IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca Lucca, Italy Events and temporary uses in the historic urban landscape: Lucca Comics & Games between localized interactions and a worlding project ecology. PhD Program in Analysis and Management of Cultural Heritage XXXth Cycle By Dania Marzo 2018 The dissertation of Dania Marzo is approved. Program Coordinator: Prof. Emanuele Pellegrini, IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca Advisor: Dr. Linda Bertelli, IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca Co-Advisor: Prof. Oliver Ibert, IRS, Leibniz-Institut für Raumbezogene Sozialforschung, Erkner (Berlin) The dissertation of Dania Marzo has been reviewed by: Prof. Martin Müller, Université de Lausanne Prof. Leonardo Chiesi, Scuola di Architettura, Università di Firenze IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca 2018 Table of contents Vita vii Relevant publications, presentations and projects x Abstract xi Introduction 1 Presentation and aims 1 Research questions and main contributions 4 Chapters’ disposition 5 1. Events, ‘in-between’ use and temporary use 8 Events as boundary crossing research objects 8 Working definitions 11 Temporary organizations and Field Configuring Events 18 Project ecologies and temporary proximities 21 Urban spaces and temporary use: from informal practices to institutionalized policies 22 2. Urban landscapes between Heritagisation and Festivalisation 26 Short term, long term and cyclical interactions 26 Festivalisation 31 Heritagisation and sustainable preservation: a founding paradox 34 Urban heritage as a processual landscape 39 3. Research design and methodology 42 Case study selection: why study a Comic & Games convention? 42 Used methods and combination 45 Data collection and analysis 50 4. The project ecology of comic events: notes on a geography of the comics 54 A “spatial medium par excellence” 54 From the ‘bullpen model’ to a dispersed system: emergence of the comic book convention in North America 60 The first European “Comic Salons”: institutionalizing the comic medium. 65 Japanese manga and doujinshi culture 70 Mapping the comics: a netnography of a “worlding” phenomenon 76 v 5. Lucca Comics & Games: spatial interactions between a historic city centre and a temporary event 87 The city as a stage: the historic centre of Lucca 87 From Salone Internazionale dei Comics to Lucca Comics & Games: 50 years of ‘temporary presence’ 92 Towards an “urban phenomenon” 102 Relations between the festivalized city and its stable landscape: spaces of permanence and heritage preservation. 117 6. Lucca Comics & Games: socio-material interactions in the practice of the temporary shops 124 Space, artefacts and social processes 124 Temporary retail models: a growing trend 127 Temporary shops during Lucca Comics & Games 128 Development of spatial and social patterns 132 Temporary shops as a temporary organization with social and spatial impact 145 Conclusions 152 Findings and contributions of the thesis 152 Limitations of the research and critical issues 156 Future research 156 Appendices 159 Appendix 1: Database of comics and games event 159 Appendix 2: Temporary shops’ questionnaire: format and sample of answers 186 References 205 vi Acknowledgments First and foremost I wish to thank the LYNX research unit at IMT Lucca for accepting me in the PhD program and providing a stimulating research environment, which allowed me to expand my previous knowledge with interdisciplinary explorations. In particular, I warmly thank my advisor Dr. Linda Bertelli for supporting me in these explorations with patient and meticulous revisions and for her critical guidance in the approach to visual studies. I am also deeply indebted to Dr. Yesim Tonga Uriarte and to Prof. Maria Luisa Catoni for inspiring me in the choice of the case study for the present research, for sharing with me precious insights and materials from the project on “Direct & Indirect Impacts of Lucca Comics & Games” and to actively collaborate in the “embedded” case study on the temporary shops, presented in Chapter 6. I also thank the Lucca Comics & Games organizing team for sharing archival material and for allowing me to freely access the event’s area during the fieldwork. Also, my thank goes to the SUAP Office in Comune di Lucca, for kindly allowing me to access the database on the commercial activities and for answering to my questions on the administrative procedures for the temporary use of public and private spaces in the city. I am especially grateful to the Leibniz-Institut für Raumbezogene Sozialforschung in Erkner for hosting me during my research traineeship and for renewing my motivation in the research with the inspiring participation to the IRS Spring Academy “Investigating Space(s): Current Theoretical and Methodological