea of a strait, a free

space, sometimes neutral whose dimensions

are given by nature. People can exchange

goods, opinions, experiences on the sea and

they also write about it.

SUGGESTIONS

1 Zanini P., Significati del confine: i limiti naturali storici mentali, Mondadori milano 1997.

65

DESPINA AN INVISIBLE CITY

Despina can be reached in two ways, by ship

or by camel. The city displays one face to the

traveler arriving overland and a different one

to him who arrives by sea. When the camel

driver sees, at the horizon of the tableland, the

pinnacles of the skyscrapers come into view,

the radar antennae, the white and red wind-

socks flapping, the chimneys belching smoke,

he thinks of a ship; he knows it is a city, but he

thinks of it as a vessel that will take him away

from the desert, a windjammer about to cast

off, with the breeze already swelling the sails,

not yet unfurled, or a steamboat with its boiler

vibrating in the iron keel; and he thinks of all

the ports the foreign merchandise the cranes

unload on the docks, the taverns where crews

of different flags break bottles over one anoth-

ers heads, the lighted, groundfloor windows,

each with a woman combing her hair.

In the coastlines haze, the sailor discerns the

city form of a camels withers, an embroidered

saddle with glittering fringe between two

spotted humps, advancing and swaying; he

knows it is a city, but he thinks of it as a camel

from whose pack hang wineskins and bags of

candied fruit, date wine, tobacco leaves, and

already he sees himself at the head of a long

caravan taking him away from the desert of

the sea, toward oases of fresh water in the

palm trees jagged shade, toward palaces of

thick, whitewashed walls, tiled courts where

girls are dancing barefoot, moving their arms,

half-hidden by their veils, and half-revealed.

Each city receives its form from the desert

it opposes; and so the camel driver and the

sailor see Despina, a border between two

deserts. 1

Despina is a border town in the middle of two

different deserts, it does not belong to one or

to the another, and it doesnt prefer anyone

neither. It exists just because it doesnt have

any favorites but hosts inside its walls people

coming from everywhere, who remains just

for one day and who decide to settle here

forever. Who lives in Despina hear different

languages and is not surprised or concerned

about it, the people themselves change lan-

guage several times a day depending on the

job they do.

Its a unique city that has the power to be

seen differently depending on who looks at

it: looking at Despina the sailor recognizes

67

the shapes of the humps of a camel, and the

bedouin will see the shape of a ship. Anyone

who arriving here has the opportunity to upset

his life and leave behind the past finding what

has long desired.

1 Calvino I., The invisible cities, Einaudi, 1972.

68

EXPERIENCES OF STRAITS Which are the straits of Mediterranean sea?

The Mediterranean straits separate always

different continents. The criteria chosen to an-

alyze these straits are history dimension and

crossings together with the interpretations.

The Strait of Gibraltar has always been a cru-

cial place of the world, from it depends the

existence of a whole sea and of all the worlds

living on its costs. It is a narrow strait that con-

nects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean

Sea and separates Spain in Europe from Mo-

rocco in Africa. In the narrowest point the dis-

tance between the two coasts is only 13 km.

It was all along reason of contentions. Its

dominance changed several times from

Moorish to Spanish hands and vice versa.

Container ships, tanks, military or tourist ship-

cross it every day, some just passing through

the strait going inside the sea. More than 70

thousand every year.

The Bosphorus is in the eastern part of Medi-

terranean Sea and it is an important cross-

road between Asia and Europe.

The strait of Bosphorus links the Black sea

with the Marmara sea. Since the past Byzan-

69

commercial cross-road. For the presence of

the desert the transversal dimension is de-

nied and is present just the longitudinal and

so the global one.

Finally the Sicily canal, or Strait of Sic-

ily, marks the boundary between two basins

clearly identified: the western and the eastern

one of the Mediterranean Sea. Its important

in the Mediterranean traffic because signs the

passage between the two basins. It has al-

ways been important during the history and

its witness of the interaction between two dif-

ferent worlds, Orient and Occident, Africa and

Europe.

tium has been a city very disputed, because

of its incomparable location for trade and

transport between three continents. Turkey

resumed control in 1936.

