Avezzano - prima impressione

Visit to Avezzano on 25th May 2015

My guides in Avezzano (family friends, live in the outskirts of Avezzano) taught me a lot about their city, and I was taken on a driving tour of the central town and given my first glimpse of this town and Abruzzo commune.

Avezzano was raised to the ground by an earthquake in 1915. Only one house was left standing; although the occupant was killed. The death toll was immeasurable - 30,000 fatalities, and therefore almost the entire population of Avezzano. I saw the one remaining portion of the old Basilica - a column from the facade with crumbling walls surrounding it - and this has become memorial for that devastating 'quake. My guides showed me a book which contained photos of the city prior to the quake, and the area in front of this Basilica was a large Piazza fronted by beautiful medieval buildings. Sadly, this is no longer the case anywhere in Avezzano.

The city was rebuilt after the earthquake. I was not able to ascertain why, or at least my guides were not sure - surely, if the entire population had been lost, then who was the city rebuilt for? Despite its location next to a natural mountain lake, there was no one left who needed the rebuilt city, and no one to care. Indeed, we established that the loss of the entire population meant the soul (l'anima) of the city had been lost, a long with it's stories, myths and memories. So, why rebuild? Perhaps there was some economic benefit for a town in this area, alongside what used to be the largest mountain lake in Italy. This was Lake Fucino, which was drained in the late 19th century and the remaining fields were well cultivated. However, these fertile fields have now been developed, as can be seen in the panoramic image above.

The new buildings are quite brutal and typical of the architecture of the urban sprawl that characterises most Italian cities - large housing apartments with little architectural style, fashioned in bright colours with miscellaneous of shops at ground level. It was bizarre to see this architecture in the centre of a city - usually it only starts creeping in to cities at the outskirts, leeching on the historic centres and then spreading like a disease into the considerable distance. This is the case in Avezzano, except there is not historic centre to offset the relative ugliness here, and certainly no way of turning your back on it. My guides were anxious to point out that the spatial planning of the new town did not conform to existing cities, as well as the architecture. The new Avezzano was laid out more like an American city - a regular grid of straight, parallel lines spreading between the mountains.

Even in Avezzano, they could feel the earthquake which struck L'Aquila in 2009 and many inhabitants feared there would be a recurrence of the 1915 disaster. Fortunately for Avezzano, there was only minor surface damage.