Medieval wooden architecture is an incredible still undervalued source of technical and aesthetic solutions, but above all, it remains the best lesson ever in terms of relationship with the Nature and the Divine.
Thomas Allocca
Winnili Project
FOR THE REGENERATION OF THE HISTORIC VILLAGES UNDER DEPOPULATION OF THE CILENTO NATIONAL PARK
Facing the drastically growing phenomenon of the depopulation of thousands of towns in Europe, most of them with a very rich medieval history, White Oak Arkitecture has developed the Winnili Project as an experimental model, not only against depopulation, but at the same time capable of creating cultural and economic regeneration, improving territorial resilience. Starting from Italy, the Winnili Project has chosen the Cilento National Park as the first study and application area.
The project started on July 2023, and its model has created results of territorial response with promising prospects since the first months, from both sides, public and private sectors, making possible already in December, the Winnili Compact, the feasibility study for establishing the Winnili Medieval Museum, the request by private international investors to create the Winnili International Fund for archaeological research and real estate investments, and the request by private local investors to create a luxury circuit of Winnili Resorts.
The Winnili project is based on the belief that the most effective solution against depopulation and ghost towns, is to promote and create perpetual self-regenerative resilience as growing prosperity, durable wellness (DW), possible only when economic investments (EI) are generated by cultural and territorial identification (CTI), stimulated by parallel (with same timing) and systemic (interconnected) public and private development projects (SDP), where the main actors are academic tourism (AT), not-residents' high-end real-estate investments (NRI), selective urban regeneration (SUR).
In a schematic way, the disequation of the Winnili project is DW > (CTI + EI) > (SDP = AT + NRI + SUR).
In other words, investments without identification with the territory, never bring durable richness, they just move money for a while, and most of times they leave the territory with more damage and speculation than before. Depopulation is not the result of people go away, but of a lost identity and a consequent economic power that is uncapable to bring systemic richness, prosperity, better quality of life.
Territorial resilience, in terms of perpetual prosperity and not simply in terms of capability of surviving, is exponentially affected by the investments on cultural identity and its preservation in systemic relationship with the economic investments. If the two are separate, they do not work, neither culture, nor money. The Winnili project is based on a model of integration of the two, inspired by the Faro Convention by the Council of Europe.
Winnili Medieval Museum
The Winnili Medieval Museum project is inspired by the principles and aims of the United Nations Global Compact, and the Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (Faro Convention).
The Winnili Medieval Museum (WMM) is a museum and research center project, by White Oak Arkitecture, that aims to be focused on medieval wooden architecture. The name "winnili" refers to the ancient name for the Longobards, whose wooden architecture was the first research to bring to the idea of a museum project. The project will be funded by private international investors.
July 2023 The Winnili project started in July 2023 as a private research by White Oak Arkitecture, on the medieval settlement of the ghost village Roscigno Vecchia, in the heart of the Cilento National Park, in southern Italy, province of Salerno. The project borns with the aim to assist the Pro Loco in promoting the ghost village as an open-air Museum Town. After four weeks of site inspections, structural and urban surveys, it is clear that Roscigno Vecchia was already a longobard fortified village no later the VIII century, differently to the theory by historians that it was an anonymous rural village until the XV century. The suspicion that the early medieval history of the towns all around the study area was undervalued, and we extend the research to more towns.
August 2023 The research continues at the close ghost village Sacco Vecchia, where we survey and study the stone ruins of a supposed early medieval monastery, that we suppose was related to the early medieval history of Roscigno Vecchia. We discover amazing coincidence of shape, size, geometrical ratio and urban position, making possible to add new theories on the origin and development of the Longobard village of Roscigno Vecchia.
September 2023 We define the exact development of the walls, the gates, the monastery, the well and the main square. Studying some documents from the medieval archive of the Abbey of Montecassino (Italy), we have clear that both Roscigno Vecchia and Sacco Vecchia got their names from Longobard gastalds of the duchy of Benevento.
December 2023 The Winnili project evolves into a territorial museum project. We create the Winnili Compact, soon accepted and signed by the Pro Loco Roscigno Vecchia, and the towns Roscigno, Corleto Monforte, Sacco, Bellosguardo, Sant'Angelo a Fasanella. The study area is defined around Monte Pruno, considered as the origin of the longobard castling of the whole area between Monti Alburni and Vallo di Diano.
