From tourist cities to constructed landscapes. “Preesistenze ambientali” as archaeologies of the modern

Alpine tourism, as it developed between the 1950s and the 1970s, offers a significant field of inquiry for the study of contemporary urban forms. Within this process, two distinct models emerge. The first concerns the transformation of historic settlements into tourist cities, such as Cortina d’Ampezzo, Madonna di Campiglio, or Chamonix, where growth occurs through the stratification and adaptation of existing urban fabrics. The second concerns the ex novo foundation of tourist cities, such as Avoriaz, Les Arcs, and Flaine in France, or Laax in Switzerland, conceived according to principles of integrated planning and functional autonomy. The comparison between these models makes it possible to investigate the relationship between urban continuity and discontinuity, between territorial traces and morphological innovation. This reflection is guided by Ernesto Nathan Rogers’s concept of “preesistenze ambientali”, understood as both an interpretative and design tool. For Rogers, preesistenze refer to the whole set of signs, relationships, and structures that constitute the memory of a territory, together with its historic built fabric: a form of environmental archaeology capable of orienting contemporary design. Applied to Alpine tourist landscapes, this principle reveals a dual genealogy. In historic centres, preesistenze emerge through the continuity of the urban fabric and the hybridisation between rural landscape and leisure city. In new foundations, they reside in the very geography of the site: in its topography, ground conditions, and valley settlements, which act as symbolic and morphological references. In this sense, Alpine tourism reveals the capacity of design to recognise persistence as a historical and critical dimension of the project.