The Architecture and the Value of the Waste

The text addresses the architecture of the WTE plant: the first part is dedicated to the relationship between architecture and waste, the second to the reading of some projects, in the last part conclusions are drawn and we outline the possible perspectives of change of this architectural machine. The relationship between architecture and waste draws various imaginary paths. The relationship between architecture and the trash is the reflection of the plot between the city and the minimum fragment of something useless and of the cultural role attributed to waste: to the city in use corresponds its double made of what is discarded, that in “less civilized” realties remains a resource and not a problem. In the vocabulary “WTE plant,” one of the many structures that transform and give new meaning to waste, is inherent reason of the uncanny relationship: the industrial machine, often called to coincide with the architectural building, change the unnecessary material to look into it new scraps of necessity. The nature of the container and its contents are opposed but also in the word ‘value’ lies an embarrassing contradiction: the word may tell a “soul virtues” and even “the merit or the price of everything.” Environmental issues remain in the background of this story: what burns inside of architecture produces powders, which change the air quality and the ecological parameters. They are the black shadow of this close relationship between waste and energy. The processing machinery of waste are part of a production process which implies the end of things: their umpteenth “enhancement” finally brings the total di appearance of the object, to its accommodative disappearance.