Approaches. Temporality and Procedurality”. In particular, I thank Prof. Oliver Ibert for providing me with this opportunity and for his thoroughness in guiding me during the research as a co-advisor. I also would like to thank Prof. Robert DeFillippi for his advice and his kind support to my research. His seminar at IMT Lucca on “Temporary organizing” represented for me a precious opportunity to expand my knowledge in a still unexplored field. I am likewise grateful to Prof. Jörg Sydow and Prof. Elke Schüßler for inviting me to the workshop on Field Configuring Events at Johannes Kepler Unversity Linz, organized by the Research Unit "Organized Creativity" at Freie Univerität Berlin: it represented an occasion of inspiration and guidance in structuring my research. vii Furthermore, I am grateful to the external referees, Prof. Martin Müller and Prof. Leonardo Chiesi for their thorough comments on my work, which I was then able to re-examine and improve. Last, but not least, I would like to thank the whole IMT faculty and visiting professors, the administrative staff at the PhD Office, the invaluable support of the IMT Library staff and, most of all, the colleagues that accompanied me along the PhD track: without the daily exchange of opinions and the debates that I shared with Hanin, Lorenzo, Gemma, Maria Emanuela, Kathleen and Daria I would have missed the richest and most thought-provoking side of the research. viii Vita June 1, 1983 Born, Bologna, Italy Master Degree in Architecture (Laurea in Architettura) 2002-2008 Università degli Studi di Firenze, Facoltà di Architettura Inscription in the register of Ordine degli Architetti, 2009 Pianificatori, Paesaggisti e Conservatori, Provincia di Firenze Ph.D. Candidate in Analysis and Management of the 2014 - 2018 Cultural Heritage IMT - School for Advanced Studies, Lucca Guest researcher at IRS Leibniz Institute for Research 2017 on Society and Space, Erkner (Berlin), department: Dynamics of Economic Spaces ix Relevant publications, presentations and projects Marzo, D., Tonga Uriarte, Y. and Catoni, M. L. Spatial and sociomaterial interaction between an organized event and related informal practices: the case of temporary shops at Lucca Comics & Games. In: 33rd EGOS Colloquium, July 6-8, 2017, Copenhagen (Conference paper - unpublished). Marzo, D. Temporary geographies and urban interactions in cultural and commercial events: the case of comic festivals. May 9, 2017 IRS Seminar. Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space, Erkner — Berlin (unpublished). Young Architects Program 2016 at MAXXI Museum (Roma), project for a temporary public space: “Eraclito — everything flows” (with: de Gayardon Bureau) Projects presentation and roundtable “Il (buon) senso del rifare: Riuso e rigenerazione urbana a vantaggio del territorio, delle comunità e dell’economia - SeDici Architettura 2016” Ravenna, Palazzo Rasponi March 17 2016 (with: de Gayardon Bureau). x Abstract This research addresses the space-based and multi-layered interactions between a festival, its hosting city, and the communities of “stable” and “temporary” inhabitants. The analysed case, Lucca Comics and Games, is currently the largest European gathering dedicated to fantasy culture in terms of the attendance. It takes place since 1966 in the Tuscan town of Lucca, a historically preserved and ‘atmospherically’ qualified urban landscape. The investigation of the relations between the event and this particular setting moves from an exploration of multiple temporalities; short- term, long-term and cyclical interactions are analysed in the framework of a processual understanding of the city landscape. In this context, the attempt to preserve the historic elements as “stable” urban structures coexists with the introduction of temporary but cyclical changes, which challenge the very notions of “integrity” and “authenticity” of heritage sites. The case study is situated within the world-spread geography of comic conventions: a complex project ecology in which the interaction among the participants operates both at a distance and through moments of temporary co-presence, represented by the events themselves. The research is structured as a qualitative and empirical investigation on an emergent social, economic and spatial practice. In order to cover these multiple dimensions of the phenomenon, it takes advantage of a combination of methods: direct observation, bibliographic and archival research, media coverage, semi structured interviews and structured questionnaires were adopted during a long observation phase. The main contributions of the research lie on the one side in the multi- layered and concept-based approach to the “event”, investigated as a point of dialogue between diverse disciplines; moreover, the thesis contributes in opening the