Wiring a Medieval Village for the Next Century

di Charles Swift 17.11.1998 17:00

Colletta di Castelbianco, a Small Ligurian Town, is the Latest Stop on the Information Superhighway

In 1991, a real estate group formed to buy the abandoned medieval borgo of Colletta dl Castelbinco, in a remote part of the Liguria region. The group wanted to turn the town into a unique high-tech community.
The company hired an architect, Giancarlo De Carlo, to organize the restoration, and Valerio Saggini to oversee the installation of cable and wires that would allow the village to have state of the art telecommunications hook-ups.

In 1991, a real estate group formed to buy the abandoned medieval borgo of Colletta di Castelbianco, in a remote part of the Liguria region. The group wanted to turn the town into a unique high-tech community.

The company hired an architect, Giancarlo De Carlo, to organize the restoration, and Valerio Saggini to oversee the installation of cable and wires that would allow the village to have state of the art telecommunications hook-ups. In 1993, the company, called Colletta di Castelbianco s.r.l, completed its purchase of the borgo. But the work did not get underway for another three years. The first residents moved there in 1996. But It was only In 1997 that Colletta officially rejoined the world of the living, when it opened its first bar.

Marco Revelli, a political science professor at the University of Turin, likes to get away from the city when he can. Every week; after four days ensconced in his downtown office at the university, he drives his wife and son to a picturesque village in the Ligurian countryside. But while Mr. Revelli is happy to leave behind the honking car horns and gray bustle of Turin, he still has plenty of work to do and friends and colleagues to keep up with. This is why his house in Colletta di Castelbianco bridges his two worlds.

Perched on a mountain ridge ten kilometers from the sea, ColIetta is more than just a charming medieal village. It has fiber-optic cables hidden in the rock of its ancient dwellings and a network of computer and telecommunications links that make your average city office look prehistoric. Here, the clicking of Mr. Revelli's computer mouse plays out against the snorting of wild boar in the woods.

It's this intertwining of technology and clean air, the chance to be "wired" while staying far from the madding crowd, that enticed Mr. Revelli and his wife to buy a house in Colletta.

"We want to leave the stress of the city behind, the chaos, the traffic and this rushing lifestyle, but at the same time to keep the positive side of city life, the easy contact with people and easy access to information," Mr. RevelIi said. Thanks to Colletta's own Internet node and local area computer network, Mr. Revelli can do much of his research in the leafy peace of his village refuge. From his front room he can plug into the University of Turin's database, surf the net or speak to colleagues via video telephone.

Linking Colletta, a tiny borgo which hadn't housed a soul in almost 30 years, with the information super highway was something of a challenge. Most of the cable-laying and telecommunication infrastructure was installed by Telecom Italia, which plans to finih work on all the 65 homes by next year. "What we've done here is transfer to a tiny mountain village all the latest telecommunications technology that you might find in a big company in a city," explained Telecom's Stefano Boggero,"Who has followed the project from its beginnings. A mix of fiber-optic and traditional copper cables running all over the village allows each home -even the local the bar -direct access to Internet and to an ISDN network that supports Video phone and video-conferencing services. Colletta is also wired for cable, interactive and satellite,TV.

Mr. Boggero stresses that his company has done all this without creating jarring the centuries-old pastoral harmony of the landscape. The 15 kilometers of fiber-optic cable needed to connect Colletta with die nearest town were laid underground, the cables in the Village are hidden from view and even the antenna for the cordless telephones is camouflaged so as to blend in with the gray stone.

Colletta's geographic isolation and its state of advanced neglect created unique problems for Telecom. But Mr. Boggero believes the effort will payoff. "A lot of people are watching this project and that's all good news for Telecom, which must take a lot of credit."

Another of Colletta's part-time inhabitants is Ottavio Riccadonna, a Genoa based financier who, like the last four generations of his family, makes his living from wine. He also takes his family - a wife and five children - to Colletta whenever they have a few days free together. As well as the convenient mix of peace and technology, Mr. Riccadonna. is also looking for a sense of village community.

"Everything in cities is big and impersonal and continually threatens, to drown us," he said. "We forget that there's more joy to be found in small things. I Want to sit in the village square on summer evenings, with my family and the friends I've made there. Maybe we'll put on a little show or something."

Mr. Riccadonna put up part of the capital that has gone into the Colletta project. The price tag so far is around 16 billion lire and looks likely to double that by the time everything is ready. He admits that, as an investment, it is a risk - there's no guarantee all the 65 apartments will be sold. But he says that he was more interested in creating something new and that this desire took him further than normal business sense would have. "I wanted to help" find an answer to the problems we're all suffering from - the need for space to think and to find ourselves. To do this we need to get back to some of the old values, like community. a bond with the land and taking pleasure in simple things."

But building a solid community requires a range of people, of different ages, outlooks and backgrounds. There's a danger that this refuge from the stresses of city life will draw interest from well-heeled professionals who can afford a second home. The investors 'behind the Colletta project insist that a wide variety of people have shown interest in buying a home in the city: artists, professionals, intellectuals, people with families and without.

But whatever the gamut may be, there will be at least one common denominator: money. With houses costing 3.5 million. lire per square meter (a price that rivals the real estate market in a typical medium-sized town or in a city suburb), if a community does eventually grow in Colletta it will be definitely be well off.

So far, Colletta has only one full-time resident. For the rest of the village's 15 homeowners it's a second home, if this continues, Colletta's "community" risks becoming little more than a weekend pastoral resort. That's hardly the vibrant community that Mr. Riccadonna imagined, where little things count and, neighbors look out for one another. "I must admit I'm a little apprehensive about this social aspect," he acknowledged. "I want my kid to have someone to play with."

At least for now, part-time residence is the only option. Mr. Revelli still has to meet his students in Turin every week and until the university is equipped and willing to allow tutorials via video-conferencing, that will continuee to be the case. "But in the future things may be different," Mr. Revelli mused. "All sorts of jobs are emerging in which you can be anywhere as long as you have your 'virtual' links. When this work environment takes off, Colletta will be an ideal home."

[International Herald Tribune, 18 november 1998]

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