With its 700 m of width between Kandilli Point

and Aiyan, it is the worlds narrowest strait

used for international navigation.

Many crossings characterized the waters of

Bosphous. Numerous ferries pass from one

side to the other every day, bringing people

to work or come back to home. As well as it

crosses a transcontinental city, the coexis-

tence of Europe and Asia is strongly visible

in its life.

Whit the realization of the Suez canal the

Mediterranean resumed its importance as a

link on the route to the East.

It was opened in 1869 allowing transportation

by water between Europe and Asia without

navigating around Africa. The only city pres-

ent on the sides of the canal was Suez, then

other cities were built like Port Said, Ismailia

and Fayed.

Its crossed by cargos and tankers having the

predominance of the commercial use.

Despite of the other straits, this has an artifi-

cial construction; it is used as a military and

Strait of Bosphorus

Strait of Gibraltar

Canale di Suez

72

STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR

74

The Strait of Gibraltar has always been a cru-

cial place of the world, from it depends the

existence of a whole sea and of all the worlds

living on its costs.

HISTORY

The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that

connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediter-

ranean Sea and separates Spain in Europe

from Morocco in Africa. Since the past two

places were facing on the two sides of the

strait (the pillars of Hercules) named Abyla

(today Ceuta) and Calpe (today Gibraltar).

STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR

75

* Populations map

Until the construction of the Suez Canal it was

the unique entrance from the Ocean to the

mare internum, the gate of the Mediterra-

nean Sea. On the northern side, the Christian/

European culture was present in Spain while

in the southern side there was the Arabic cul-

ture, which came to dominate later. In the VIII

century the Strait of Gibraltar gained a new

strategic significance as the frontier between

Muslim North Africa and Christian Spain. In

710 a predominately Berber army crossed

from North Africa and landed somewhere in

the vicinity of Gibraltar, allowing the Islamic

conquest of most of the Iberian Peninsula.

This territory had big military and commercial

importance and it was all along reason of

contentions. Its dominance changed several

times from Moorish to Spanish hands and

vice versa. Since 1704 Gibraltar fell into the

English domain, when an Anglo-Dutch fleet

defeated the Spanish in Gibraltar, becoming

one of the Britains key colonies in the Medi-

terranean Sea, while Spain occupied the ter-

ritory of Ceuta. Following the Spanish coup

of July 1936 the Spanish Republican Navy

tried to blockade the Strait of Gibraltar to

hamper the transport of Army of Africa troops

from Spanish Morocco to Peninsular Spain.

5 km

TANGIER699.680

CEUTA78.674

TARIFA15.670

GIBRALTAR28.875

ALGECIRAS114.000

76

But on 5 August 1936 the so-called Convoy

de la victoria was able to bring at least 2,500

men across the strait breaking the republican

blockade.

GEOGRAPHY

The distance between Europe and Africa at

the narrowest point is about 13 km. The Straits

depth ranges between 300 and 900 metres.

It is 36 miles (58 km) long and narrows to 8

miles (13 km) in width between Point Marro-

qu (Spain) and Point Cires (Morocco). The

straits western extreme is 27 miles (43 km)

wide between the capes of Trafalgar (north)

and Spartel (south), and the eastern extreme

is 14 miles (23 km) wide between the Pillars

of Heracleswhich have been identified as

the Rock of Gibraltar to the north and one of

two peaks to the south: Mount Hacho (held

by Spain), near the city of Ceuta, a Spanish

exclave in Morocco; or Jebel Moussa (Musa),

in Morocco. The strait is an important gap,

averaging 1,200 feet (365 metres) in depth

in the arc formed by the Atlas Mountains of

North Africa and the high plateau of Spain 1.

There is a significant exchange of water

50 km

EUROPE

AFRICA

77

through the strait. A surface current flows

eastward through the centre of the channel,

except when affected by easterly winds. This

surface movement exceeds a westward flow

of heavier, colder, and more saline water.

