Rereading the past to interpret the present. A chance for the Straits Region conserved at the IUAV project archive

Abstract

This article explores the role of the architectural archive as a repository of design memory and a tool for critical analysis, reinterpretation, and preservation of architectural and urban thought. By collecting drawings, photographs, models, and written documents, the archive reveals not only the technical and visual aspects of projects but also the underlying design process, highlighting the deep connection between representation, project development, and the transformation of urban and natural landscapes.
Drawing, understood as a key form of architectural knowledge and communication, plays a central role in interpreting the relationship between vision and design.
Supported by digital technologies, which overcome the limits of traditional analog techniques and enabling two and three dimensional modelling the representation of architecture becomes a tool for exploring the design process in greater depth. This theoretical framework is tested through the case study of the projects for the Strait of Messina, developed between 1960 and 1969 by Giuseppe and Alberto Samonà and the Sicilian Urbanists Group (GUS). Preserved at the IUAV Project Archive, these drawings represent one of the first examples in Italy of a territorial-scale design vision. Rather than offering a purely technical solution to connecting Sicily to the mainland, they imagine a “future metropolis” where the city becomes an archipelago of interconnected settlements integrated with the geography of the Strait. Through digital drawing and reinterpretation, these projects are revisited not only to retrace their original principles but also to demonstrate the potential of the archive to inform contemporary design thinking and address current urban and environmental challenges.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.20365/disegnarecon.34.2025.26