Coexistence of Marginality in Tourism and Seaside Dynamics:

The case of the Coppola-Pinetamare Village on the Campania coast

This paper explores the themes of exclusion and the perception of marginalized spaces, with an emphasis on the so-called discarded landscapes, territories fragmented and devalued by economic, social, and environmental processes. At the heart of the thesis lies a critical and design-driven investigation of these spaces, where the concept of non-lieux is applied and further examined.

Villaggio Coppola-Pinetamare represents a paradigmatic case within the fragmented coastal landscape of Campania, shaped by intense infrastructural, residential and industrial pressures. Conceived in the late 1960s as a modern reinterpretation of the garden city model, the settlement was designed to offer to the region's upper-middle class a coastal enclave intended to remain active throughout the year, characterized by abundant greenery, a strong sense of security, and advanced amenities.

However, the 1980 Irpinia earthquake marked a dramatic rupture in this trajectory. The subsequent state expropriation of residential and hotel units to house displaced populations catalyzed a rapid socioeconomic decline. House values collapsed, investments and residents disappeared and in a short time the site quickly devolved into a state of abandonment and degradation in the hands of organized crime.

Today, this site suffers from a state of profound marginalization, manifesting as both a spatial and temporal rupture within the landscape: what was initially imagined as a protected utopia soon became a dystopian enclave. Through a multidisciplinary lens, the study culminates in revealing the site's latent potential, repositioning it not as a relic of past failure, but as a catalyst for urban reactivation. By engaging with its material and landscape traces, symbolic stratifications, and socio-spatial dynamics, the investigation reclaims the site's peripheral condition as a space of opportunity. What was dismissed as marginal and obsolete is reconsidered as a locus of meaning, where the discarded is reinvested/ re-empowered with value, and the notion of redemption becomes a generative force for reintegration into the contemporary urban imagination.

If a place can define itself as identitary, relational, historical (anthropological place), a space that cannot define itself as either identitary or relational or historical will define a non-place¹.

The Italian landscape, a palimpsest of heterogeneous beauty and characteristics, inevitably invites a comparison between absolute beauty, represented by nature reserves, parks, historic buildings and natural areas of great value, and places of degradation, abandoned or reduced to wreckage. The European Landscape Convention (ELC 2000)² states that the term landscape is not only limited to areas of outstanding value but also includes those that are part of everyday life, encompassing all degrees of anthropization and including degraded territories³. The latter, despite their state of decay, are included in the concept of heritage, recognizing also in them a historical and cultural relevance to be communicated and preserved.

Degraded waste landscapes are contexts that, as a result of rapid changes and urban expansions, have undergone processes of fragmentation and disintegration of territorial structures. These environments have experienced prolonged periods of abandonment, degradation of physical and functional characteristics, loss of ecosystem efficiency, becoming the object of phenomena of exclusion, disuse, disorder, poor accessibility and multiple problems linked to social rejection⁴. These are complex contexts, very widespread in rural areas close to large centers, in the peripheries of urbanized territories where ancient balances between anthropic and natural elements have been altered (fig. 1).

Massimo De Angelis and Marco Armiero, in 2017, spoke of the Westocene, defining this era as the as one of waste, in which anthropogenic actions produce not only discarded spaces, but also marginalized figures and social dynamics. These places, symbolizing the abandonment of traditional urban models, are characterized by blurred boundaries, uncertain temporalities and rituals that no longer conform to established paradigms⁵. Such areas include highland areas, former ports or industrial areas, disused or abandoned archaeological areas, bordering river stretches or hydrographic relicts, places of the unfinished, agricultural contexts fragmented by infrastructure networks, abandoned quarries, and small interstitial areas.

This article takes its starting point from this reality, examining it through the lenses of Identity and Genericity of the contemporary city, with particular reference to the uncontrolled expansion of the metropolitan area of Naples towards the Domitian plain and the neighboring rural areas. The focus is therefore on the outermost strip of the urban core's sphere, and thus on the identitary point⁶ of the city itself, to read a suspended place, forced into a state of terrible stillness, poised between the possibility of self-destruction and renewal.

The theoretical framework of reference on the study of the potential of residues is rich, heterogeneous and multidisciplinary: friches, non-lieu, Wasteland, Tiers paysage, No-man's land, espaces délaissés, and similar definitions, all converge in understanding an urban dimension in transformation, in which rejection and abandonment open up new possibilities for reinterpreting the landscape. Ignasi de Solà Morales’ concept of terrain vague refers to this tendency, evoking the notion of emptiness and waiting, suspended places, lacking definition⁷. Alongside this vision, the concept of drosscape proposed by Alan M. Berger broadens the reflection, identifying residual landscapes as natural components of a continuously expanding city⁸ (fig. 2). 