Through the strait, water generally flows more

or less continually in both an eastward and

a westward direction. A smaller amount of

deeper saltier and therefore denser waters

continually goes westward (the Mediterra-

nean outflow), while a larger amount of sur-

face waters with lower salinity and density

continually goes eastward (the Mediterranean

inflow).

CROSSINGS

The Gibraltar Strait is one of the busiest mari-

time zone of the world, with up to 300 vessels

sailing through daily, not counting the ferries

which cross between the harbours on both

coasts of the Strait as well as many fishing

and pleasure boats.

Container ships, tanks, military or tourist ship.

Thousand and thousand are the ships that

every year cross this strait weaving a dense

network of human relations and economic ex-

changes.

* Map of Land

* Map of Sea

50 km

OCEANO ATLANTICO

MAR MEDITERRANEO

78

* Map of distances

min width12,9 Km

Tarifa

Point Cires

max width44,0 Km

lenght60 km

western entrance44,0 Km

Cape Trafalgar

Cape Spartel

Europe Point

Point Almina

eastern entrance22,5 Km

5 km

Tangier Med

The Tangier Med complex, operational since

July 2007, responds to the willingness of Mo-

rocco to build on the south shore of the straits

of Gibraltar a leading industrial and logistics

platform as part of the world trade network.

With a capacity of 3 million containers, this

port is designed to accommodate the latest

generation of container ships, making it pos-

sible to serve the global activity of tranship-

ment and receive the traffic connected with

import-export activities. In 2010, the Tangier

Med port complex, which aims to become

the largest transhipment platform in the Medi-

terranean, handled overall traffic of 23 million

tonnes, with over 2 million TEUs handled.

80

Gibraltar

Algeciras

Ceuta

Tangeri

Tangeri MED

Tarifa

passengerscargo-tankers

5 km

ZOOM 3BOSPHORUS PORTS

Rumeli

Yenikap

to Marsilia-Guzelyali

to Yalova to Derince

to Illichivsche

Anadolu

Kadky nciburnu

HaydarpasaHaremskdar

Kandll

Sirkeci

cargo-tankers

5 km


Rumeli

Yenikap



to Illichivsche

Anadolu

Kadky nciburnu


Kandll

A.HisariKanlicaubukluPaabaheBeykoz

A.kavaiR.kavai

SariyerBykdere

Yenky

stnye

Emrgan

BebekA.kyOrtakyBekta

KabataKaraky

Beylerbeyengelky

Kuzguncuk

Sirkeci

passengers

5 km

Port of Tangier city

As part of the new face of Tangier, the port will

redesigned as a space for the welcoming of

cruisers and pleasure boats, open as well to

the city and to its cultural heritage and tourist

potential. 1

Port of Algeciras

Its the second port of the Spain. In 2010 it

exceeded 70 million tons in total traffic and

more than 2.8 million containers 2.

81

Port of Gibraltar

The overall number of vessel calls has in-

creased from just under 4,500 in 2000 to a

so-far record high of 10,042 in 2009 with a

gross tonnage of 276,155,893. By far the

most frequent purpose for calling at Gibral-

tar is bunkering, with 6,708 ships taking on

fuel in 2009. In the cruise sector, a significant

increase began in 2006 when the number of

calls rose above 200 and passenger volumes

exceeded 200,000 for the first time 3.

to Barcelonato Genovato Sete

Tangeri

Tangeri MED

to UK, North Europe and America

cargo-tankers

5 km


Rumeli

Yenikap



to Illichivsche

Anadolu

Kadky nciburnu


Kandll

Sirkeci

cargo-tankers

5 km

* Map of ports and traffic LOCAL

* Map of ports and traffic GLOBAL

83

passengers

14% (710) 78% (3964) 8% (408)

ISTANBUL

GRAPH 1. ALL VESSELS BY TYPE IN 30 DAYS

cargo+tanker others

passengers

48% (877) 10% (185) 42% (722)

