The Eni Village of Borca di Cadore (BL) was built between the tail end of the 50s and the first years of the 60s, thanks to the political and entrepreneurial ability, the ambition and the enthusiasm of Enrico Mattei.
It’s a large compound  (over 100.000 square meters), equipped with an articulate on various structure, and developed, by innovative criteria, in the great woods at the foot of Mount Antelao, that with its 3.242 meters dominates the Cadore area, and overlooks the village of Borca, some ten kilometres from Cortina D’Ampezzo.

Here a more in-depth file on the Village.

The passing of Mattei, in 1962, reduced the motivation necessary to the realization of this experiment of social utopia in environment, which was therefore only in part completed il light of the original project.

The idea at the basis of this visionary and innovative project-site, was a kind of social town-planning plant, thought up by the exuberant mind of Mattei himself, and then made true, with a great architectural quality, by Edoardo Gellner first and foremost, in collaboration with Carlo Scarpa for some of its parts.

The organic-social criteria chosen by Mattei was perfectly understood, elaborated and transferred into reality by Gellner, whom adapted it in a total way, on every level, from the urban to the architectural planning, to the tiniest details of the decor.

The main structures of the sites are the large Colonia (Eng.: summer camp building, of 30.000 square meters, the Nostra Signora del Cadore (Eng.: Our Lady of the Cadore) Church, the Permanent Tents Camping, the 280 cottages, the residence.

It’s an exceptional site, unique in Italy, in which the relationship between the strong aspects of landscape and environment merge together in an incredible way with the organic structures, which now the woods literally devours.

Since 2000, the Village is owned by the firm Minoter, with whom Dolomiti Contemporanee has begun a collaboration, on the basis on a project of cultural and functional enhancement of the settlement: in June 2014, progettoborca was launched.

 

Photos: Sergio Casagrande