19 Dec FAI Case Montana at Giardino della Kolymbethra is now open
FAI (Fondo Ambiente Italiano) opens today Case Montana to the public at the Kolymbethra Garden: a traditional farmhouse, saved from ruin, which preserves and tells the thousand-year history of the people who have cared for and cultivated the landscape of the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento.
After a long and demanding restoration project, FAI has reopened Case Montana to visitors: a farmhouse in the Agrigento countryside, simple and modest yet precious and full of life, an irreplaceable testament to rural culture that, for centuries, has shaped this unique landscape.
Today, the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento is a regional Archaeological Park, one of the largest and most important in the Mediterranean, a site of national interest and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. More recently, it has also been recognised as a “rural landscape of historical interest” by the Ministry of Agriculture.
FAI purchased Case Montana in 2018 specifically to enhance the historic landscape of which they form a part, together with the Garden in the valley: for centuries, this is where farmers lived while cultivating the “garden”, a productive citrus grove with more than 600 trees, alongside many other species typical of the Mediterranean environment, which today make this place a true oasis of Mediterranean biodiversity.
In doing so, FAI has restored the historical unity of this agricultural estate and, at the same time, safeguarded a rare example of traditional rural architecture.
Multimedia installation by NEO [Narrative Environments Operas]