Research \u2013 Ten years of the Verdi Theatre in Pordenone
\nFrom the theatre to an \u2018agent of development\u2019<\/p>\n
Just outside the city, less than ten kilometres from here, bulldozers are dismantling, piece by piece, the buildings that once symbolised Electrolux\u2019s glorious era of production: the \u2018aquarium\u2019 \u2013 as the glass building in Porcia, once the company\u2019s headquarters, is known \u2013 now oversized, has been emptied and sold off. The offices are moving out. Those who have recently crossed the threshold of the old complex that once employed thousands of people report that even the landscape is post-industrial, unrecognisable. With workers either redeployed or awaiting redeployment, and the word \u2018redundancy\u2019 as the new mantra. But within the city walls, in the centre of Pordenone, it\u2019s a different story, almost like a black-and-white film. As Christmas 2015 approaches, it is a different Pordenone that stands before the shop windows, struggling to recognise itself in the city of a few years ago; and it is rather striking to think that a decade has already passed since the birth of the \u2018new\u2019 Teatro Verdi, in the heart of the city, which is invariably flooded every September with crowds drawn in the name of cultural tourism by that Italian gem, Pordenonelegge. It is celebrating its tenth anniversary, and there are those who are beginning to take stock. Daniele Marini, a sociologist at the University of Padua and founder of Community Media Research, has interviewed twenty-five people over the past two months on behalf of the company (which brings together various public authorities) that owns the theatre. The result \u2013 as one might have expected \u2013 is an accurate portrait of a society that is now entirely service-based.<\/p>\n