Topographies of memory. Alberto Ponis' Scalesciani house in Costa Paradiso, Sardinia

The land that covers the earth's surface reflects the transformations that have changed its appearance. Sometimes these are carried out by humans, putting their interests before the preservation of the landscape. From the 1950s onwards, the coastal areas of northern Sardinia were altered by the arrival of the European elite who were looking for a new holiday destination. To this end, tourist complexes and infrastructures were built to meet their needs, although sometimes they were conceived with a total lack of attention to the environment. Some of these complexes were designed according to a new architectural style, the smeraldino, which imported an ideal image of seaside villages in contrast to regional architecture. The Genoese architect Alberto Ponis opposed this attitude by blending into the environment in his proposals for holiday homes on the northern coast of Sardinia. The present study takes the Scalesciani house (1977) as a paradigmatic case of landscape preservation through the domestication of the steep cliff where it is embedded with a succession of platforms that follow the slope of the terrain.