Architecture and Wonder: Past and Future of the Mediterranean

Abstract

This proposal will analyse the motivations that led intellectuals of the third century B.C. to create the canon of Wonders of the World. It is emblematic that the ancient sources do not speak of the Wonders of one civilisation or another; they speak of the Wonders of the World, making this one of the first examples of interculturality in which the protagonist is Man side by side with his History. In the contemporary world, where reference is made to belong to a common reality gravitating around the Mediterranean, we look for a “global” culture made of images that can express an idea of universality. The wonders of the world could be the key to recomposing under the common denominator of a glorious past, a fragmented reality, such as the Mediterranean one.