Introduction
“The Third Landscape designates the sum of the space left
over by man to landscape evolution – to nature alone.
This can be considered as the genetic reservoir
of the planet, the space of the future”
Gilles Clément,
Manifesto of the Third Landscape
A
Third
Landscape
The Alps form both a natural and a cultural landscape, place of a diversity which is not only biological but also cultural.
Back in the 60's and 70's, a widespread wealth along with the exploits of a group of italian athletes, known as the “Italian Landslide”, set the basis for an economic development model which revealed it's unsustainability.
Ski-oriented tourism was introduced as the unique solution to the depopulation and impoverishment process that took place around the alps. This model led to the construction of hundreds of facilities, many of which, for various reasons, are nowadays abandoned.
A Third Landscape is a photo-essay on the region and on the consequences of the mono-culture of ski-tourism.
Beyond the direct journalistic value – related to the localization of these remote sites and the collection of their history – the approach and the synthesis of this research would suggest an open-mindedness between different points of view.
On one side, the idealistic views of the contemporary citizen, ri-educated to the principles of the green-economy, and, on the other side, the secularised views of the mountaineer who interacts with his environment in a natural resource-threat dynamic.
Within this confrontation Clement's vision opens a third way, full of questioning, to an understanding of the forces which shape our landscape.