Coexistence of marginality in tourism and seaside dynamics: the case of the coppola-pinetamare village on the campania coast

This paper explores the themes of exclusion and the perception of marginalized spaces, with an emphasis on the so-called discarded landscapes, territories fragmented and devalued by economic, social, and environmental processes. At the heart of the thesis lies a critical and design-driven investigation of these spaces, where the concept of non-lieux is applied and further examined. Villaggio Coppola-Pinetamare represents a paradigmatic case within the fragmented coastal landscape of Campania, shaped by intense infrastructural, residential and industrial pressures. Conceived in the late 1960s as a modern reinterpretation of the garden city model, the settlement was designed to offer to the region's upper-middle class a coastal enclave intended to remain active throughout the year, characterized by abundant greenery, a strong sense of security, and advanced amenities. However, the 1980 Irpinia earthquake marked a dramatic rupture in this trajectory. The subsequent state expropriation of residential and hotel units to house displaced populations catalyzed a rapid socioeconomic decline. House values collapsed, investments and residents disappeared and in a short time the site quickly devolved into a state of abandonment and degradation in the hands of organized crime. Today, this site suffers from a state of profound marginalization, manifesting as both a spatial and temporal rupture within the landscape: what was initially imagined as a protected utopia soon became a dystopian enclave. Through a multidisciplinary lens, the study culminates in revealing the site's latent potential, repositioning it not as a relic of past failure, but as a catalyst for urban reactivation. By engaging with its material and landscape traces, symbolic stratifications, and socio-spatial dynamics, the investigation reclaims the site's peripheral condition as a space of opportunity. What was dismissed as marginal and obsolete is reconsidered as a locus of meaning, where the discarded is reinvested/ re-empowered with value, and the notion of redemption becomes a generative force for reintegration into the contemporary urban imagination.