Riforma agraria e Regioni. Il lavoro di Nallo Mazzocchi Alemanni fra campagna e città, Matera1947-1955

Between the second half of the 40s and the first half of the 50s, the Lucanian region hosted a lively interdisciplinary debate. The complex and contradictory experience which took place in Lucania was one of the most interesting interpretations of the idea of regional planning in Europe. Against this background, the city of Matera played a key role. In 1948, only few years after the publication of Levi’s Christ stopped at Eboli (1945), the European Recovery Program entrusted the Italian engineer Nallo Mazzocchi Alemanni with a project for the rehabilitation of an old cave neighborhood in Matera. In the same years, the Bradano Valley Authority launched two large-scale land reclamation schemes, both prepared by Mazzocchi Alemanni. He inscribed the city of Matera in a broader regional framework, facing with the condition of scarcity that featured the Lucanian towns for centuries with a strategic design which combined physical planning with socioeconomic management.