If one stops looking at the landscape as the object of human activity, one immediately discovers [...] a quantity of undecided spaces, devoid of function on which it is difficult to place a name. This whole belongs neither to the territory of shadow nor to that of light. It lies at the margins⁹.

The contribution of Gilles Clément is central to the reinterpretation of marginal landscapes. Through his analysis of the transitional zone, along roads, railway lines, and urban peripheries, Clément introduces the concept of the Tiers Paysage: a category of residual spaces traditionally deemed valueless or neglected. Yet, it is precisely these spaces that Clément identifies as reservoirs of biodiversity and ecological richness. Rather than dismissing marginal areas as degraded or depleted, he repositions them as environments in latent balance, spaces that, if properly understood and managed, hold the potential to sustain and regenerate the landscape.

The concept of the margin has long been associated with the idea of border, but contemporary theoretical discourse, particularly within the field of the Border Studies in dialogue with postcolonial, decolonial, and gender studies, has significantly expanded its meaning. The theme of the border thus becomes crucial in the reflection, as what may seem a passive element actually has an active influence on the urban context and the surrounding landscape¹⁰.

No longer understood as a static line of separation or a discrete object, the margin is now conceived as a dynamic assemblage of material and symbolic elements that generate complex social phenomena. Within this framework, Bell Hooks' Center/Margin Theory¹¹ offers a critical lens through which marginality is conceptualized geometrically, defined by difference and separation within social and communal structures. 

In this perspective, the margin is not merely a site of exclusion, but a critical space from which new visions, narratives, and practices of resistance may emerge.

Therefore, the concept of marginality is intrinsically polysemous, relational and vague¹², its lines of demarcation often difficult to trace, precisely because the margin/boundary only exists and acquires meaning in relation to the dominant position defined as the center¹³. Marginality is not a static place of separation, but a field of interaction and negotiation, where the boundaries between what is considered central and what is peripheral are continuously redefined.

Within these marginal places, characterized by blurred boundaries and various forms of marginality, it is possible to identify a heterotopic essence in the Foucaultian. These heterotopic spaces disrupt normative spatial and social orders by transcending traditional syntaxes and challenging dominant discourses; they cannot be rigidly conceived as discrete objects or metaphorically as simple lines. On the contrary, they represent a complex assemblage of material and immaterial elements, generating intricate social phenomena. They embody the heterotopic essence precisely in their capacity to host and juxtapose within themselves different realities that, under ordinary conditions, would be mutually incompatible¹⁴. 

Villagio Coppola-Pinetamare represents the emblem of a marginality curve that has turned, or rather, revealed itself to be a circle in which the beginning and the end coincide at a point of apparent no return. Its reading brings out stories of reception and exclusion, immigration and abusiveness, demolition and resilience; frozen stories, suspended between phenomena of retraction and advancement, adaptation and reinvention, dystopian scenarios, ambiguous in a present seemingly stretched to infinity.

Initially conceived as a separate entity, distinct and superior with respect to the metropolitan city of Naples, the village has ended up falling into a condition of exclusion, finding itself in a context that appears totally alien to its very nature. These two shades of isolation that define a single destiny of uncertainty. It is therefore possible to read a cyclical nature in the genesis of this ambivalent place. Initially conceived as protected and isolated by its fences, it has in turn become a place of isolation and exclusion, as it is barred to the poorest segment of the population and accessible only to a privileged minority. In the present, this place is relegated to a condition of marginalization, it appears as both a physical and temporal fracture in the landscape, like the archaeological ruins of Liternum not far away, which share the same fate of marginality and degradation. From both sites emerge traces of past temporalities and ancient splendors as well as signs of degradation and denied present relationships, waiting to be stitched up by new scenarios and possibilities.

The northern coast of Campania is an example of the territorial dynamics generated by the seaside tourism of the 1960s economic boom, a period marked by the intensification of subdivision near the coastline and the exploitation of resources. In the long term, this phenomenon not only compromised the environmental qualities of the site but also caused a sharp drop in property values and the consequent degradation of the social structure.

The coastal area of the province of Caserta, known as Litorale Domitio, extends for about 50 km from the mouth of the Volturno River in the north to Monte di Procida in the south, presents itself as a fragmented landscape, marked by significant historical transformations and the uncontrolled superimposition of infrastructural and settlement systems on the original geomorphological structure (fig. 3). The low and sandy coastline, mainly conditioned by the fluvial dynamics of the Garigliano and Volturno rivers, has been compromised by intense anthropic exploitation represented by agricultural and zootechnical activities, coastal works and intense urban settlements that have altered the morphological structure and natural landscape¹⁵. 

