Looking at the Vineyard

If we take as reference the ELC (2000) landscape definition as an area perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human fasctors, the local identity depends on the this area perception in the collective imagination. As a result before making a public action that modifies a skyline, a waterfront or riverfront the activity increasing public awareness is necessary in the presentation and choice (only in the case of design contests) the project, so that the object belongs to the people even before the creation. In this sense, along with a analysis and resulting evaluations context-dependent, the visual- perceptive studies, own landscape architecture ', are a useful method to proceed. An interesting clue as to adapt to the contemporary is the study carried out by a Lynch’s team (1973) to safeguard the main visual glimpses of Vineyard island threatened by a massive tourism development. The study has identified a number of sites considered extraordinary by the Vineyard’s people for the unique and deeply meaningful visuals. A similar type of study should be the starting point to avoid or correct those contemporary interventions considered negative as the new barriers at the mouth of the river Magra, or the in Buren’s portals in the discussed Piazza Verdi in La Spezia. The first case is a functional action, to avoid the flooding of the river in inhabited areas, however the second is an aesthetic intervention, which interrupted important existing or potential visual.