The intervention in the Ettore and Infersa salt pans in Mammacaura, Marsala 2021
Mario Pisani
The intriguing name of Mammacaura indicates what the salt workers call the sediment produced by the process of crystallization of salt, by evaporation due to the sun’s rays on the bottom of the salt basins of the Laguna dello Stagnone. Here, in addition to cleaning the salting tanks, we proceed with levelling, replacing the calcareous material from which the soil of the tank is made in the points where it is necessary, compacting everything with a rolling. This material is called “Mamma Caura”. The Stagnone, the largest lagoon in Sicily, extends between Capo Boeo and the Birgi promontory with waters from 1 to 2 metres, in some points no more than 20-30 cm. Inside, the Islands of the Stagnone appear. It is a nature reserve, established in 1984, which was born following the movements of the sand due to underwater currents. These have caused the closure of a part of the sea and the water has become more stagnant, due to the above-normal temperature. The main activity of the area, in addition to fishing, is that of the salt pans carried out with the evaporation of the water channeled into the lakes, to then collect the salt. The pumping of the water and the grinding of the salt is due to the windmills, some of which are now restored and functioning.
To the south of the area, the Regia Aeronautica built an important military seaplane base active during the Second World War with large reinforced concrete hangars, designed by Pier Luigi Nervi and, at the time, completely innovative in the architectural panorama. In the northern part, already in 1272, there is the Tonnara di San Teodoro and you can visit the Baia dei Fenici.
The author of the project, known to our readers because some of his works have already appeared on the pages of Abitare la Terra, believes that the name Mammacaura “could reveal an unconscious psychic projection of the archetypal image of the terrible mother – a constant of the island of Sicily – which imprisons Being in a circle of immutability”. The intervention developed not only alludes to traces of the memory of what that place was in the past but, with today’s taste and sensitivity, tries to reinterpret it without any desire to distort it with completely extraneous signs. It does so by developing a square-exedra which, overlooking the sea, extends for about 1,000 square meters where the new, truly essential flooring can be seen, made with yellow calcarenite stone which alludes to a clear reference to the anthropic ecosystem of the salt pan and a dialogue with the surrounding environment.
A language modulated on essential signs also appears in the makeover of a cubic building, embellished with a bar-counter covered with three pairs of pink granite slabs and pink-crimson glossy enamel on the rounded ends in an arched plan.
Cardillo, rather than citing the opinion of critics who have dealt with his work, in the project notes reports that of Giuseppe Pipitone, the house painter who painted the enamel in the room and who, speaking of that set of refined elegance, says: “It’s like a queen inside a castle.”
