The Eni Village in Borca di Cadore (Bl) was built in the late 1950s and early 1960s, thanks to the political and entrepreneurial skills of Enrico Mattei.
It is a large complex (over 100,000 square metres), with a plant articulated in various structures, built according to innovative criteria in a large wood at the foot of Mount Antelao, which at 3,242 metres dominates the Cadore area and overlooks the village of Borca, about ten kilometres from Cortina d'Ampezzo.
Mattei's death in 1962 reduced the impetus needed to realise this experiment in social utopia in the environment, which was therefore only partially completed compared to the initial project.
The idea at the basis of this visionary and innovative project-site was a sort of social urban planning system, conceived by Mattei's own expansive mind, and then realised with great architectural quality, first and foremost by Edoardo Gellner, in collaboration with Carlo Scarpa for some of its parts.
The organic-social criterion adopted by Mattei was perfectly understood, elaborated and transferred into reality by Gellner, who completely redesigned it at every level, from the urban and architectural organisation to the most minute details of the furnishings.
The main structures of the site are the large Colony (30,000 square metres), the Church of Our Lady of Cadore, the hotel, the campsite with fixed tents, 280 single-family houses and the residence.
It is an exceptional site, unique in Italy, in which the relationship between the strong aspects of landscape and natural environment blend in an amazing way with the organic architecture, which today the forest literally devours.
Since 2000, the Village has been owned by the Minoter company, with which Dolomiti Contemporanee has begun a collaboration, based on a project of cultural and functional enhancement of the settlement: in June 2014, Progettoborca was launched.