A central moment in the transformation of the Domitian coastline was the completion of the new Via Domitiana in 1954. This infrastructure, while facilitating regional connectivity, effectively severed the physical and perceptual link between the urban center and the coastal strip, comprising the pine forest, the beaches, and the sea. In the absence of coherent urban planning guidelines, the following decades witnessed a surge in uncontrolled urban development, with thousands of buildings constructed between the new roadway and the coastline¹⁶. The Domitian coastline experienced a linear pattern of expansion, with building structures parallel to the shoreline, which involved the Licola coastline and the entire shoreline, superimposing itself upon an existing settlement structure of second tourist residences¹⁷. 

The coastline has also been severely impacted by the absence of wastewater treatment infrastructure. Nearly all watercourses in the area are now contaminated as a result of unchecked discharges of domestic and industrial effluents, compounded by the widespread and uncontrolled dumping of solid waste. Alongside the unstoppable numerical and volumetric growth, millions of tons of waste are stored in the municipalities of Giugliano and Villa Literno and the poisoning of the waters of the Regi Lagni (fig.  4), which are an imposing work of hydraulic engineering built by the bourbons in the 17th century to channel water¹⁸. For several decades the canals were at the center of continuous scandals due to the lack of filtering and purification systems for the discharges of almost 150 municipalities in Campania that use them as veritable open sewers, which spill directly into the sea, at the center of Castel Volturno. The situation has been aggravated by the illegal disposal of waste by Camorra groups in the countryside behind the coastline, and by the growing presence of organized crime, including the Nigerian Mafia, which has had a devastating impact on local communities and the environment¹⁹. 

What has most affected and destroyed the littoral's environmental resources has been the uncontrolled tourist pressure, the intensification of the anthropic, settlement, infrastructural and productive load on the littoral arch and on the wide plain behind it. The beauty of the landscape, characterized by the pristine sand dunes and dense pine forest by the sea of Castel Volturno, became an increasingly popular tourist destination. This phenomenon quickly stimulated a policy of private investment in the area for the construction and management of facilities and services, aimed at enhancing tourism in the area, as provided for in the ministerial development plans of the time. This process has included the construction of tourist-residential complexes such as Pinetamare, which, while offering a housing response, has further aggravated the phenomenon of urbanization and intensive land exploitation. Added to this is the abandonment of numerous buildings, which has contributed to the visual and structural degradation of the area, making the redevelopment and recovery of the Domitian coastline increasingly difficult.

The urban and social history of Villaggio Coppola, in Castel Volturno, offers a compelling case study in the contradictions of modernist urban utopias and the unintended consequences of unregulated development along Italy’s coastline. A series of settlements similar to the Coppola Pinetamare village have developed along the European coast since the early decades of the 20th century, inspired by the garden-city model of Ebenezer Howard who, together with Patrick Geddes and Lewis Mumford, developed a series of critical reflections on the rebalancing of the relationship between city and countryside²⁰.

At the beginning of the 20th century, two great inventions took shape before our eyes: the aeroplane and the garden city, both heralding a new era; the first gave man wings, the second gave him a better home on his return to earth²¹.

To analyze the theme of the ville radieuse and the garden city²², it would be necessary to explore the relationship between certain political and social theories and these residential models. In Italy, in particular, the utopia of the garden city was partly realized in the context of seaside tourism.

The initiative was launched by Vincenzo and Cristoforo Coppola, who undertook the construction of the village without proper urban planning permissions. Inspired by the contemporaneous development of Baia Domizia, a foundation town promoted by the municipality of Sessa Aurunca following a national design competition, Villaggio Coppola was likewise structured around garden city ideals. It featured wide avenues, residential villas, apartment blocks, commercial spaces, and recreational facilities, all surrounded by a coastal pine forest that, theoretically, preserved the ecological essence of the site²³. The project drew on the principles of the garden city, as interpreted in the Italian context, to provide a self-contained, low-density²⁴ settlement for the upper and middle classes (fig.  5). The aim was to present an alternative to the chaos of urban life, an enclave of comfort, safety, and leisure, buffered by nature and equipped with cutting-edge amenities²⁵.

