Matera’s ‘sassi’, a World Heritage site since 1993
National treasure
Matera’s designation as 2019 European Capital of Culture will bring the southern Italian city a long- overdue increase in visitors, Gary Noakes reports
I
t was once a diseased, poverty- stricken southern town where many inhabitants lived in caves, but such is the transformation of Matera that next year sees it become a European Capital of Culture.
One glance at a photo tells you that Matera, 37 miles from the main entry point of Bari and today a city of 60,000 inhabitants, is already a must-see destination in Italy’s deep south. Matera’s cathedral spire tops a limestone hill pockmarked with grottoes in which families once lived side by side with their animals. These dwellings were part of a traditional way of life that extends back 7,000 years – proof of this being the original Neolithic caves on the other side of a nearby ravine. The more modern cave settlement was the subject of a slum clearance programme in the 1950s, with the inhabitants decanted to housing developments on the adjoining plateau. Today, many of the vacated ‘sassi’, as the dwellings are known, are quirky rock churches, hotels, bars and restaurants in a city that was recognised as a Unesco World Heritage site in 1993.
58 wtm insights autumn 2018
Gaining European Capital of Culture 2019 status – a designation shared with Bulgaria’s Plovdiv – is the next springboard for Matera. Planning, which began in 2014, had among its aims the intention to strengthen Matera’s ‘position of leadership’ within Italy’s deep south and Europe itself.
In its bid document, officials behind
the programme admit: “Matera’s relationship with the modern world could be described as conflicting; more than 20 years after the City of the Stones was made a Unesco World Heritage Site – which was at one time considered a ‘national disgrace’ – the city is still trying to come to terms with its physical identity.”
That physical identity will hopefully see a seismic change after 2019. The opening ceremony on January 19 will see almost 150 marching bands from across Italy and Europe perform in Matera’s streets, while the closing event on December 20 will have a UK connection in that Longplayer, the 1,000-year long musical composition that began broadcasting in London’s Docklands in 1999, will be installed
wtm.com
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