TANGIER MED

cargo+tanker others

passengers

71% (1118) 26% (399) 42% (722)

CEUTA

cargo+tanker others

passengers

78% (1896) 20% (469) 2% (48)

ALGECIRAS

cargo+tanker others

passengers

4% (38) 90% (842) 6% (57)

PORT SAID

cargo+tanker others

passengers

100% (20)

TANGIER

All vessels by time in 30 days

1 http://www.moroccanembassylondon.org.uk2 Porto of Algeciras handbook http://www.apba.es3 Porto of Gibraltar handbook http://www.gibraltarport.com

EUROPA POINT

RIF MOUNTAINS

GIBRALTAR/english

CEUTA/spanish

Morocco and Spain face the same stretch of sea. What can you see from Spain or from Morocco?

EUROPA POINT

RIF MOUNTAINS

GIBRALTAR/english

CEUTA/spanish

STRAIT OF BOSPHORUS

88

The Bosphorus is an optical dispositive, the

mirror of the other coast, the reflection that a

part of city gives to the other [...], it is a lens

that enlarges what happens in the front side

(La Cecla, Zanini, 2004)

HISTORY

The Bosphorus is in the eastern part of Medi-

terranean Sea and it is an important cross-

road between Asia and Europe.

The strait of Bosphorus links the Black sea

STRAIT OF BOSPHORUS

89

* Population map

with the Marmara sea; the strait of Dardanelli

links the Mediterranean sea with the Black

sea. Bosphorus and Dardanelli separates Eu-

ropa from Asia. In the 7th century BC, Greek

colonists led by Byzas established the colony

of Byzantium on the European side at the

peninsula, today known as the Seraglio Point,

where the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn

meet and flow into the Marmara (667 B.C.).

Since the past Byzantium has been a city

very disputed, because of its incomparable

location for trade and transport between three

continents. In the early 100s BC, it became

part of the Roman Empire and in 306 AD, Em-

peror Constantine the Great made Byzantium

capital of the entire Roman Empire. From that

point on, the city was known as Constanti-

nople. For the next several hundred years

Persians, Arabs, nomadic peoples, and mem-

bers of the Fourth Crusade (who for a time

governed the city) attacked Constantinople.

With the growing influence of the European

powers in the 19th century, rules were codi-

fied (in treaties of 1841 and 1871) governing

the transit of commercial and naval vessels

through the strait. An international commis-

sion assumed control of the strait after the Ot-

toman defeat in World War I; Turkey resumed

ISTANBUL13.624.240

ISTANBULASIA30%

ISTANBULEUROPE70%

5 km

90

control in 1936. Its strategic importance

remains high: several international treaties

have governed vessels using the waters.

including the Montreux Convention Regard-

ing the Regime of the Turkish Straits, signed

in 1936. In more recent years, the Turkish

Straits have become particularly important for

the oil industry. Russian oil, from ports such

as Novorossyisk, is exported by tankers to

Western Europe and the U.S. via the Bospho-

rus and the Dardanelles straits.

GEOGRAPHY

The Bosphorus limits are defined as the con-

necting line between the lighthouses Rumeli

Feneri and Anadolu Feneri in the north and

between the Ahrkap Feneri and the Kadky

nciburnu Feneri in the south. Between the

limits, the strait is 31 km long, with a width of

3329 m at the northern entrance and 2826 m

at the southern entrance. Its maximum width

is 3420 m between Umuryeri and Bykdere

Liman, and minimum width 700 m. With its

700 m of width between Kandilli Point and

Aiyan, it is the worlds narrowest strait used

for international navigation. The navigation is

difficult; in fact a 45-degree course alteration

ZOOM 1DARDANELLI-BOSPHORUS

50 km

EUROPE

ASIA

91

is required for the ships at in its narrowest

point.

The Strait of Istanbul, as it is also named, is

characterized by the presence of many ports

and there is a very heavy ferry traffic.

There is an underwater channel of high den-

sity water flowing across the floor of the Bos-

phorus (caused by the difference in density of

the two seas).

