Culture of excavation and sculptural geometry of the ground (2)

Sassi di Matera are able to reflect ways of building of the Mediterranean: a layer town, understandable in section more than in plan, leader of the Murgia family, analogous to subterranean towns and differently layered. The town is constructed on an intense relationship between built and hollowed and studded with rocky settlements where each time the drawing is renewed of the rocky front of the caves, through the geometric construction of the access panel. Culture of excavation and sculptural geometry of the ground are celebrated by the church/cathedral of St. Mary of the Valley with its mighty structure inside an enormous excavation showing itself through a thin wall juxtaposed to the tufa stone, traced by the succession of different geometries of portals showing the stylistic trends of the Christian architecture. These materials, so far the subject of specialist analysis of historians and restorers, are becoming a treasure for planners: today architects decide how to relate with the site, with a layer of land messed up by an intense and confused way of building; they search methods of transforming the ground with art through the teaching of artistic disciplines such as painting, photography, land-art.