Cortina Inverno

Luxury,
an italian pride
Interpreting luxury currently means reading the future
of the world: in fact, the codes that bring individuals together,
those of the “Old Europe” as well as those of the Countries ready
to dominate tomorrow’s scene are the transnational codes of the
great brands and of the taste these brands help to build. There is a
lot for Italy in this future: a certainty rather than a wish.
In a world whose identitarian borders are fading away, the
research of characters with strong cultural roots and, at the
same time, projected into contemporaneity; today’s world has
become imperative for consumers and, consequently, for the
great international brands. Those lacking their own history try
to build one because people want to feel the comfort of tradition
together with the elation of novelties. Italian top-of-the-range
companies have this at home: authenticity, tradition, links with
the communities and the land, manual skills, creativity, innovation,
technologies, and an innate aesthetic taste. This is why
they are considered cultural and creative industries, as recently
acknowledged by the European Union: the introduction of a
luxury product changes the way society thinks and sees the future.
In short, culture is the main explicative factor of top-of-therange
consumption, including tourism and excellent hospitality.
Fondazione Altagamma has decided to set up a work group
dedicated to the Italian territories of excellence: the basis of the
great tradition of Italian quality where Italian companies are
carving out a place of honour in the coming world.
Armando Branchini
Secretary general of Fondazione Altagamma, Professor at
Università Bocconi in Milan and President of the European
Cultural and Creative Industries Alliance, Brussels
Self-responsibility
to face the future
My dream is a simple one: living in a “Country of Craftsmen”.
A Country that will recover its responsible vocation. It is the sense
of responsibility that makes craftsmanship so essential and metaphoric:
each success and each failure are the fruit of our hands.
It takes an event, a body, an object to be able to trace the furrow
that the artisan so naturally does and that we, perhaps, do badly:
we have delegated too much, instead of doing by ourselves. We
have left our lands to the uncontrolled builders, abandoned the
countryside, accepted models of development that were created by
economy and not by culture, imitated foreign examples extraneous
to our genetics. Like the unqualified artisan who hits a stone
with the wrong chisel, making all his efforts fruitless.
The artisan observes carefully and learns from his/her own
mistakes. His goal is to reach the nimbleness of a gesture performed
without thinking. We marvel at seeing the nimbleness of
the artisan in making very difficult things; the ironmonger, for
instance, who works a terrible material that resists him and the
joiner who has the right tool for the perfect chip. Seemingly we
could embrace hypotheses of tolerance and attention, against
prejudice and anger. The calm of the potter, the concentration of
an aware, competent, and attentive citizen.
This is my dream: a Nation very rich in artisans, and not
only in the metaphorical sense. We need competent individuals,
who are responsible for their mistakes, including the intellectuals.
Marcello Fois for Una Montagna di Libri
20
priMo piano
We,
rocks of Nature
A great Indian chief Seattle used to
say: «The Land does not belong to Man; it
is Man who belongs to the Land».
Rocks, soil, fossils, and minerals have
their own lives, which live with enormously
lengthened rhythms if compared to ours.
We live too fast to be aware of the mineral
life. Accepting that rocks have their own life
means accepting the inanimate world as
worthy of our moral consideration.
Man has always used the rock for his
scopes. Are we violating its rights when we
square it in blocks, when we build walls, or
when we shape a statue? We certainly are,
when we sell it in huge quantities to Countries,
which are more respectful of their land.
We presume that the mineral kingdom
wants to remain mineral, but at the same
time we consider it less than cannon fodder.
Yet, the rebirth of the rock is postponed to
the next geologic revolution...
Besides Man’s aggressions to the inanimate
world, there are the small daily
Recovering the Ethics of Beauty
aggressions: our indifference for a life that
is different from ours. Thoughtlessly and
superficially we remove pieces of rock, better
if economically worth. In so doing, a
common good is privatized and degraded
to spoils. Storing thousand-year old concretions
means destroying a marvel of nature
for ever and denying others the right to
enjoy that beauty. Why throw stones? Why
modify an order or alter potential energies?
Why break rocks to look for crystal gems?
The right to conquer our small personal
pleasures becomes superfluous when we
come to realize that we can live peacefully
only in communion with Nature: pure observation
will be the catalyst of our expressive
potentialities, while hikes, climbs and
adventures will be their precious container.
Alessandro Gogna
Alpinism Historian of international
fame, was the official opinion leader of
CortinainCroda fourth edition
Dreams are the metaphysical place of imagination. Any project or innovative process
are blind unless they are supported by the procreative strength of imagination which feeds
on the irrational disorientation of dreams. In the future, cognitive science will explain more
thoroughly the biological bases of our behaviour and may even tell us what our dreams are
made of. Here, however, we like to think that our behaviours, our projects, and our idea of future
share a common procreative core in dreaming or daydreaming, imagining, and desiring.
The Beatles have helped us to imagine and dream free and I believe that the lyrics of
Imagine by John Lennon are still one of the best ways of looking at our future.
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
And the world will be... It might seem strange but if the past is irremediably gone by
and the present is elusive, future is the site of the concrete. The future is also a social place,
because it is in relationships that we build the future. On this basis, what dream can we cherish
to imagine a good future? What dream can we share? I believe that the most desirable
dream for us all is the idea of the beautiful in all its manifold meanings. Shape, balance, and
rationality. Or good, friendly, amiable, but also pure, healthy. Fair. The beautiful as the
criterion to illuminate the responsibility we undertake to invent the future development of
our communities and our territories.
With the future in mind, the sustainable development should be considered as a beautiful
development, focussed not on the individual but on his/her relationships with the others.
A beautiful development for the landscape, with the commitment to preserve the natural
balance of the ecosystems and their rich biodiversity. Beautiful because able to preserve the
transformation and the traditional uses of the lands. Beautiful also for the economy — and
tourism — or for those who devote themselves to grasp the relationships between culture and
society. For everyone, an inclusive, responsible and lasting idea of future. A nice dreaming,
with eyes shut or wide open. In the morning, all of them, all of us, will immediately know
where to put our hands.
Michele Lanziger, Director of MuSe, the Science Museum in Trento