Catastrophizing the City: Baroque Architecture and Urban Planning in Spanish Sicily, ca. 1669-1759

Through imperial expansion, Spain’s architectural presence in southern Italy created several dynamic models for other cities, on both practical and symbolic levels. Marian is studying the Spanish administrative and building practices enacted in Sicily during the sixteenth century, extending into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She will use Catania as the model for a modern city in the south as she explores the building practices active in the Val di Noto. Her project will focus on the destruction of Renaissance-era cities and their evolution into Baroque-era cities after natural disasters in the Mediterranean, and examine the building practices and modifications made to the Sicilian cityscape. This project will support the central arguments and case studies for her doctoral dissertation titled “Ruined and Rebuilt: Constructing the Ideal City after Natural Disasters.” Marian has identified specific formal elements in city planning practices that resulted from the need to both establish imperial dominance in Spanish-controlled cities and aid the community after a natural disaster, such as the central town square which provided a space for citizens to gather for shelter.

Marian’s research project focuses on the effects of natural disasters on urban planning and architecture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in southern Italy; responses to natural disasters in urban planning and building practices; and the evolution of architectural building practices and techniques. She is using the term “Earthquake Baroque” and applying it to city centers in Sicily. Additionally, Marian will be testing how the idealized plan of the eighteenth-century city is executed in conjunction with “Earthquake Baroque,” investigating how these ideals and plans are executed in the built environment.