Edoardo Gellner and the village of Corte di Cadore

This paper views to describe the Villaggio Eni, located in Borca di Cadore and designed by Edoardo Gellner in the 50's, as one of the most important examples of mountain architecture, and a unique case study about concurrent designing of the buildings - especially the Colony - and the community hosted in them, from the master plan to details. The Children camp is considered a summary of the architect's entire work. Many ideas about the use of wood, stone - materials belonging to the local traditional technique of construction - and cast-in-place or precast concrete are carried out in the children's camp. In particular, different concrete formworks were used to obtain different patterns and textures. and the use of modular precast concrete led to multi-scale shapes and numerous combination options. These solutions aimed at blending in of the artificial elements with nature into an unspoilt environment. Starting from these premises, the aim is to analyse the planning, technical and formal decisions made in the Children camp in relation to the post Second World-War debates on prefabrication - especially regarding the INA-CASA house building - and the new language for alpine architecture.