CROSSINGS

Many crossings characterized the waters of

Bosphous. Numerous ferries pass from one

side to the other every day, bringing people to

work or come back to home. Furthermore two

bridges cross the strait: the first, the Boazii

(Bosporus I) Bridge, was completed in 1973

and has a main span of 1074 metres and

the second bridge, the Fatih Sultan Mehmed

(Bosporus II), was completed in 1988 and has

a main span of 1090 metres. A third bridge

will be built near the northern end of the Bos-

phorus.

Another crossing, the Marmaray tunnel, is a

13.7 km long undersea railway tunnel cur-

rently under construction and is expected to

be completed in 2015. While the Bosphorus

* Map of land

* Map of water

ZOOM 1DARDANELLI-BOSPHORUS

50 km

MAR MEDITERRANEO

MAR DI MARMARA

MAR NERO

92

Water Tunnel was constructed in 2012 to

transfer water from the Melen Creek in Dzce

Province to the European side of Istanbul.

The density of maritime traffic in Bosporus,

which link Black Sea to Marmara Sea, has in-

creased eleven-fold from around 4,400 ships

passing annually in 1936, when Montreux

Convention was signed to regulate transit

and navigation in the Straits, to an average

of 48,000 vessels per year recently. With 132

vessels transit daily, not including local traffic,

it ranks second to Malacca Straits in density.

During the period from 1953 to 2002, 461

maritime incidents occurred in the Istanbul

Strait or in its southern entrance at the Mar-

mara Sea. The majority were collisions. max width 3,4 Km

min width0,7 Km

Kandilli Point

Umuryeri

Aiyan Point

Bykdere Liman

lenght 30 Km

ZOOM 2 BOSPHORUS ENTRANCES

southern entrance2,8 Km

Ahrkap Feneri

Kadky nciburnu Feneri

Rumeli Feneri

Anadolu Fenerinorthen entrance3,3 Km

5 km

* Map of Distances

94


Rumeli

Yenikap



to Illichivsche

Anadolu

Kadky nciburnu


Kandll


A.kavaiR.kavai

SariyerBykdere

Yenky

stnye

Emrgan


KabataKaraky

Beylerbeyengelky

Kuzguncuk

Sirkeci

passengers

5 km

The naval transport is important in Istanbul, a

city almost completely surrounded by the sea:

Marmara Sea, Golden Horn, Bosphorus and

Black Sea. Many citizens live in the Asiatic

side of the city but go to work on the Euro-

pean side (and vice versa). The ferry lines are

used more than the two bridges that cross it.

The ancient harbour on the Golden Horn is

mostly used for private navigation, while the

Karakoy Port in Galata is used for the cruise

ships. The mercantile port is in the Asiatic part

of the city, in the neighbourhood of Harem.

The strait of Bosphorus is also characterized ZOOM 3BOSPHORUS PORTS

Rumeli

Yenikap



to Illichivsche

Anadolu

Kadky nciburnu


Kandll

Sirkeci

cargo-tankers

5 km


Rumeli

Yenikap



to Illichivsche

Anadolu

Kadky nciburnu


Kandll


A.kavaiR.kavai

SariyerBykdere

Yenky

stnye

Emrgan


KabataKaraky

Beylerbeyengelky

Kuzguncuk

Sirkeci

passengers

5 km

95

by the presence of smaller touristic ports for

private navigation.

Haydarpasa Port

is handling mainly containerized cargoes.

Karakoy Port

is the passanger port of Istanbul. It has full

facilities for passanger ships and passangers.

Sirkeci Port

is the ancient port on the Golden Horn, now

used for private navigation.

Harem Port

is used mercantile traffic.


Rumeli

Yenikap



to Illichivsche

Anadolu

Kadky nciburnu


Kandll

Sirkeci

cargo-tankers

5 km

* Map of ports and traffic LOCAL

* Map of ports and traffic GLOBAL


Rumeli

Yenikap



the liquid museaum by baravalle biscottini, 2013

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