However, from the outset, the development was marred by significant legal and planning irregularities; in 1962, without any authorization, eight towers of twelve floors each were built, intended to be rented for 20 years to the United States Navy and were later demolished after 30 years. This complex became the heart of Villaggio Coppola: a town for 15,000 people, extended for 4 km of coastline, with 1,300 parking spaces, villas, shopping centers, swimming pools, restaurants, a harbor, a church, post offices, cinemas, and a police station, all without any urban planning regulations. In the context of rapidly expanding beach tourism, the location became a destination for second homes for wealthy Neapolitan families, hosting up to 200,000 vacationers in the early '70s, without any official authorization or infrastructure (fig. 6).

The tourist development of the coastline excluded the local population, which still lived in great hardship, with most residents forced to live in dilapidated homes without running water or electricity; a stark contrast between the wealth of tourism and the poverty of the local residents, encapsulated in a surreal and dystopian scenario²⁶.

Initially conceived as a seaside retreat and a temporary escape, at the beginning of the 1980s, the Village had lost its appeal as a destination for vacationers and a sunny getaway for middle-class citizens seeking a second residence outside the city. The causes of this failure stem not only from intrinsic factors dating back to the village's foundation, but also from the gradual decline in the sustainability of its intended function as a holiday and/or second home destination²⁷. Between 1978 and 1988, over 5,000 people were housed in Villaggio Coppola, while another 20,000 sought refuges in other tourist complexes along the coastline. In the second half of the 1980s, the return of those displaced by the Irpinia earthquake to their homes coincided with the arrival of migrants to the coastline, even before the promulgation of the first measures to manage and control migration flows in Italy. Employed in street vending in the underground counterfeit industry, but equally intensely involved in the much more invisible turnover of local seasonal agricultural labor in neighboring areas²⁸.

Meanwhile, the Coppola family’s ties to organized crime and the increase in environmental pressures led to an intervention by the institutions. In 1995, following a decree from the mayor of Castel Volturno, part of the village was confiscated, and in 2000 the Coppola brothers were accused of environmental and urban damage, including the disappearance of 150 species and the construction of over 5,000 illegal buildings. The eight towers, symbols of the village, were demolished between 2001 and 2003, marking the end of an era for Pinetamare (figg. 7 and 8).

Over the following years, the area became one of the emblematic sites of urban decay, not only due to the problem of numerous abandoned or partially destroyed houses in Castel Volturno but also, and most importantly, due to the lack of services for the population living in those areas, urban services that need to meet the needs of a changed population²⁹.

At the heart of this process, marginality emerges not only as a result of an urban phenomenon but also as a condition that influences the daily lives of both the local inhabitants and the migrants who found space in a context marked by abandonment, illegality, and precariousness. Much of the services and facilities intended for migrants in Castel Volturno remain invisible from the outside, manifesting as a network of activities, exchanges, and small informal trades that have rooted over time. These spaces, born through various migratory cycles, sustain a small-scale informal economy, which not only meets daily needs but also provides communal support for the reproduction of migration. The presence of structures and fellow nationals, not only offers a sense of familiarity but also becomes a “protective shield” against administrative irregularities, a kind of rescue oasis for migrants. The Villaggio Coppola, between its lights and shadows, stands as an emblematic case of urban and social transformation, where contradictions between ambition, illegality, and sustainability intertwine, leaving an indelible mark on the Italian architectural and urban landscape.

Today, Villaggio Coppola presents itself as a fragmented and dystopian landscape, a spectral mosaic of abandoned factories, decaying hotels, and crumbling residential blocks (fig.9). It embodies the breakdown of dialogue between the settlement and public institutions, and it remains suspended in an unresolved tension between speculative illegality and the remnants of a failed utopian vision³⁰.

This trajectory mirrors broader patterns found in other planned settlements, such as Kangbashi in Inner Mongolia, originally envisioned as a prestigious new district of the city of Ordos, where ambitious urban visions, conceived as symbols of progress and modernity, were ultimately undermined by a lack of social integration, contextual sensitivity, and grounded territorial engagement. In this light, Villaggio Coppola becomes not merely a failed tourist experiment, but a spatial artifact of the contradictions between modernist planning, speculative development, and the socio-political dynamics of marginality (fig.10).

This paper proposes a critical and constructive re-reading of marginal territories, understood not as residual or discarded spaces, but as places imbued with latent potential, capable of generating new forms of belonging, landscape, and identity. The area of Villaggio Coppola-Pinetamare offers a complex and intricate reflection on the dynamics of marginality and urban transformation related to seaside tourism and uncontrolled urbanization. This territory reveals a landscape suspended³¹ in a state of tension, marked by contradiction and ambivalence, between natural richness and unfinished urbanization, institutional abandonment and informal occupation, ecological potential and socioeconomic fragility. 

