Transition Between Transitions: The Contemporary Energy Challenges in The Traditional Mediterranean Landscape

The contribution aims to demonstrate that the contemporary energy transition is part of a wider transitional process where the landscape plays a key role. The contemporary energy transition is a challenging step of a continuous path that involves the Mediterranean landscape throughout its entire history. The Mediterranean landscape clearly bears the traces of the millennial action of man, who has always attempted to exploit the resources of often inaccessible territories as efficiently as possible. This has been the case, from the very beginning, also and perhaps mainly for energy supply. Thanks to an extensive literature review, the contribution aims to reconstruct in a synchronic way the main stages that led to the conception of the energy Mediterranean landscape as it is perceived and interpreted today. At the same time, it aims to present in a diachronic way the succession of energy transitions that have modified and constructed this landscape. The adopted method consists of synthetic historical research useful to structure a critical framework able to better orient people in interpreting – and then implementing – the contemporary energy transition. The aim of this work is therefore to structure a history of the energy landscapes in the Mediterranean context, which are an integral part of our culture. The ambition is to suggest a new perspective of the Mediterranean landscape as an object that has always been in transition – even to produce energy – and whose changes today are so urgent and necessary. This change of narratives is essential for assuring a more linear energy transition, which has an impact on the landscape, and is not only an unmanaged result, but it can also become one of the main focuses of the new architectural and landscape projects.