'THE SASSI' The Sassi district

© Brian Macpherson

'THE SASSI'            The Sassi district

Uploaded: September 05, 2010

Description

The Sassi district is the ancient heart of the city of Matera.

The Sassi surround the Civita and constitute a city unto itself, completely carved out of the face of the calcareous rock -what is known as tufa stone. The Sassi district is a system made of dwellings carved out of the steep slopes of a deep valley with surprising and unusual features called the ‘Gravina’.
Elegant and multi-faceted buildings are interspersed with underground mazes and cave labyrinths, forming one single stunning landscape.
Over the course of the centuries, the city has changed its shape over and over again in an ongoing dialogue between rock and architecture, canyon and bell-tower, flowing into a cityscape of incomparable beauty and distinction.

This is the older unrestored section of Sasso Caveoso.

Until fifty years ago this part of the city was still populated by the poorest of the 'Materani'. During the 1950s and 1960s, fifteen thousand people were forcibly removed from the Sassi and

Exif: F Number: 9, Exposure Bias Value: 0.00, ExposureTime: 8/1000 seconds, Flash: did not fire, compulsory flash mode, FocalLength: 60.00 mm, Model: NIKON D50

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