This dynamic has been increased by uncontrolled expansion and the rapid alternation of the life cycle of built structures (construction/exploitation/crisis/obsolescence/abandonment), factors that have contributed significantly to the progressive decline of both the village and the broader Domitian coast, underscoring the urgent need for a rethinking of marginality not as a symptom to be erased, but as a condition from which alternative urban futures might emerge. This transformation highlights the cyclical and contradictory nature of such planned communities: from exclusive retreat to spatial marginality, reflecting broader dynamics of urban fragmentation and social segregation. This demonstrates that for an urban agglomeration to function effectively as a city, it must embrace diversity, encompassing different social classes, varied uses, and cultural practices. Much like an individual, the city thrives on diversity, as it fosters growth, development, adaptability, and continual improvement.

As Michel Foucault suggested in his reflections on heterotopias, seemingly marginal places can function as critical and reflective spaces, capable of challenging dominant spatial paradigms and opening up alternative urban imaginaries. On the Domitian coastline, the coexistence of exceptional environmental and cultural assets intersects with a deeply fragmented urban and social condition. In this context, marginality is not merely the outcome of failed planning or speculative development, but rather emerges as a complex dispositif that shapes the everyday experience of both long-term residents and migrants living within these informal and often precarious geographies.

Socio-ecological practices that reactivate collective systems and strengthen social relationships through the shared management of resources and communities are gaining increasing attention in contemporary architectural practice³². These approaches inspire design experiments aimed at reconnecting with nature, redesigning the commons and reinforcing the social fabric, with the aim of countering territorial, political and social discrimination. The need for their recovery stems from their increasing prevalence in contemporary urban and rural contexts, as they inhabit distinct dimensions of time and space.

The ecological element can be one of the key strengths to build upon for the process of re-signification, consisting, for example, of a rich network of aquatic systems - rivers, reservoirs, marshes, and bogs - that sustain habitats of significant biological and ecological importance. The Domitian coastline includes three main hydrographic basins, the Garigliano, Volturno and Regi Lagni, and also serves as the recipient for  other minor watercourses, such as the River Savone, the Agnena Canal, the Camaldoli riverbed and the outflow of the Lake Patria basin. In 2005 in recognition of this richness, the Campania Region established Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and Sites of Community Importance (SCIs) to protect these places of great ecological value. The Licola-Foce del Volturno coast nature reserve, which covers most of the Domitian coastline, is flanked by the Variconi Nature Reserve, established by the Campania Region with Regional Law no. 33/93 and represents the last and only natural wetland area left in Campania.

This natural heritage is also overlaid with a cultural heritage consisting of architectural artefacts such as the tower of Patria, the archaeological remains of ancient Liternum, which, together with the remains of ancient Volturnum, testify to the presence of anthropic presidio activities at the hydrographical structures of the Volturno estuary and Lake Patria³³. 

The diagnostic work conducted in this area shows how a careful reading of both material and immaterial territorial layers, historic cartographies, satellite imagery, settlement patterns, and cultural traces, makes it possible to outline design strategies grounded in the endogenous potential of place. In this perspective, marginality is no longer seen as a deficit to be filled or eliminated, but rather as a generative condition, capable of shaping a renewed vision of urbanity, based not on the erasure of the past but on its critical reinterpretation.

In this context, design must begin from the notion of the limit, not as a line of separation, but rather as a dynamic threshold, a space of mediation between territories, temporalities, and identities. It is precisely in these transitional zones that opportunities arise to activate processes of physical, symbolic, and social regeneration. A multidisciplinary design approach, integrating territorial, ecological, sociological, and architectural perspectives, can reveal hidden values, submerged narratives, and latent resources, from which to construct scenarios of redemption and reactivation.

With the term non-place, we are referring to two complementary yet distinct realities: those spaces created for specific purposes (transportation, transit, commerce, leisure) and the relationship that individuals have with these spaces. [...] While anthropological places create an organic social structure, nonplaces create solitary contractual relationships³⁴.

The heterotopia of this place, a real yet simultaneously unreal space, stands as a witness to an urban dream that was never fully realized but has left indelible traces in the collective imagination, creating a landscape that challenges conventions and continues to tell a story of marginality and disillusionment. A sort of utopia, imagined by the Coppola brothers, realized with actual buildings but ultimately creating a place that exists outside of any place; a place that is absolutely real, connected to all the surrounding space, yet simultaneously completely unreal, as it is a relic of a history that no longer belongs to us. In conclusion, rethinking marginality as a resource entails a profound paradigm shift, one that transcends conventional notions of urban regeneration. It requires the acknowledgement of these spaces as possessing transformative capacity: not as "other" places to be normalized, but as territories in becoming, bearers of yet-unrealized ecological, social, and projective potential.