An interesting work and a photographic contest organized by the Professor Giancarlo Pinto to rouse the due attention for the Genoese fortified complex.

This year the contest "Assalto al Forte" is dedicated to the fortresses Begato and Tenaglie; next year the contest will be dedicated to two other fortresses.

The authors:

Photographic contest Assalto al Forte
Prof Giancarlo Pinto:
Who says:
As we know, for its importance and expansion the system of the Genoese counterworks has been classified second after the Great Wall of China.
We are proud of it even if it is not properly enhanced and is a little neglected.
The complex is composed by 16 fortresses with connecting walls not ever recognizable.
The complex is divided in:

• central system with 9 fortresses: Forte Crocetta, Forte Tenaglie, Forte Begato, Forte Sperone, Forte Puin, Forte Castellaccio, Forti Fratelli Minore e Maggiore e Forte Diamante;
• eastern system with 7 fortresses: Forte Quezzi, Torre Quezzi, Forte Ratti, Forte Richelieu, Forte Santa Tecla, Forte San Martino, Forte San Giuliano.

The property recently passed from the State to the City of Genova, with an increase of stature but it caused a serious problem of management especially for the accessibility of the complex.
The dislocation follows the morphology of the territory: starting from the Forte Diamante, the most rearward as for the sea, two branches encircle the city and reach the sea.
This is the setting of the fortresses.
To attract the attention of the media on the problem and to activate positive interventions, I proposed to the City Administration and precisely to Arch. Tedeschi and to Dr. Angelini the institution of a photographic contest where the photographers should take three images of each fortress: one outside, one inside and the last one to highlight a detail.
The project of the contest intends to consider, for now, only the 8 well-known and well-preserved fortresses; and the following years other 2 fortresses will be opened so allowing the photo shoots.
The photographic project named "Assalto al Forte" was approved by the City Administration and this year the images represent the Forte Tenaglie and the Forte Begato.
Today the Tenaglie is managed by the non-profit organization "La Piuma", settled in a side of the building, which controls the whole area and is renovating the main part called the "Telegrafo".
The Forte Begato is managed by the Civil Protection and the opening to the public is occasional. The lower part is closed to public and the donjon is inaccessible and surrounded by ruins due to the vandalism which destroyed most of the structure.
The two fortresses were opened to public and the photographers could take many pictures of the exteriors and of the details.
Accompanied by the staff of the Civil Protection we entered the donjon and took various pictures, also discovering here a fox by no means frightened by our presence.
There were 16 participants at the contest, each one with 3 images.
The 48 photos, printed size 50x50 or 50x70 cm, are all high-quality images.
During the workshop the photo were showed on the walls of the Palazzo Rosso hall and the mayor Marco Doria awarded the prizes to the two first ex aequo places, Galati and Preziuso, and to the two third ex aequo places, Ascheri and Batacchi.
During June the exhibition was set in the Palazzo Tursi hall and from 3 to 29 July in the Biblioteca Berio hall. In that occasion have been exposed the posters created by the students of the course "Metodologie di Rappresentazione del Progetto" with the videos explaining the project of each student.
In my opinion there are two problems which caused the collapse of our counterworks: the lack of protection and the lack of public road links.
To my students I asked for practical and feasible proposals about the utilization of the indoor and outdoor spaces and of the whole area of each fortress.
These proposals are collected in a book which explains the reasons and tries to show the supposed ideas with photo, drawings and renderings.
The book is completed by a video illustrating the project.

For more info:
wikipedia: Forti_di_Genova
wikipedia: Forte_Tenaglia
wikipedia: Forte_Begato

Thanks to Prof. Giancarlo Pinto for the kind cooperation and to all the authors who permitted the publication.

Prof. Giancarlo Pinto, PhD
Università degli Studi di Genova
Scuola Politecnica
Dipartimento D.S.A.
Stradone S.Agostino, 37 Genova
Tel. 010-2095706 cell 347-4561933
pinto@arch.unige.it
www.polodellafotografia.org/