The transitional sensorium of Taranto Tamburi: navigating urban space through serial visions, sounds, and smells

Source abstract

This contribution presents a multisensorial urban pulse of the neighborhood of Tamburi in Taranto (Italy). Marked by the socio-political fallout of a large steel industry operating for decades just next to it, Tamburi is currently at the forefront of a transitional phase. In this context, the sensorial reading of the urban fabric can help in making sense of spaces suspended between the industrial past and post-industrial future. We conducted a pilot fieldwork mapping multisensorial characteristics of the district. Inspired by studies of urban ambiences, we employed a sensuous urbanism approach linking serial visions, soundwalks, and smellscape notation. By documenting this transitional phase, this work allows for the individuation of dissonance in the local urban sensorium. Notably, the multisensorial incongruency between post-industrial aural absence and industrial visual presence is introduced as a fruitful sensory departure point for a situated reading of the district.