Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American intellectual of the 19th century, said that “history is the sum of an infinite number of biographies ". This is what we decided to do with Trento: tell its story through a certain number of biographies, or rather autobiographies, leaving however that to speak were not women and men, but buildings themselves.
After all, buildings are the story of many women and men who have inhabited, designed and built them. It is a long story because their life is often very long, representing entire eras and fundamental historical and cultural passages. Buildings have often been given the burden and the honour of reflecting them.
But how did these stories come about?
The idea came from the overlap of several experiences and curiosities.
There is a theatrical narration to discover events and/or artistic heritage of the past and present. And there is the potential of developing interactive cultural content through the smartphone, together with suggestions from augmented reality and a certain taste for urban strolling.
We have paid attention not only to the great history and the buildings of recognized value, but also to the minor, individual, marginal history, and to those places significant only for those who live or have lived them.
“The talking houses” is the result of this conjunction of different elements that have found full application in an app whose conception and development was strongly encouraged by the municipal call for digital innovation for tourism in 2021.
And of course, once we won the contest and found an economic basis for its development, this app was the result of the joint work of a large team of people gathered by the Funambolo.
We are talking about almost 30 people - who, working in very different fields, have contributed to making it seethe with ideas, intuitions, and above all passion for the history of this city and the women and men who have inhabited it over the centuries.
