A white concrete shroud over the ruins of a town destroyed by the earthquake
On the night of 15 January 1968 an earthquake destroyed the towns of the Belice valley, in western Sicily. Gibellina was razed to the ground and rebuilt twenty kilometres away as Gibellina Nuova, where the mayor Ludovico Corrao invited great artists and architects to create an open-air museum of contemporary art, with works by Pietro Consagra, Arnaldo Pomodoro and many others.
On the site of the old town, the artist Alberto Burri created between 1984 and 2015 the Cretto, one of the largest works of land art in the world: the ruins were gathered and covered with white concrete, following the plan of the old streets, which became deep cracks you can walk through. Seen from above or from the hillside, it looks like an immense cracked shroud laid over the memory of the town.
Tip: walk inside the Cretto at sunset, when the white concrete turns golden; Gibellina was Italy's Capital of Contemporary Art in 2026.
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