January 2024 White Oak Arkitecture and Pro Loco Roscigno Vecchia meet with the Director of the Cilento National Park and the Director of the Archaeology Division at the Superintendence of Salerno. Informed of the project, the theories and the discoveries, the Park and the Superintendence guarantee their institutional support to any museum project, precising that the study area is very poor in early medieval archeological research, and the Winnili project could help not only tourism but also academic research.
February 2024 The research continues, and new historical and architectural evidences make possible more precise theories and dates. Roscigno Vecchia, Sacco Vecchia, and Corleto Monforte, were longobard fortified centers between years 650-750, starting as wooden fortified settlements, and later dominated by stone architecture. But more ancient was the longobard settlement on top of Monte Pruno, the first one of the whole area of study, no later than year 600, with wooden palisades, towers, houses, and a necropolis. If found, and we have a theory also about the locations, they could give priceless information about the latest examples of the most original Longobard's architecture, which was wood-based, before they started to build also with stones and bricks, learning from the greek and roman architecture that they found in Italy.
March 2024 The theory finds the enthusiasm of the Mayor of Corleto Monforte, the leading town of the Winnili Compact, and administrative territory of Monte Pruno. Just a few weeks earlier, about fifty medieval documents had been found at the town archive, perfectly preserved into a paper box, and the idea of a medieval museum in Corleto Monforte appears perfect, at the right time. The town offers to White Oak Arkitecture to establish the Winnili Medieval Museum in the town of Corleto, providing the lands to build an open-air medieval museum in real scale as in the plans of the Winnili project.
April-July 2024 White Oak Arkitecture will develop a research project looking for the early medieval settlement of Corleto Monforte, including urban and architectural survey in the oldest part of the town. At the same time, we will develop the feasibility project for an open-air museum and research center with the reproduction in real scale of a longobard wooden fortified settlement, in Corleto Monforte, beside Monte Pruno, the longobard heart of Cilento National Park.
Longobards' Etnogenesis
The Longobards were people from the island "Scadanan" (Scandinavia), known as "Winnili", later named "Langobardi" by the god "Godan" (Wotan, Odin) [anonymous (690), Origo Gentis Langobardorum, chapter 1]. The same origin is reported by Paulus Diaconus, referring to them as "Winili" from "Scadinavia" [Paul Warnefried (789), Historia Langobardorum, book 1, chapter 1].
The Vikings' Langhus
Viking architecture was mainly a wood-based building technology, needing very effective solutions to resits to the extreme climate and geological conditions of the Northern lands. Polar winds and snow storms, rain, ice and fire, earthquakes, have been the natural forces against which Viking architecture needed to fight, and it won. Without any doubt Viking longhouses have been one of the most amazing pages of the world wooden architecture history. Light and quick to build-up and to dismantle, for quick moving or expansions, easy to repair, highly resistant to loads, but at the same time extremely flexible, warm without mechanical systems even at polar latitudes, the langhus will be the main archetype of research of the Winnili Medieval Museum. The seismic resistance of scandinavian medieval wooden architecture was possible through structural solutions that the more were stressed under loads and external forces, the more the joints become tight. Structures were capable to dance with the earthquakes. The thermic resistance of the langhus was based on differenciated transmittance, reducing the indoor humidity even living at very wet lands.
Articles
Thomas Allocca (26 March 2024), Winnili Medieval Museum, ArcheoMedia magazine of archaeology, online 26 March 2024 at www.archeomedia.net, then as digital magazine issn 1828-0005, year XIX, n. 7, 1 April 2024, publisher Mediares, Torino, Italia
Thomas Allocca (2024 April 03), White Oak Arkitecture alla ricerca degli insediamenti fortificati in legno longobardi nel Parco Nazionale del Cilento, ArcheoMedia magazine of archaeology, online 3 April 2024 at www.archeomedia.net, then as digital magazine issn 1828-0005, year XIX, n. 8, 16 April 2024, publisher Mediares, Torino, Italia